about us
MC2AA is an architecture office founded in Parma by Dario Costi and Simona Melli. Since 2001, the studio has pursued an architectural approach grounded in the relationship between everyday life, spatial design, and the central role of the human dimension within architecture.
The studio operates across all scales, from urban planning to interior design. MC2AA’s practice pays particular attention to the relationships between people, places, and forms. It focuses on the design of built environments and spans private and public commissions, from the restoration of urban centres and architectural heritage to the design of contemporary museums and cultural spaces. At the urban scale, the studio works on urban regeneration and renaturalisation through an integrated approach combining strategic vision, digital innovation, and participatory design processes. Notable projects in this field include urban masterplans for Italian cities such as those for the ceramic district of Modena, Castel San Pietro Terme (Bologna), and Locorotondo (Bari).
The studio’s body of work includes the Casa dei tre paesaggi in Numana, the Civic Halls and Social Housing for the San Rocco District in Borgotaro, the Piazza delle Scuole in Parma, the new offices of the Emilia Romagna Regional Directorate of the Agenzia del Demanio in Bologna, the Marazzi Greenway in Sassuolo, the Parco XXII Aprile Social Housing in Modena, the Pavilion in the park and Foyer of the Guareschi Theatre in Parma, the Prampolini Educational Hub in Casinalbo di Formigine. MC2AA also designs urban objects with a poetic impact and artistic installations, including interventions in Spinazzola, works for the Volumnia Gallery in Piacenza, and museum installations for La Casa della Musica in Parma, with an emphasis on music-related exhibitions.
From 2023 to 2026, MC2AA is participating in the travelling project Architettura Italiana Contemporanea, with exhibitions held in Naples, Palermo, Trieste, Florence, Milan, Rome, Ancona, Bari, and Parma.
Recognitions include the mention for the Casa dei tre paesaggi at the Medaglia d’Oro all’Architettura Italiana awards (2018), and the selection of the Civic Halls for the San Rocco District in Borgo Val di Taro for the Premio In/Arch Emilia-Romagna (2023) and for the VI Biennale di Pisa (2025).
The studio's work has been documented in dedicated monographs, including Piazza delle Scuole a Barriera Bixio (2015) curated by Giovanni Leoni, the volumes Architetture, Relazioni. Opere e progetti and Note MC2 2001–2021 (2023), La città nella casa. Quattro case sociali dello Studio MC2AA in Emilia (2025), and La casa di Francesco Cacciatore, and Studio MC2AA / Forma Relazione (2025), published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Galleria di Architettura di Valle Giulia in Rome. The studio’s working method, positioned between design exploration and drawing, is examined in Dario Costi. Quaderni di architettura. Lo schizzo come ricerca nel lavoro di Studio MC2AA (2026), edited by Oreste Lubrano and Antonio Villa. A monograph by Silvia Berselli, dedicated to Dario Costi and the work of MC2AA, is currently in preparation for the Imprinting series, directed by Antonino Saggio.
Projects and writings by the studio’s founders have been published in leading architecture magazines, including Casabella, Domus, L’Architetto, Industria delle Costruzioni, Palimpsesto and ProArch Intersezioni.
Monographic exhibitions have been dedicated to MC2AA in Rome, Naples, Mantua, Bologna, and Modena.
www. mc2aa.it
Dario Costi
Dario Costi (Parma, 1971) is an architect and full professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the University of Parma, as well as an honorary professor of the IAA International Academy of Architecture in Rome. His professional activity, developed through MC2AA, focuses on poetic inhabitation in the landscape and on urban design. In parallel, his research explores the philosophical dimension of the relationship between art, architecture, and the city, with particular attention to material and immaterial relationships read through design. Through the Strategic Urban Design method, he also works on urban regeneration, the renaturalisation of cities, and technological innovation connected to Fourth Industrial Revolution processes.
Together with Francesco Manfredi, he drafted the Linee guida per la Rigenerazione Urbana per le città italiane for the National School of Administration and the Piano Casa Italia programme for the High Council of Public Works and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. He is the creator and first signatory of the “Carta di Parma. A collective manifesto for today’s Italian architecture”, a document written with over one hundred university professors and presented in May 2026 at the Senate of the Republic in Rome. Costi was appointed honorary professor of the IAA International Academy of Architecture in recognition of his professional activity and design research.
Costi is Director of the Smart City 4.0 Sustainable LAB in Parma and president and co-founder of the Parma Urban Center. He teaches and conducts research at the University of Parma, where he is active in the PhD and Master’s programmes in Urban Regeneration, and has been a faculty member in the doctoral programmes of Palermo and Rome. He is also Scientific Director of the Master’s programme in Public & Innovation Management – Smart City (MASIC) at LUM University and has directed the advanced training courses The City Project (2021–2023) and The City School (2025–2026) for the Emilia-Romagna Region. He is Series Editor for Springer (Germany) of The City Project. Strategies for Smart and Wise Sustainable Urban Design and directs the series Manuali di Architettura for MUP Editore, BIANCO. Architecture | urban design | city for LetteraVentidue, to which the series Social Housing and Leporello / Studies in Architecture will be added in the near future.
Simona Melli
Simona Melli (Reggio Emilia, 1974) is an architect, interior designer, and specialist in museum and exhibition design, as well as a lead manager and owner’s representative for projects with positive impact on the economy and the community.
After completing her Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Ferrara, she specialised in architectural design of low-energy-consumption buildings at the Postgraduate Centre Human Settlements of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. She subsequently deepened her expertise in real estate estimation and the analysis of financial instruments and business plans at the POLIMI Graduate School of Management in Milan.
In 2001, she founded MC2AA, focusing primarily on museum and exhibition installations, interiors, living spaces, and cultural and educational environments. Over the years, she has paid particular attention to housing themes, from family-scale to collective housing, as well as to workplaces and executive spaces conceived as coherent with corporate values and capable of fostering interaction among people. In her work on hospitality, she explores open systems, investigating the relationships that can be activated with the urban context.
Melli has served as lead designer for the main exhibition and museum spaces of the Istituzione La Casa della Musica in Parma, and as curator, organiser, and coordinator of exhibitions, including The House of Farmer by British artist Mike Nelson, curated by Didi Bozzini. She has also been the founder and art director of an innovative start-up dedicated to interior design through web-based tools and virtual reality.
She has worked as owner’s representative and project director on urban regeneration projects, including the transformation of the historic Casa dell’Agricoltore in Parma into Palazzo Parma, a pilot project currently undergoing LEED, WELL, and B Corp certification, integrating hospitality, food and beverage, wellness, art, retail, and meeting spaces that open to the city.
In 2026, she founded Cartària, reopening a historic space in the centre of Parma and transforming it into the MC2AA library dedicated to architecture, design, and art, conceived as an open place for meetings, talks, and events in collaboration with universities, public institutions, and private entities.