Architecture as dialogue: Reflections from Assisi

By Georgia Lytsika, Architecture for Wellness 2026

It is only my second week in Yacademy’s Architecture for Wellness course, and I have already been lucky enough to be in Assisi for the inauguration of The Nest of Saint Francis, Kengo  Kuma’s new project.  

The installation was donated by Kengo Kuma and brought to life by Cesare Roversi Arredamenti: a pavilion designed as a place for listening and dialogue between Franciscan friars and people of different beliefs.  

What occupied my thoughts most, even before seeing the project itself, was the place that was chosen for it. Assisi has a particular energy; it is one of those places that quickly make you slow down, become grounded in the present, and pay closer attention to what surrounds you.  

From the beginning, I had a few questions in mind regarding Kuma’s new installation: 

• What can make this project unique? 

• How does it connect with a place that carries such a strong history and identity? 

• How can a contemporary architect create that connection: through the concept, through construction, or through a combination of the two?  

Before encountering the Nest, however, the day began at the Basilica of Saint Francis. We found ourselves inside a space that carries almost eight centuries of architecture, art, and history.  Looking at the frescoes attributed to Giotto and his workshop, what particularly caught my attention was the way architecture itself becomes part of the narrative.  

The buildings, walls, roofs, and openings depicted in the frescoes do not simply function as a backdrop. Together with the relationship between the paintings and the actual space of the  Basilica, they create depth, structure human relationships, and actively participate in the storytelling. 

“Architecture does not simply contain the story; it becomes one of the ways through which the story is told.” 

Through this narrative, we also come to understand Saint Francis himself more deeply: a man who chose to give up wealth and devote his life to faith, simplicity, and service to others. At the same time, his willingness to encounter and engage in dialogue with people of different faiths remains an important part of his legacy.  

But why does all of this matter for a contemporary architectural project? 

For me, visiting the Basilica felt almost like an introduction to what we would encounter a few hours later. Nearly eight centuries later, beside an architecture expressed through stone, mass,  and permanence, a “nest” made of wood appears: light, porous, and open.  

This contrast was perhaps the first thing that brought me back to the questions with which I had started the day. The Nest does not attempt to imitate the architecture that surrounds it, but instead, it seems to search for a way to enter into dialogue with it. And perhaps it is precisely through this difference that it manages to establish a connection with an eight-century-old spiritual and architectural heritage.  

But the dialogue is not limited to the relationship between the pavilion and its setting. It is also embedded in the very reason for its existence. The Nest was created as a space for encounter and listening, where people of different beliefs and backgrounds can come together under the same roof. Here, architecture does not function merely as an object to be observed, but as a tool that creates the conditions for human relationships: for people to meet and exchange ideas,  thoughts, perspectives, and time.  

In a way, then, the people who will gather inside the Nest are invited to do exactly what the  Nest itself does with Assisi: to enter into dialogue.  

Up to that point, I had been trying to understand the project through the architecture itself. What followed, however, gave me the opportunity to understand something more about architecture through the person behind it.  

Listening to Kengo Kuma speak about the importance of local materials, construction, and their relationship with place, I began to see the Nest differently. A connection to place does not end with the idea behind a project. It needs to acquire a material presence: through materials, construction, and the people who know how to work with them.  

And somewhere there, I began to find a possible answer to my initial question. Perhaps the uniqueness of a project, and its connection to place, lies neither exclusively in its concept nor exclusively in its construction, but in the relationships that emerge between them.  

At the same time, I was standing beside the “nest” itself. And there, something became apparent that no photograph of the project could ever truly convey.  

From an image, you can understand its form, its lightness, or the repetition of its timber elements. But you cannot fully grasp its scale in relation to your own body, the materiality experienced up close, or even the smell of the wood. For a moment, architecture stopped being an image I was observing and became something I could experience through more than one sense.  

The smell of the wood was a small but particularly powerful detail for me. I had already read about the importance of scent — and particularly the scent of wood — in Japanese culture, and I had also heard Kuma refer to the smell of wood when discussing some of his other projects. Standing in front of the Nest, however, I no longer needed to read about it or hear someone describe it in order to understand it. I could experience it.  

And this small difference — between knowing something and experiencing it — began to take on much greater significance for me.  

Listening to him speak while experiencing one of his projects made me realise how different architecture feels when the distance between the person studying it and the person creating it suddenly disappears. 

As architects, we constantly study buildings. We look at photographs, drawings, sections, and details, and through them we try to reconstruct the thinking that led to their creation. At that moment, however, I was not simply trying to interpret a finished result. I could listen to the person behind it speak about the relationships that shaped it, while at the same time experiencing those relationships through the project itself.  

And perhaps this is where something I had not understood quite so clearly until then began to emerge: Architecture gains meaning through the way it engages with its surroundings, rather than through the architectural object alone.  

Relationships between a material and its origin. Between the architect and the craftsperson.  Between construction and landscape. Between past and present. And, ultimately, between the people who will inhabit this space, even if only temporarily.  

And perhaps this is why the experience resonated with me even more deeply as an architect interested in wellbeing. Until now, I had often thought about wellbeing through the qualities that a space can offer to an individual. But that day made me see it more as a question of relationships.  

During the course, Ugo Morelli said something that stayed with me: “First of all, we are relational, and then we are individual”.

Suddenly, that sentence connected with everything I had in front of me. A pavilion that was not created simply to be looked at, but to bring people closer together. A space where different beliefs can coexist, where people can listen and be heard.  

Perhaps, then, wellbeing in architecture is not only about how a space makes us feel as individuals, but also about the kinds of relationships it allows us to create within it.