SOS - School of Sustainability

SOS is a post-graduate "Academy of Practice" founded in 2015 by Mario Cucinella. The school is based in Bologna and trains a new generation of professionals in the field of sustainability, preparing them to tackle the new challenges of the future and to being ready to lead their processes and transformations. SOS is open to recent graduates and industrial partners to develop innovative projects with a positive impact on society, the economy and the environment through education, professional practice and research. SOS is a creative laboratory created in close collaboration with Mario Cucinella Architects (MC A), where architectural advancement is inspired by projects and expertise developed in a context of professional practice. SOS addresses the complexity of global challenges to operate at local scale through co-design and public participation, in collaboration with academic, research and government institutions, industry, professional organizations and the public.

SOS is founded on the collaboration and interaction of a wide range of experts, individuals, groups and organizations, offering all those who are involved the opportunity to share their experience, vision and uniqueness, benefiting from the contribution of the other partners. Precisely in this context in 2018 a strategic collaboration based on knowledge exchange began with Iris Ceramica Group, whose founder already in the early '70s had sensed the great environmental challenges of the future, putting them at the center of the research and development of advanced manufacturing processes. The collaboration between SOS and Iris Ceramica Group lead to the project "Pollution 2018 - ReflAction": an installation at the intersection of art, architecture and landscape design that took place in September in Piazza Santo Stefano in Bologna, with the aim of activating a collective action with respect to environmental issues in the relationship between urban space, man and nature.