Anacleto Cleri
Founding Partner of ARAUT Engineering, Client of Manini Prefabbricati
ARAUT Engineering, “The Small Factory”
Foligno. What are the recipes to counter the global economic crisis, particularly severe in the construction sector?
Arch. Anacleto Cleri, founding partner of the Design Company ARAUT Engineering and the ARAUT Group, tells us about his “small factory” of 45 employees, how, despite unfavorable national and international economic conditions, every single member of the Staff has continued to actively collaborate in this Cooperative Society that operates comprehensively in the design sector, from the development of architectural projects to plant engineering and ancillary services. Obviously, there are no miraculous recipes or prodigies.
The secret, if we can call it that, is “extreme professionalism, specialization in different sectors, the ability to offer a ‘turnkey’ solution, competent support in procedural aspects and in the organization and monitoring of construction sites”.
In short, professionalism as the primary keystone.
The professionals working in the studio move competently from restoration and consolidation of prestigious historical and sacred buildings to residential design and commercial and industrial construction.
Diversification is another component of success: “taking care not only of complex interventions but also offering solutions to more modest needs, giving rise to a diversification of services”.
“…in 30 years of activity, the Company has grown, enriching itself with experienced and qualified professionals, giving life to a solid business reality capable of tackling large-scale interventions, offering clients complete technical-managerial consultancy and services” and reaching, I add, a position of absolute visibility and prominence at the national level.
I ask the Architect if his activity corresponds to what he dreamed of as a student, and he replies that yes, it is what he wanted to do, and we end up talking about that project he has been working on for 15 years now and which, for the city of Foligno, his city, remains the leitmotif of years-long debates, meetings, and clashes at all levels.
The model at the entrance shows in detail what the Ex-Sugar Factory Area was supposed to become: an ambitious project, realized in part in collaboration with the prestigious Aulenti Studio.
A grand vision, perspective, and opportunity for Foligno, a dream that unfortunately, as happens too often, remains, at least for now, stranded along bureaucratic and administrative paths.
The Architect tells us that he has always known Manini Prefabbricati and how he believes that “prefabrication plays an important role in the building process, for its timing, which offers responses in line with today’s needs”
He also sees in our activity a characteristic that his studio has as a flag, that of diversification: “offering solutions not only in technologically advanced industrial prefabrication at a performance level but also in the construction of commercial and office buildings with greater architectural appeal”.
Reliability is another word that resembles us, Architect Cleri confesses, and it seems beyond doubt that our affinities are increasingly shared.
Those who speak the same language have no difficulty understanding each other, just as those who base their work on the same values have no difficulty finding a professional understanding in effective collaboration. We have already realized several structures together, and I believe there may be the prerequisites for a fruitful future collaboration.
His future projects?
The studio is a factory, a forge of ideas, it never stops: “art, idea competitions, projects, restorations, and a look at the horizon, abroad, in Turkey perhaps, we don’t preclude anything….” The interview is over. Arch. Cleri accompanies us and bids us farewell at the door with his elegant manners and with the same sobriety and measure with which he told us his professional story.
