QUALITY IS NOT AN ADJECTIVE – ARW Associates takes part in the Rome workshop “Quality in the Built Environment”, promoted by Fondazione Teicos ETS, to discuss new evaluation approaches from design to management.

Quality is a word architecture often uses. Sometimes too often.

It is associated with image, formal coherence, technical performance, sustainability. But in the built environment, quality cannot be a label applied afterwards. It is not an adjective. It is a process. It is what holds together design, construction site, management, maintenance, environmental impact, comfort, the real use of spaces, and the ability of a building to endure over time.

On Wednesday, 8 July 2026, ARW Associates will take part in Rome, at the Centro Congressi Cavour, in the workshop “Quality in the Built Environment: innovative evaluation approaches, from design to management”, curated by Fondazione Teicos ETS and coordinated by Marcella Pesenti.

The workshop brings together a broad and cross-disciplinary network of architects, engineering firms, real estate operators, advisors, asset management companies and institutions. A roundtable discussion involving, among others, VGA Architects, 3TI Progetti, Cushman & Wakefield, Progetto CMR International, LABICS, Open Building, Investire SGR, ARW Associates, ESA Engineering, Systematica-Transform Transport, JLL, CBRE, INVIMIT SGR, Stefano Boeri Architetti, IT’S Architettura, Cefla Engineering, Svicom SGR Società Benefit, Barreca & La Varra, Nemesi Architects, Demanio Regione Liguria, COIMA REM and Fabrica Immobiliare SGR.

The discussion is rooted in the Teicos ecosystem, a group working on the regeneration of existing building stock through an engineering-led approach aimed at reducing time and costs by means of innovative technologies and processes. Teicos integrates construction, energy, asset management and real estate development, with a particular focus on decarbonisation, safety, healthiness, accessibility and living comfort. Fondazione Teicos ETS, founded in 2024, extends this vision towards projects of social value, innovation, sustainability and cooperation.

For ARW, taking part in this roundtable means bringing a clear belief: the quality of a project is not measured only by its ability to be recognisable, but by its ability to work. Over time, in the city, in people’s everyday lives.

The built environment does not need new declarations of quality.
It needs tools to verify it, discuss it and make it tangible.