my name is karim gabriele varano. i grew up in the rhine valley of st. gallen. before architecture, i worked in electrical engineering, on site and in planning. i went to design school, and from there into architecture studies at ost and hslu. i hold a ba in architecture and i’m currently working towards my master’s. what draws me to architecture is its depth. it moves between the weight of a material and the weight of a social crisis. it borrows from engineering, sociology, art, politics. it is not a science. it is where sciences meet, and where that meeting has to result in something real and inhabitable.