About us

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” — Sir Winston Churchill

“Great work comes from teams where no one accounts for the origin of an idea.” — Renzo Piano

A driving force of our epoch is the ever-more integrated culture we share, one in which wisdom and beauty once isolated becomes accessible to the world.

As the power of communication expands, opportunity is unleashed. Cultural cross-pollination deepens what is possible.

BATTISTA is an architectural and design firm where the sharpest minds from around the world collaborate—in a way not practical before—with local professionals to create pragmatic buildings of profound beauty.

A New Way of Working

Our business model would not have been possible even a few years ago. Thanks to technological advances in several areas, including advanced Internet communications and design-rendering tools, BATTISTA has created a production team not limited by national or local borders.

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) field is a multidisciplinary approach to creating successful real estate developments. It can handle undertakings spanning renovations of historic structures, retrofits of existing buildings, and new construction projects.

BATTISTA has used its founders’ connections in the architecture field to build an AEC team that can collaborate on a global scale. Not limited to recruiting talent that happens to live in a single geographical area, BATTISTA has created a new model for architectural design firms minimum overhead costs. We can plug in the best professionals from anywhere in the world to solve specific challenges.

As a client, this means you get a bespoke product while paying a price premised on an economically efficient model. You pay for a Ford but get a Ferrari.

Why architecture is important:

Architecture is more than just host to our everyday life—it’s also built culture, a representation of how we see ourselves and what we honor.

Any building we live in—or spend a great deal of time in—has a great impact on who we become. How we live, how we socialize, how we synthesize with society and the environment. Architecture is not merely a place to be, but rather a way to be.

The Work We Do

Our work revolves around understanding a client’s vision, recognizing the challenges to attaining it, and providing the solutions necessary to realistically achieve it.

Today is a great time to be an architect—though it has its challenges. The architecture, engineering, and construction industry (AEC) is becoming more sophisticated by the day. The web of aesthetic, technical, legal, financial, and environmental criteria that must be balanced—while always endeavoring to build a harmonious architectural masterwork—is profound.

In such a challenging environment, any elegant solution requires the expertise of the collective—a team of multidisciplinary professionals—who understand how to collaborate and address challenges from differing angles.

BATTISTA has a great network of talent, global in scale. We have worked with the finest professionals in their disciplines—in every corner of the globe, including Australia, Europe, Asia, and United States—over many years. We can bring them together to collaborate virtually on a project whose place in the world can be anywhere. Thanks to the power of modern communication, we can do this in a way not practical before—and at a competitive price.

Meet Our Team

Massimo Tadi

Director

Franck Nolesini

Design Director

Sergio Tadi

Lead Architect

Mohsen Ghiasi

Real Estate Data Scientist

Hassan Anifowose

Metaverse Director

Cyrus Manesh

CEO

Corporate Responsibility

As commercial and home architects and architectural designers, the team members of Battista have studied—and in some cases even worked on—some of humanity’s finest architectural inheritances. And sadly, many of these examples of our collective legacy are at risk—especially those now at sea level. As an architectural firm deeply rooted in Italy, our precious Venice is an illustration of this reality that is hard to ignore.

This is why Battista fully embraces the concept of corporate responsibility, especially when it comes to environmental matters. We incorporate sustainability into our architectural designs in different scales. The fact is, architectural design has a powerful role to play in reducing the release of greenhouse gasses and better utilizing our shared natural resources.

The adage “think globally, act locally” is very much a truism we embrace when calculating our design choices at Battista.

History

Lecco-History

Based in the United States, BATTISTA has its roots in Italy, where our key players met in Lake Como  in 2007. Since then, we have traveled and worked together on mix-used and residential projects around the globe. Much of our professional work has actually carefully trod on the remnants of the great Mediterranean cultural enterprise when as we’ve designed renovation projects that have both preserved—and modernized—historical buildings in northern Italy.

Today, modernity in general—and the Internet specifically—have brought the kind of vitality that radiated around the Mediterranean millennia ago to the entire globe. BATTISTA springs from the rich cultural legacy of its core members—who count Milan, Paris, and Isfahan as their homelands—while embracing the possibilities of the twenty-first century.

Massimo Tadi

Director

Over his thirty in the profession, Massimo has come to compare himself to an experienced chef who embraces the balance between ingenuity and simplicity. A bedrock aspect of his work is the need to create a complex whole by carefully managing each design component—his ingredients—surely, competently, and creatively in a consistent manner.

He is a strong believer in the premise that architecture and urban design—by harnessing ethical principles to rigorous theory—can not only shape the quality of our lives but also build the sustainable environment that our collective future requires.

As director, he serves as our real estate strategist and mix-use development expert. He is an established world leader in the design field, including as founder (with our CEO Cyrus Manesh) of IMMdesignlab. One of its projects was one of twenty featured in the United Nation’s Compendium of Inspiring Practices: Health

Edition, International Guidelines on Urban and Territorial Planning (2018), which showcased "projects that positively and explicitly contribute to human health through the improvement of the built and natural environment."

Massimo has won several awards and nominations, including the Bucharest Biennale (Romania, 2009, for Timisoara master plan), "la Caixa" Foundation (Spain, 2010, for the most innovative urban refurbishment project), and Polisocial Award Competition at Politecnico di Milano (Italy, 2016, for scientific research with social impact in Milan). He served as the coordinator of a design lab at the 2012 International Venice Architecture Biennale and his 2011 refurbishment project was featured by the MAXXI Museum in Rome.

He graduated in 1990, became registered with the Italian Board of Architects in 1991, and also serves as an associate professor at the Politecnico di Milano.

Franck Nolesini

Design Director

Our design director and cofounder of our Milan branch office, Arcoquattro_Architettura, Franck gravitates towards sleek, detail-oriented work that communicates a sense of prestige.

His residential design work has been featured in trendsetting publications like Casabella, Arketipo, and Recuperare.

Originally from Paris, architecture is his passion—not only because he thrives on helping people realize their vision, but also to contribute more broadly to forging a sustainable future for generations to come. This is a professional responsibility Franck embraces fully He quickly became an adjunct professor at Politecnico di Milano in 2003 (after graduating from there in 1999).

Sergio Tadi

Lead Architect

A seasoned architect and interior designer, Sergio is "that guy" who—with unparalleled experience and knowledge—brings magic to our refurbishment, restoration, and remodeling projects.

He understands when the fragility of source materials have to be managed—and when their innate strengths can be harnessed.

Holder of a master’s in architecture from Politecnico di Milano (1992) and licensed Italian architect since 1994, Sergio has won several awards, including for his 2011 refurbishment project that was featured at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and is a recognized expert in his field. He was a cofounder of Studio Tadi & Associates in 1999.

Mohsen Ghiasi

Real Estate Data Scientist

M.A., M.Sc., Ph.D.

Like a scientist in any field, Mohsen sees beneath the surface of things. He can examine a “location” and understand the myriad of issues that it both poses and solves, enabling a systemic understanding of its intrinsic worth as a real estate investment. Mohsen brings over a decade of professional experience as a GIS analyst, statistician, and urban planner to BATTISTA. His background includes providing technical insights on a wide variety of land development projects, creating comprehensive and detailed planning documentation, and creating site designs in both national and international contexts.

Already holding master’s degrees in both Architecture and Urban Planning, Mohsen expanded his knowledge base with a Ph.D. in Geographical Information System (GIS) Analysis from North Carolina State University. GIS is a field that uses computer analysis to display geographically referenced information about specific locales, which creates a granular knowledge base for specific building sites. Now residing in California, his role at BATTISTA centers on developing the initial project feasibility studies that lay the groundwork for realistic and economical decision-making moving forward. He has also pursued theoretical research into how land development impacts child obesity and ways to improve physical environments to support healthier communities.

Hassan Anifowose

Metaverse Director

Currently a Ph.D. Candidate

Using cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) tools as part of a project’s design phase, Hassan creates immersive-experience models that are not only of striking beauty but of great value in creating the best blueprints possible. Quickly becoming a mainstream tool for most architects, VR makes planning and presentations far more efficient. It is also an advanced tool that can better predict “real-world” issues so they can be solved in the planning phase and not require after-the-fact solutions, modifications, or workarounds. The Co-Founder of Chronos Studios, a Nigerian architectural firm, Hassan has deep experience creating visualizations for the Design and Construction industries. Along with his architectural work, he has handled metaverse projects for international clients such as Mitsubishi and Suzuki. Hassan is currently a Construction Science Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University. He is exploring new research frontiers that seek to create practical applications for Building Information Modeling (BIM) and VR to improve the utility and efficiency in a wide range of construction scenarios.

Cyrus Manesh

CEO

Ph.D., PMP, NCARB, AIA

Believing that architecture is a multidisciplinary endeavor—the rendezvous between art and science—Cyrus created BATTISTA to bring together an international team that could understand the needs of clients and provide them with bold solutions. A practicing architect since 2005, Cyrus is inspired by our shared cultural inheritance. Holding masters’ in both architecture and engineering, he also has a PhD in urban planning and architectural design from Politecnico di Milano. As a driven, goal-orientated professional committed to his craft, his work has taken him from Australia to the Middle East, Europe to the United States. In 2010, he cofounded IMM Design Lab (with our Director Massimo Tadi), an international multidisciplinary design laboratory that leads various international commercial and residential (mix-used) projects, aiming to transform our built environment into more sustainable, liveable, healthy and energy efficient forms. Cyrus’s approach encompasses a broad, multidisciplinary vision of the positive force architecture can be when wedded to the highly-technical requirements needed to build elegant structures of lasting value.

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