who we are

AVILAStudio is a young design practice with a flat and dynamic structure that allows the key design decisions to be rapidly processed and executed under a robust internal quality control structure. All of our team members and consultants are constantly encouraged to steepen their learning curve through technical conversations, design reviews and frequent internal training and research programs that enable us to keep our design capabilities always up to date with the technological achievements of the industry and to dispose of a powerful set of analytical and computational skills.
This translates into a passionate commitment and timely and effective support to our clients throughout their projects and poses a robust base towards a successful design experience. Throughout the European and UK offices AVILAStudio can rely upon a staff of over 10 people between consultants and employees made up of engineers, CAD & IT technicians.
The profiles of key senior staff are summarized in the following pages.

Antonio Villani – Managing Director – AVILAStudio LTD
MEng, CEng, MICE, MSc, Dott.Ing.

Antonio is the Founder and Managing Director for AVILAStudio LTD, set up in London in 2017 after over 10 years’ experience in the field of civil and structural engineering. As a chartered Civil and Structural engineer, both in Italy and in the UK, Antonio has gained considerable experience in the design and construction industry. Among his previous professional experiences, Antonio can count renowned engineering practices such as the specialist seismic engineering consultancy Studio Calvi s.r.l. in Italy (Pavia), the engineering division of Foster + Partners (London), the bridge engineering consultancy COWI UK (London) and Fluid Structures (London), where he had the opportunity to develop his core skills and work on a wide range of projects of different degree of complexity and in several European and overseas countries, such as Italy, France, Denmark, Ecuador, Panama and China. He has mainly been involved in providing specialist consulting services in the field of Seismic Engineering, Dynamics and Assessment of Natural Hazards as well as a broad range of structural engineering aspects. His expertise in structural engineering covers both building and bridge structures as well as large infrastructure projects, with specific leadership and management skills within the design team, spanning from concept stage through to completion.
His design experience includes the design of normal, pre-stressed and post-tensioned reinforced concrete structures, structural steel, composite and timber structures with specialist skills that include seismic protection devices, cable-net structures and glass structures. With his practice, he is currently involved in the concept and detailed design of both high-end residential refurbishment projects in the UK (from low to high-rise buildings), large commercial centres both in the UK and Italy as well as keeping its constant involvement within infrastructure projects in Denmark as an external consultant.

Leonardo Villani – Senior Design Manager – AVILAStudio LTD

Dott.Ing.

Leonardo acts as Senior Design Manager for the company. He is a chartered Civil Engineer in Italy and overall is responsible for most of the construction sites coordination and execution control both in the UK and around Europe. He has gained considerable experience in the construction industry as well as management of construction site after working on several high-end commercial projects around Europe including Hotel Lacoste in Senegal, Hyatt Hotel in Paris and several Gucci stores in Paris, London, Birmingham, Mykonos and Amsterdam, providing specialist services related to the management and execution of the construction works. His range of experience covers residential and commercial projects as well as art-related installations managing construction teams up to completion and handover.

Massimiliano Bellinzoni – Consultant – Metamorphosys Studio, Voghera (PV)

Dott.Ing.

Massimiliano Bellinzoni has been a practising Chartered Structural Engineer in Italy since 2001 and can count on 19 years of design experience. Since the early days of the practice, he has acted as been the reference consultant as well as QA reviewer of the engineering company providing valuable contributions in terms of pragmatism of the structural solutions as well as fundamental inputs on practical execution aspects.

As the director at Metamorphosys Studio (Italy), his experience in the field of structural engineering includes both new Reinforced Concrete and Steel buildings in seismic area and the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of existing masonry buildings (including public schools and local authorities buildings).

His previous professional experience with companies like Canobbio Spa, a leader within design and construction of Fabric Structures, and Studio Calvi s.r.l. (Pavia), a leader in the field of seismic engineering, were of crucial importance for developing specific expertise in several branches of the engineering together with acquiring a particular sensibility towards a successful integration between structural systems and architecture. Massimiliano is naturally inclined towards managing complex design tasks and leading design teams of up to 10 people while maintaining an excellent level of technical and coordination skills.

In the past years, he has acted as “Direttore dei Lavori” for the design of a number of structures including Buildings and Bridges and since 2001 he is also been involved in teaching activities in the field of architecture and engineering applied to architecture at the University of Pavia and ITS Milano.

Since 2014 he is also an active member of the Civil and Structural Engineering Institution in Pavia.

Hie passion for architecture has resulted in the publication of a theoretical book which focuses on the relationship between rhetorical forms of speech applied to architecture and an underlying interest in the architectural and artistic panorama.

Matteo Martino – Consultant – IT Administrator

Dott.Ing.

Matteo acts mainly as an IT-Consultant and website administrator but thanks to his civil and structural degree at the Politecnico Universiti in Bari, he also collaborates with AVILAStudio as a consultant engineer. His studies and interests mainly focus on structural modelling and seismic engineering. Matteo has always cultivated also a passion for IT and electronic engineering and IT applied to computational structural engineering. He has developed specific skills with general-purpose programming languages (BASIC, FORTRAN, C++) and tools for web design (HTML, CSS, PHP). He is currently involved in the development of analytical and numerical algorithms for the assessment of structural models developed with FEM packages. His working experience has been mainly concentrated on residential construction with a specific focus on seismic assessment and retrofitting of existing structures, both in reinforced concrete and masonry. He has recently also gained experience in the field of optic fibres construction sites, where he provided support for the geotechnical aspects developing support tools for project management. His main interests focus on specific design tools such as form-finding and a rational approach to the development of structural solutions supported by the Load Path Method (LPM), geotechnics and FEM analysis.