Franco Audrito founded Studio65 in Turin in 1965 as an avant-garde experimentation collective that brought together a group of artists, painters, photographers, and aspiring filmmakers- all students of the Faculty of Architecture.  In 1975 Franco Audrito and his partner Athena (Nanà) Sampaniotou, along with their Studio65 colleagues, began their adventures in the Middle East, leading the studio to win competitions and build structures in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, and then Russia, Indonesia, England, China and the UAE.