Contributors

Born in Cagliari in 1983, Alessandro Aresu is a geopolitical analyst who graduated in Philosophy of Law from the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. Since 2005 he has served as scientific adviser to Limes — Italy’s foremost publication on geopolitics — and also writes for Le Grand Continent, Aspenia, Gnosis and numerous newspapers. Over the course of his career he has provided consultancy and led initiatives for leading institutions, including the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and the Italian Space Agency. He has also collaborated with international organisations such as Eurasia Group and the Rann Strategy Group. His intellectual work focuses on the relationship between politics, economics and technology, with particular attention to global strategic supply chains, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and space geopolitics. Among his most significant volumes are L’interesse nazionale. La bussola dell’Italia (il Mulino, 2018, with Luca Gori); Le potenze del capitalismo politico. Stati Uniti e Cina (La Nave di Teseo, 2020); I cancelli del cielo. Economia e politica della grande corsa allo spazio 1950–2050 (Luiss University Press, 2022, with Raffaele Mauro); Il dominio del XXI secolo. Cina, Stati Uniti e la guerra invisibile sulla tecnologia (Feltrinelli, 2022); Geopolitica dell’intelligenza artificiale (Feltrinelli, 2024), a finalist for the inaugural Strega Prize for Non-Fiction; and La Cina ha vinto (2025). A lecturer at numerous elite training institutions, he is a member of the scientific committee of the Fondazione Feltrinelli and of the board of directors of the Fondazione Praexidia.

Patrizia Caraveo is a Research Director at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and has directed the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Cosmic Physics in Milan. For her contributions to understanding the high-energy emission of neutron stars, she received the National Prize of the President of the Republic in 2009 and the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society in 2021. In 2014 she was included in the list of Highly Cited Researchers and received the Outstanding Achievement Award from Women in Aerospace Europe. Author of more than 470 scientific papers, with an impact factor exceeding 120, she is the most-cited active Italian researcher in the field of astrophysics. As a member of the Swift, Fermi and AGILE collaborations, she shared the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society with colleagues on three occasions, in 2007, 2011 and 2012. In 2017 she was named Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2025 she was elected President of the Italian Astronomical Society. She is a member of Gruppo 2003 for scientific research and of the “100 Women Against Stereotypes” initiative. Highly active in science communication, she has published 12 books.

Luca De Biase is an award-winning innovation journalist, essayist, professor and researcher, author of numerous successful books and pro bono contributor to Italian and European policy initiatives. A graduate in Economics from Bocconi University, he began his career in social history, working with Fernand Braudel in Paris, Aldo De Maddalena in Milan and Claudio Povolo in Venice. He then became a journalist, contributing to the launch of a financial daily in Italy, while continuing his research into ethics and economics for an Italian bank and into local development at the OECD. Since 1994 he has viewed the internet as a great opportunity to develop new ideas in journalism, and in 2005 he founded the Nòva project for Il Sole 24 Ore, which he directed for around fifteen years. He is currently Director of the Media Ecology research network at Reimagine Europa and Director of the Imminent Research Center, dedicated to the economics of language and artificial intelligence, at Translated. He hosts podcasts on media ecology and the knowledge society and teaches at the Universities of Pisa and of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He is the author of numerous volumes, including Armonie future (Rubbettino, 2021), Il lavoro del futuro (Codice, 2018), Come saremo, with Telmo Pievani (Codice, 2016), Homo pluralis (Codice, 2015), Media civici (Vita Feltrinelli, 2013), Cambiare pagina (Rizzoli, 2011), Economia della felicità (Feltrinelli, 2007) and Amore di Stato. Venezia Settecento (Sellerio, 1992). He defines innovation journalism as the development of a forward-looking perspective on events — a sort of history of the future, requiring humility and passion alongside rigorous research.

An engineer with a PhD in Architectural and Urban Composition, Barbara Cadeddu works in the fields of strategic planning, local development, and the design, programming and management of complex interventions funded by European, national and regional funds. Her work integrates urban design, social innovation and public policy, with particular attention to territorial regeneration processes, place-based strategies and participatory methodologies. She has held institutional and strategic consultancy positions, including Councillor for Strategic Planning and Community Programming of the Municipality of Cagliari (2013–2016), consultant to the Tourism Councillor of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (2019–2020), and consultant to KPMG Advisory S.p.A. for technical assistance to the Autonomous Region of Sardinia in implementing the Regional ESF+ Programme 2021–2027 (2023–2024). She currently coordinates the drafting of the Strategic Plan for the Province of Sulcis Iglesiente, is a consultant to the Fondazione Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara for the development and implementation of the Integrated Territorial Investment under the ERDF Regional Programme Sardinia 2021–2027, and to the Union of Municipalities of Barbagia, Fonni and Orani for the development of project sheets relating to the National Strategy for Inner Areas 2021–2027. Alongside her professional activity, she has held an academic post as a contract professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the University of Cagliari, where she taught and conducted research from 2007 to 2019. In the cultural sphere, she curates and coordinates international programmes dedicated to architecture, design and innovation. Since 2021 she has curated SEED. Design Actions for the Future; since 2020 she has coordinated AJU/AJA, a project dedicated to design and craft culture with scientific responsibility held by Triennale Milano; and she was scientific coordinator of FESTARCH – International Architecture Festival, conceived by Stefano Boeri and promoted by RCS MediaGroup. Since 2023 she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the National Institute of Architecture and an associate member of the Italian Institute of Project Management (ISIPM). Since 2026 she has been President of the Sardinia Section of IN/Arch. She is the author of numerous publications.

rchitect, designer and PhD, Annalisa Dominoni is an international point of reference in the field of design for extreme and space environments. She teaches at the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano, where she heads ESA_LAB@PoliMi_Design, a research laboratory developed with the European Space Agency (ESA). She devised and teaches the Space4InspirACTion programme, the first academic course in space architecture and design supported by ESA, and X-Habitat, dedicated to design for extreme environments. Her research integrates neuroscience, behaviour and design to develop solutions for confined environments, high-criticality systems and emergency scenarios. She has also devised the Use & Gesture Design (UGD) methodology, applied to the systemic and behavioural dimension of design.

Founder of the Millennium Charter of Space Architecture (Houston, 2002), she has coordinated and developed research projects for space exploration with ESA, NASA and ASI, contributing to equipment tested on the International Space Station. She collaborates with aerospace industries such as Thales Alenia Space, Virgin Galactic and Argotec, with research bodies and government institutions, and with leading Italian design and industrial companies. She has received numerous international awards over the course of her career, including the Compasso d’Oro, the ESA Scientific Award for Young Researchers, the ADI Design Index, the BIG SEE Product Design Award, and the Premio Focus Raymond Zreick for Technology and Innovation.

Her projects have been exhibited at international institutions and events, including the Triennale di Milano, the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci”, the London Science Museum and the Frankfurt Messe. She is also curator of Design Spaziale Italiano, a touring exhibition project promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dedicated to the contribution of Italian design to innovation in space exploration. An Italian Design Ambassador and visiting professor at prestigious international universities, she has published more than 200 scientific contributions and numerous monographs, contributing decisively to establishing space design as a recognised international discipline.

Edicola 518 is the rebel newsstand for lovers of fine paper. We, the artists of Emergenze, founded it on 1 June 2016 on the site of a historic newsagent’s in Perugia, and have made it a bookshop without equal anywhere in the world. Its selection offers a range unique in Italy of independent magazines, artists’ books, anarchist ephemera, fanzines and self-produced works under our own publishing imprint, Emergenze Publishing. We have defined the space of Edicola 518 as four square metres of infinite space.

An art and literature scholar, he taught humanities at high schools in Padua and Venice, and later iconology and iconography at the European University of Rome. He has contributed to numerous journals. His very active career as a lecturer has led him to give lectures and presentations at schools of all levels, at nearly all major Italian universities, and abroad. In Barcelona, he spoke about Giotto to the architects building the Sagrada Familia; in Beijing, he taught a course on sacred art at the National Seminary; he has given presentations in Austria, Switzerland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Paraguay, Peru, China, and Israel. He has also delivered remote presentations for enthusiasts in Dubai, Colombia, Brazil, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Russia.
He has curated five educational exhibitions and authored the accompanying catalogs on Giotto’s frescoes in Padua (which attracted over one million visitors in Italy and around the world), Giotto’s frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Assisi, the masterpieces of Caravaggio, the masterpieces of Van Gogh, and the mosaics of Ravenna.

Oskar Norelius is a Swedish architect, Partner and Managing Director at White Arkitekter in Stockholm, one of Scandinavia’s leading architecture firms. He studied architecture in Sweden, Paris, and Spain before joining White in 2007, where he has played a key role in the firm’s international expansion and design strategy.
Notable projects include Stockholm Wood City, a multifunctional urban district set to become the world’s largest wooden structure, and the award-winning Sara Culture Center, one of the tallest wooden buildings ever constructed.
Oskar’s work has been featured in the traveling exhibitions *A Heart of Wood*, produced for Aedes Berlin, and *150,000 Trees* at the 2023 Venice Biennale. He is also a frequent speaker and keynote presenter at universities and international architecture forums.
In 2025, Oskar was selected as one of the “40 Under 40 Europe in Architecture and Design” by the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design, and Urban Studies.
White Arkitekter is an interdisciplinary collective comprising 600 architects, designers, and sustainability experts with offices in Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom. With a mission to promote sustainable living through the art of architecture, White operates at the intersection of research, practice, and innovation, creating inclusive and resilient environments for present and future generations.

Born in Copenhagen in 1987, Søren Pihlmann studied architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 2014. After co-founding the practice Lenschow & Pihlmann with Kim Lenschow, he established Pihlmann Architects in 2021, a Copenhagen-based practice that has rapidly gained international attention for its radically honest approach to materials and the existing built fabric. His practice — which he himself describes as “generative preservation” and “curious curation” — proceeds from a stated principle: the starting point is not what one might wish for, but what already exists. Treating existing buildings as reservoirs of materials and resources, he seeks to reveal hidden value in structures, materials and spaces otherwise taken for granted or overlooked, transforming them without erasing their history. Notable projects include Thoravej 29 (Copenhagen, 2025), the transformation of a 1960s factory into a community arts hub in which 95% of materials were reused on site, a finalist project for the EUmies Awards. In 2025 he represented Denmark at the Venice Architecture Biennale with the pavilion Build of Site, refurbishing the pavilion itself and turning the exhibition space into an ongoing construction site, in which surplus materials and the construction process itself became the heart of the exhibition and of a curatorial practice of reuse. His honours include the Henning Larsen Foundation Honorary Award (2022) and the Årets Arne (2023) — Denmark’s most prestigious architecture prize, named after Arne Jacobsen — awarded for the House14a project. In 2025 The Architectural Review named him among the most significant emerging architects, and he was also a finalist for Dezeen’s Emerging Architect of the Year.

Architect, designer and PhD, Benedetto Quaquaro is an international reference point in the field of design for extreme and space environments. He teaches at the School of Design of the Politecnico di Milano within the Master of Science programmes in Interior and Spatial Design and Integrated Product Design, and heads ESA_LAB@PoliMi_Design, a research laboratory developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

Together with Annalisa Dominoni, he devised and directs Space4InspirACTion, the first academic course in space architecture and design supported by ESA (since 2017), and X-Habitat, a programme dedicated to design for extreme environments (since 2025).

He began his career in naval design, before collaborating with Tecno, founded by Osvaldo Borsani, working alongside architects such as Norman Foster and Gae Aulenti and artists such as Bruno Munari and Arnaldo Pomodoro. In 2011, together with Annalisa Dominoni, he founded the practice (a+b) dominoni quaquaro, active in transportation design, fashion technology, and product and furniture design. The practice develops projects that integrate technological innovation, ergonomic research and sensory quality. Notable projects include the Leonardo trains for the Milan metro for ATM-Hitachi Rail Italy, the Pinna acoustic elements for Caimi Brevetti, and the Sensory Space Station, a concept developed for Thales Alenia Space dedicated to astronauts’ perceptual wellbeing.

He conducts research and design work with ESA, NASA, ASI, Thales Alenia Space, Virgin Galactic, Argotec and numerous Italian design and industrial companies. He is also curator of Design Spaziale Italiano, a touring exhibition project promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the contribution of Italian design to innovation in space exploration. His projects have been exhibited at international venues including the Triennale di Milano, the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci” and the London Science Museum. He has received numerous international awards, including the ADI Design Index, the DIA Design Intelligence Award Honourable Mention, the Premio Focus Raymond Zreick, and the BIG SEE Product Design Award.

An Italian Design Ambassador and visiting professor at prestigious international universities, he is the author of essays and publications dedicated to design culture and space design.

Andrea Margaritelli, an engineer, combines his primary role as an entrepreneur within the family business, the Margaritelli Group, with operational roles in various non-profit institutions engaged in social and cultural work. Attentive to the strong potential of an organic relationship between economics and culture, he participates actively in debate on corporate communication, territorial values and social responsibility. As President of the Fondazione Guglielmo Giordano, he is engaged in promoting design culture in Italy and abroad, through initiatives spanning the fields of art, architecture and design. From 2018 to 2026 he served as President of the National Institute of Architecture, the prestigious cultural body founded by Bruno Zevi in 1959 as a forum for the genesis and diffusion of renewed sensitivity to design in Italy. He teaches Interior Design within the Degree Course in Design of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Perugia.

An architect and journalist, Laura Ragazzola worked until 2018 at Interni, an international monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and design. As head of the architecture section, she developed a thorough knowledge of the international architectural scene, with particular attention to Nordic projects, sustainability, and new approaches and strategies for minimising environmental impact. She has met and interviewed leading practices, including Snøhetta, MVRDV, BIG, SHoP, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Shigeru Ban, Zaha Hadid, Michele De Lucchi, Bouroullec, Kengo Kuma, UNStudio, OMA, 3XN, Philippe Starck, Herzog & de Meuron, Sean Godsell, Mario Botta, Grafton and Francis Kéré, among others. As a freelance journalist she writes for Corriere della Sera, Sette, D-La Repubblica, Domus, Arketipo, Abitare and Home Italia. In 2020 she curated a series of webinars on architectural design entitled “RETHINKING DESIGN”, and since 2022 a series, “UN ARCHITETTO ITALIANO A…”, dedicated to talented young Italian architects working abroad. She is among the curators of SEED.