Contributors

An architect who graduated from the Politecnico di Milano, with further studies in Portugal, Luca Astorri began his professional career working with OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture, the practice founded by Rem Koolhaas, in Rotterdam. He developed an early interest in international cooperation, working with NGOs such as Liveinslums on architectural projects and research into informal settlements in Cairo and Nairobi. In 2012, together with Riccardo Balzarotti, Rossella Locatelli and Matteo Poli, he founded AOUMM, an architecture and landscape design practice based in Milan, active both nationally and internationally on architecture, landscape and urban planning projects in which diverse disciplinary expertise generates synergies and innovative approaches. Notable AOUMM projects include third prize in the international competition for the new Vigorelli Velodrome in Milan (2012), the Save the Children pavilion at Expo Milano (2015), the first permaculture farm in Azerbaijan (2014), and various exhibition installations at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2026, the “Punto Luce” facility built in Milan for Save the Children received the Urbanfile Architecture and Urban Planning Prize, an award dedicated to projects that best represent the social value of architecture and urban regeneration, as well as a PEFC mention at the Wood Architecture Prize by Klimahouse. Since 2017, Luca Astorri has also been co-director of Rise International, an NGO based in Lesotho, for which he devised and directs the In-loco programme, a training pathway based on practical learning dedicated to projects addressing social needs, growth, education, architecture and landscape, and promoting youth entrepreneurship in the construction sector.

He teaches the course “Design for Development: Architecture, Urban Planning and Heritage in the Global South” at the Politecnico di Milano, and has taught, lectured and led design workshops at leading academic institutions across Europe, Asia and South America. In 2017, together with the CatalyticAction team, he received the Bronze Award at the LafargeHolcim Awards for the Pavilion Re-claimed project, a redevelopment of a pavilion from Expo Milano 2015 converted into a school for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

Full Professor of Environmental Technological Design at the Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture (PDTA) of the Faculty of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome, where she holds the following roles: Director of the Second-Level Master’s Programme (ETD) in Environmental Technological Design – Green Building / Architectural and Urban Regeneration / Green-Blue Infrastructure (since 2024); Coordinator of the Environmental Technological Design curriculum within the PhD Programme in Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture (since 2024); Member of the second Master’s Degree Course “ACT: Enhancement and Management of Minor Historic Centres. Environment–Culture–Territory, Integrated Actions” (2011–present); and involved with Horizon 2020 (2013–present).

Organiser and Scientific Coordinator of international conferences, she has been a speaker at 150 international conferences and congresses since 1993. She has been a member of the steering committee of In/Arch – National Institute of Architecture since 2022. For her design and experimental design work at national and international level, she has received 31 awards and honours. She is the author of 280 publications — including books, articles in scientific journals, and book chapters — among them 14 monographs and 30 articles in Class A journals, as well as 5 edited academic volumes and 5 special issues of scientific journals as guest editor.

An expert in adult pedagogy, Gestalt counsellor and coach, Barbara Binelli works with organisations and entrepreneurs to facilitate the development of mindful relationships conducive to wellbeing and results. She integrates philosophical study with contemplative, somatic and artistic practices (Danza sensibile®).

An art historian and teacher of art history, Valentina Borgnini has spent more than twenty years studying and promoting the artistic and monumental heritage of Umbria. She is the author of a detailed study on the history of the San Francesco al Prato complex in Perugia, whose lengthy restoration and reopening as an auditorium she followed closely. She has also curated the narrative of the history of the Cappella degli Oddi, including the virtual repositioning of Raphael’s Coronation of the Virgin, together with various exhibition and educational projects in collaboration with museums and schools across Umbria. She is currently working on a digital twin of the monumental complex and its historical and artistic heritage.

Giovanni Di Leo is an architect who graduated with honours from the University of Naples Federico II, where he went on to pursue further studies through Master’s programmes in Urban Management (Domus Academy) and in Technical Management of Public Works (Oikos), together with research in Sustainable Urban Design (Roma Tre University) and Environmental Reconversion Techniques (University of Campania). After working as a partner at Pica Ciamarra Associati, where he was responsible for environmental quality, he founded GDLA Studio di Architettura in 2005. His work focuses on urban regeneration, sustainability and the quality of living environments, through projects in architecture, urban planning and interior design. Alongside his professional practice, he maintains an intense activity in research, scientific coordination and dissemination on urban policy and design culture. He served as IN/Arch scientific coordinator for the European Windat network (European Commission – DG Energy and Transport), coordinated working groups for the National Centre for Bioclimatic Architecture (ENEA), and acted as a Federcasa consultant on the ecosystemic quality of Neighbourhood Contracts. He has contributed to defining codes for the environmental quality of buildings and living environments, including the code developed for the SEED Festival. He currently coordinates the “Architecture, Europe, Living Environments” programme and is a member of the Scientific Committee and Legislative Commission of the National Institute of Architecture. He also carries out editorial work for the international journal Le Carré Bleu and for L’Industria delle Costruzioni, and has given evidence to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on architectural quality, urban regeneration and demographic transition.

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.

Gabriella Greison is a physicist, writer, actress and narrator of quantum mechanics. For many years she has brought physics out of the laboratory and onto the stage, turning formulae and equations into stories capable of speaking to everyone. She has written fourteen books and created fourteen theatrical productions dedicated to the leading figures of twentieth-century physics, from Einstein to Dirac, from de Broglie to Leona Woods. Her shows have been staged throughout Italy and abroad, including in Cambridge, Washington and at CERN. She contributes to Radio 24 and Corriere della Sera, where she develops science communication projects with an innovative approach. At the heart of her work lies a single idea: physics is not something remote, but a key to understanding human relationships, emotions and the world around us every day. On the Corriere website she has created the successful series “Scintille”, in which everyday problems, from traffic to unliveable cities, are examined through the physics of complex systems.

Philosopher, ethologist and zooanthropologist. Founder and director of the School of Human-Animal Interaction (SIUA) and of the Centre for Post-Humanist Philosophy Studies, based in Bologna, Roberto Marchesini is regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of zooanthropology, a discipline he helped to found and develop as an autonomous field of research from the 1990s onward. A graduate in Veterinary Medicine in 1985, he has conducted more than thirty years of interdisciplinary research aimed at redefining the role of animals in society, developing a post-humanist philosophy directed at overcoming anthropocentrism. He is the author of more than one hundred publications in philosophy, ethology and animal bioethics, including Post-human. Verso nuovi modelli di esistenza, Fondamenti di zooantropologia and Etologia filosofica. He directs the journal Animal Studies and is among the promoters of the International Society of Zooanthropology. In 2016 a group of international scholars dedicated to him the monograph The Philosophical Ethology of Roberto Marchesini (Routledge).

Annalisa Metta is Professor of Landscape Architecture at Roma Tre University, where she teaches theory, criticism and design of open spaces. An Italian Fellow at the American Academy in Rome, she is President of IASLA, the Italian Scientific Society of Landscape Architecture (2025–28). Her writings include the book Il paesaggio è un mostro (DeriveApprodi, 2022) and the essay “Paesaggio” for the eleventh appendix of the Enciclopedia Italiana delle Arti e delle Lettere (Treccani, 2024). Her recent works include the Poste Italiane park on the Lungotevere Flaminio in Rome, inaugurated in 2024, and the installation In stato di grazia for the AMA Festival (Maddaloni, 2025, with F. Cimatti). In 2026 she is co-director of the Biennale dello Stretto, together with Alfonso Femia and Salima Naji.

Lucio Nardi studied architecture in Venice (IUAV) and Berlin (UdK – Berlin University of the Arts). In 2005 he obtained a PhD in Architectural Design from IUAV. During the 1990s he worked in Berlin at the practices of Professor Giorgio Grassi (Milan) and Diener & Diener Architekten (Basel). Since 2001 he has practised independently in Berlin, where he has realised projects in industrial and residential architecture and restoration. Since 2010 he has promoted and organised participatory cultural projects in collaboration with residents’ associations, cultural bodies, theatre groups and schools. In particular, projects developed in the mining and industrial areas of former East Germany have been presented at numerous exhibitions and received several awards. He began his academic career in 2001 at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Since then, he has taught in Italy (IUAV Venice, SUN Naples, University of Cagliari) and Germany (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, UdK Berlin, MSA Münster). He currently teaches architectural and urban design at the Münster School of Architecture and collaborates with the Vietnamese German University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Formerly a Councillor of the Order of Architects of Rome. Vice-President of the Italy-Brazil Friendship Association. An expert in cooperation with developing countries in the civil works sector.

Director of photography for more than ten years in film, advertising and documentary production, collaborating with brands such as Giorgio Armani, Lavazza and Universal Music Italia. In 2021, during lockdown, he began a path of artistic experimentation, creating architectural installations built with Kapla wooden building blocks, combining two long-standing passions: wood and architecture. His works, built live in front of audiences as genuine performances, are eventually dismantled or demolished in a collective event, forming a cycle of construction and deconstruction that reflects on the transience of beauty. In 2019 he created his first permanent installation, La Stanza Magica, at Casa Bossi (Novara), and in 2022 he launched the Wood Arc project. Since 2023 he has collaborated with the Salvatori brand, experimenting for the first time with natural stone — Carrara marble, Pietra d’Avola, Grigio Versilia — to create permanent installation works.