Contributors 2026

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.

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.

Architect, designer and curator, and partner of Stefano Boeri until 2017 and co-founder of SBA China. Since 2011 he has led, together with Marco Brega, the practice DONTSTOP Architettura, with which he has realised projects in Italy and abroad, notably “Abitare in Maggiolina”, the new Master Plan for the Municipality of Pordenone, and the restyling works at the San Siro Stadium and the Inter and Milan sports centres. His work sits at the intersection of architecture, design, research and international cooperation, with particular attention to relations between Europe and Asia, which he promotes as creative director of the Sino European Innovation Institute and through curating international programmes, including Across Chinese Cities at the Venice Architecture Biennale and XPort at Suzhou Design Week. In 2022 the practice was transformed into Dontstop Architettura srl, broadening its corporate structure and joining Progetto CMR International, a leading Italian integrated design group. Since 2016 he has been founder and creative director of the Sino European Innovation Institute in Milan, and co-curator of the research programme Across Chinese Cities, with which he has taken part in the Collateral Events of the Venice Architecture Biennale. He has held workshops and lectures at international institutions such as the AA School in London, Graz University of Technology and the Politecnico di Milano, combining his design practice with a long-standing editorial collaboration with magazines such as Domus and Abitare. He teaches on the “Architecture CO2=0” (Architectural Carbon Neutral Balance) master’s programme at IUAV, Venice.

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.

Composer, artistic director, music critic and radio and television presenter, Nicola Campogrande graduated in composition from the Conservatories of Milan, under Azio Corghi, and of Paris. He is regarded as one of the most important Italian composers of his generation: his music, published exclusively by Breitkopf & Härtel since 2017, has been performed by artists such as Riccardo Chailly, Gautier Capuçon and Lilya Zilberstein in prestigious venues including Teatro alla Scala and the Philharmonie de Paris. His catalogue comprises more than 200 symphonic, chamber and theatrical works, including the operas Opera italiana and #Folon. Since 1998 he has presented cultural programmes on Rai Radio3 and for several years was a television presenter on Classica HD (Sky). He was artistic director of the MITO SettembreMusica festival from 2016 to 2023 and, for eleven years, of the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra; since 2023 he has been composer-in-residence of the Milan Symphony Orchestra and the Bologna Municipal Theatre. He contributes to the culture pages of Corriere della Sera and has written several works of musical popularisation, including Occhio alle orecchie, now in its sixth edition.

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.

Musician, producer, songwriter and sound engineer, guitarist and founder of Subsonica, one of the most important bands in Italian music of recent decades. Raised in the Turin underground scene of the 1980s, he has collaborated as producer and songwriter with artists including Afterhours, Almamegretta, Mina and Africa Unite — the last a band he was part of before founding Subsonica in 1996 together with Samuel Romano. He currently pursues several parallel projects, including Deproducers, dedicated to the musical transposition of science, and has served as president and co-director of the Traffic Torino Free Festival.

Associate Professor at the BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, where he heads the Soft Mechatronics for Biorobotics Lab. He graduated with honours in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2007 and obtained his PhD in Biorobotics from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. He is author or co-author of more than 100 international scientific publications and serves as Section Editor-in-Chief for the journal MDPI Actuators, as well as Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. He chairs the IEEE Technical Committee on Soft Robotics and has received, among other honours, the Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies at the IROS Awards. His research focuses on the development of soft robotics technologies, with particular attention to actuators, sensors and flexible mechanisms, within numerous EU-funded projects.

Luisa Damiano, PhD, is Full Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at IULM University in Milan, where she directs the PhD School for Communication Studies and co-directs the CRiSiCo research centre (Research Centre on Complex Systems). She was previously Associate Professor at the University of Messina, coordinating the research group in the epistemology of artificial sciences. She is among the leading international experts in social robotics and the philosophical, ethical and communicative implications of interaction between humans and artificial systems. Her research spans the epistemology of complex systems to the philosophy of mind, with particular attention to social and cognitive robotics. Central to her work are the questions that arise when robots cease to be mere tools and become relational agents: the expectations, emotions and social dynamics activated in the encounter between human and artificial, and the ontology that emerges from the creation of machines capable of behaving as social beings. Her thinking also addresses ethical questions concerning the use of robots in care, assistance and education, opening fundamental questions about human identity and models of coexistence in a post-anthropocentric era. She collaborates with researchers in robotics, cognitive science and philosophy on international projects exploring the boundary between biology and technology, and between the natural and the artificial, and has worked with institutions such as the University of Hertfordshire and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. She is co-author, with Paul Dumouchel, of Living with Robots (Harvard University Press, 2017), and has curated projects combining art and social robotics, such as ScentDia, presented in 2025 at the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.

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.

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.

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.

A graduate in Architecture from the University of Florence, after early professional experience with the practice of Alfio Barabani Architects (1997–2004), Gianluca Falcinelli founded his own practice, focusing on architectural design with particular attention to the recovery, restoration and transformation of existing heritage. His practice stems from a profound sensitivity to the historical, material and environmental character of places, developed through long experience in conservation and architectural regeneration. He conceives of recovery not as a simple restitution of original form, but as a process of interpretation and re-signification that brings memory and contemporaneity into dialogue, through careful research into materials, construction techniques and the relationship between the existing fabric and new intervention. Even in new-build projects, the relationship with the past remains central: architecture arises from engagement with the history of places and the search for a balance between building and landscape, between constructed space and natural environment. His work thus explores a dimension of design founded on continuity, careful attention to transformation, and the capacity of architecture to create new ways of dwelling that respect local identities. He is currently working on a digital twin of the monumental complex and its historical and artistic heritage.

Neuroscientist and Full Professor of Psychobiology in the Department of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Parma, having previously served for many years as Full Professor of Human Physiology at the same university. A graduate in Medicine specialising in Neurology, he was part of the research group that discovered mirror neurons in 1992 — the most-cited Italian discovery in the international scientific literature — together with Di Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi and Rizzolatti. He has also developed a neuroscientific model of intersubjectivity known as “embodied simulation”. From 2016 to 2018 he was Professor of Experimental Aesthetics at the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and he is Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of more than 300 international scientific publications and of volumes such as La nascita della intersoggettività, co-written with Massimo Ammaniti.

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.

Architect, PhD and lecturer, Anupama Kundoo is among the most authoritative international voices in sustainable architecture. She graduated from the University of Mumbai in 1989 and obtained her doctorate from TU Berlin in 2008; since 1990 she has developed, in Auroville, India, a research practice oriented towards people-centric architecture, based on spatial and material experimentation with low environmental impact and high socio-economic value. Her work was the subject of the solo exhibition “Taking Time” at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. She has taught architecture and urban management at prestigious international universities, including Yale and Columbia, and currently holds a professorship in Architecture at TU Berlin. Her honours include the RIBA Charles Jencks Award, the Auguste Perret Prize (2021), the Building Sense Now Award from DGNB (2021) and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under UNESCO patronage (2022). Her research into new forms of materiality in architecture questions building habits inherited from industrialisation, focusing not on scarcity but on the abundance generated by human resources such as ingenuity, time, skill and sense of community. Her studios are based in Berlin, Mumbai and Pondicherry.

An architect with a PhD from IUAV University of Venice, where she is Scientific Director of the “Architecture CO2=0” Master’s programme. A theorist of Eco Generative Architecture, she has developed a design method that unites macro and micro visions of nature to generate sustainable ephemeral and sacred spaces. Her work focuses on strategies for decarbonising the built heritage and on bioclimatic design models, integrating energy performance, spatial quality and environmental responsibility. She has realised numerous carbon-neutral certified pavilions, including “Futura alata e coltivabile” (2025) and various installations for Futura_Economia X l’Ambiente Expo in Brescia, and was invited to the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025 and in a previous edition. She is the author of several volumes, including Natura d’architettura 1-7 (LetteraVentidue, 2024) and Codex of Temporary (LetteraVentidue, 2018). She divides her time between Milan, Venice and Trieste.

Mauro Magatti is a sociologist and economist. His research focuses on the relationship between economy and society, with particular attention to the transformation of contemporary capitalism, understood as a historical-social construct in which techno-economic, institutional and cultural dimensions interact. Following the influence of his mentors — including Zygmunt Bauman, Luc Boltanski and Bernard Stiegler — he has investigated the relationship between individual experience and major economic, technological and social transformations, developing in recent years, together with other scholars, the paradigm of social generativity.

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).

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.

Walter Mariotti has been Editorial Director of Domus since 2017, with responsibility for the entire system. A graduate in Theoretical Philosophy from the University of Siena, with periods of research at Leuven and Harvard, following an Executive Programme at SDA Bocconi he obtained a PhD from the University of Bergamo, dedicating his research to the transformation of society and culture in contemporary life. Over the years he has devised and directed innovation projects for Italian and foreign publishers, including ClassEditori, RCS MediaGroup, Mondadori and Gruppo Media TI, participated in the founding of Renzo Piano’s G124 initiative, and provided cultural and strategic consultancy to public and private institutions. He currently teaches at IULM University in Milan and at the University of San Marino. His books include Alfabeto del postcapitalismo, Bellezza and Il tempo della complessità – Dialogo con Mauro Ceruti.

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.

A psychologist, essayist and scholar of cognitive science, Ugo Morelli teaches Cognitive Sciences Applied to Liveability, Landscape and the Environment at the Department of Architecture of the University Federico II of Naples, as well as Work and Organisational Psychology and the Psychology of Creativity and Innovation. He previously held professorships at the Universities of Bologna, Venice and Bergamo. His research spans work, organisation and knowledge, mind, learning and aesthetic experience, and the themes of liveability and sustainability in landscapes and ecosystems. He is Scientific Director of the Executive Course in Business Models for Environmental Sustainability at CUOA Business School and devised and directed the School for the Governance of Territory and Landscape of the Autonomous Province of Trento, where he currently directs the Master’s programme WNHM / World Natural Heritage Management, designed to train practitioners in the knowledge and management of natural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list (the Dolomites and other mountain sites). He is the author of numerous publications, including Mente e paesaggio. Una teoria della vivibilità, Incertezza e organizzazione and Eppur si crea. Creatività, bellezza, vivibilità.

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.

Architect and graphic designer, Raul Pantaleo is co-founder and senior partner of the Venice-based practice TAMassociati, specialising in impact design and sustainable design in the social and humanitarian sphere. Since 2004 he has collaborated with the NGO Emergency, designing hospital facilities in numerous countries including Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Afghanistan and Uganda — among them the “Salam” cardiac surgery centre in Khartoum, awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013. With TAMassociati he has received numerous international awards, including the Curry Stone Design Prize (2013), the Zumtobel Group Award (2014) and the title of Best Italian Architect of the Year (2014). In 2016 he was a member of the curatorial team for the Italian Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale and a tutor for the G124 working group led by Renzo Piano at the Senate of the Republic. Since 2019 he has been a contract professor of Architectural Composition at the University of Trieste. Together with Marta Gerardi, he is also the author of several volumes combining architecture, comics and narrative reportage, including Architetture resistenti (Becco Giallo, 2013), La nave (Becco Giallo, 2024) and Architetture del noi (Elèuthera, 2025).

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.

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.

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.

A professional journalist since 2003, Maria Soave has worked with Il Messaggero and Il Sole 24 Ore — covering the economies of Umbria, the Marche and Tuscany — and with the RCS MediaGroup. In 2004 she joined Rai, initially at Tg3, before moving to Tg1, where she served as head of the domestic affairs desk and presented various editions of the news bulletin over the years, from the late-night to the early-evening and 1:30pm slots. In 2009 she moved from the economics desk to the political desk, remaining there until 2023. Since September 2023 she has presented Tg1 Mattina, while since 2022 she has co-hosted Unomattina Estate on Rai1 with Massimiliano Ossini. Since 2024 she has also presented Agorà Estate on Rai3, a programme dedicated to the economy, employment and housing.

Belinda Tato is Associate Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and co-founder, together with José Luis Vallejo, of Ecosistema Urbano, a Madrid-based practice specialising in urban social design that integrates landscape architecture, urban planning and social innovation through the design of spaces and processes intended to strengthen citizen self-organisation and community life, with particular attention to the relationship between the built environment, climate change and contemporary forms of dwelling. Among her best-known projects and urban plans, developed across Europe, Latin America, Asia and the United States, is the Eco-boulevard of Ensanche de Vallecas in Madrid — realised with support from the European Union’s LIFE programme and the Madrid Municipal Housing and Land Company — a pioneering urban regeneration project based on creating microclimates through green systems and bioclimatic strategies. Other notable projects include the regeneration of the West Palm Beach waterfront with the Banyan Hub (Florida, USA), the CUENCA RED Public Space Reactivation Plan (Ecuador), urban and territorial planning for Encarnación (Paraguay), and urban regeneration interventions in Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan and Mexico. She has taught at international institutions including Yale University, UCLA and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Her work has received more than 30 international awards, including a nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Award (2007) and the Silver Award of the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction (2009).

Managing Director of Arup Italia, based in Milan, where he graduated in Structural Engineering from the Politecnico. From the outset of his career he has been a leading figure in Arup’s quality of practice. He has served as Director in Amsterdam and in Istanbul. Known for his expertise in integrated design and sustainable urban regeneration, Teora is actively involved in academic training and innovation, serving as a lecturer and member of scientific committees at several Italian universities and master’s programmes, including the Politecnico di Milano. As lecturer and as the party responsible for relations between the IUAV master’s programme and Arup, he has established an internship relationship for the “Architecture CO2=0” Master’s programme.

Designer and strategic consultant in the fields of corporate identity, territorial branding, brand identity, exhibition design and product design. A graduate of ISIA Urbino, he is the founder of the practice Bcpt/Comodo, where he applies an ethnographic approach to design, specialising in projects of territorial and community regeneration. Over the course of his career he has collaborated with numerous companies and institutions, including Mondadori, Apple Italia, EMU, Listone Giordano, the Region of Umbria, the Fondazione Umbria Jazz, the Santarcangelo Theatre Festival, the Fondazione Olivetti, Fiera Milano, Torino World Design Capital 2008, Sviluppumbria, the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism, and the Centro Cultural Chacra de los Remedios in Buenos Aires. His numerous visual identity and branding projects have received national and international honours, including the ADI Design Index and the European Design Awards. Since 2006 he has taught Design Methodology at ISIA Urbino. Since 2014 he has been Professor of Design at the “Pietro Vannucci” Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia, where since 2018 he has coordinated the graduate programme in Territorial Brand Design. He also holds the Interior Design course at the Department of Engineering of the University of Perugia. From 2018 to 2026 he served as National President of AIAP – the Italian Association for Visual Communication Design.