ABOUT
What defines cities today is the paradoxical co-existence of often invisible threads of ecological fragility and social vulnerability, on one hand, and the fast, far-reaching and conspicuous high-tech urban developments (smart technologies, IT infrastructures, AI-driven planning), on the other. The difficulty to conceptualize and represent this complexity (at both architectural and environmental levels) has led to climate change scepticism and technological denial. Therefore, it becomes crucial to rethink the methodological and representational techniques that have for long shaped how we look at cities, to multiply the methods of investigation, and to produce alternative accounts of urban, infrastructural and environmental transformations.
The agenda of the Invisible Cities Lab is motivated by the desire to trace the entanglements of technological, urban, and ecological networks that define the current conditions of cities, and to unpack design and urban planning process in their complex social and organizational ecologies. We draw on the work of pragmatist thinkers (such as Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers, Anna Tsing, Richard Sennett, Marilyn Strathern, Tim Ingold, among others) to approach architecture in a relational, “tentacular way” that defies deterministic critical approaches that still dominate the field. We have a recognised expertise in Actor-Network-Theory, digital mapping, documentary analysis and ethnographic and anthropological techniques to explore the social and political consequences of architectural design.
Our research projects vary greatly in theme and scope, ranging across historical and contemporary contexts, transgressing the scales of single buildings, cities and architectural practices. Yet, across this diversity, they all share an emphasis on situated knowledge, technologies in design practice (from traditional to recent AI developments), design innovations, technical mediation in cities, network dynamics and regulatory frameworks, technoscience and urban politics, and the complex ecology of city-making with all its actors (designers, city-planners, engineers, policy-makers, users, and other stakeholders). Drawing on a practice-oriented research philosophy, the work developed at the Invisible Cities Lab is unique both in Europe, and the world.
research group / gruppo di ricerca
Albena Yaneva is a sociologist and architectural theorist whose research crosses the boundaries of science studies, architectural theory, cognitive anthropology, and political philosophy. She is a Full Professor at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Prior to that Yaneva worked at the University of Manchester, UK for 18 years where she led the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG). She is the author of seven monographs: The Making of a Building (2009), Made by the OMA: An Ethnography of Design (2009), Mapping Controversies in Architecture (2012), Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice (2017), Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural Legacy (2020), Latour for Architects (2022), Architecture After Covid (2023). She co-authored The New Architecture of Science: Learning from Graphene (2020) with the Nobel Laureate in Physics Sir Kostya S. Novoselov.
Yaneva has held the prestigious Lise Meitner Visiting Chair in Architecture at the University of Lund, Sweden as well as Visiting Professorships at Columbia University, Princeton School of Architecture, and Parsons School of Design. She has delivered more than 200 invited lectures and keynote addresses at major conferences. She is the recipient of academic grants of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the British Academy, the EU, the Swedish Research Council, and the ESRC in the UK. She serves as a reviewer for the National Science Foundations of USA, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Israel and the Netherlands.
Yaneva holds a diplôme d’études approfondies (DEA) from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and a PhD from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris where she worked alongside Bruno Latour. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Thai, Polish, Turkish, Bulgarian and Japanese. Yaneva is the recipient of the RIBA President’s award for outstanding university-based research.
Full professor of Architectural and Urban Design at Politecnico di Torino, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History of architecture and urban planning, at Politecnico di Torino.
President of ProArch, scientific society of Italian university professors in architectural design.
Author of several publications on issues concerning contemporary architectural design.
Among his monographs I Nuovi Maestri. Architetti tra politica e cultura nell’Italia del dopoguerra [I Nuovi Maestri. Architects among politics and culture in the Italian afterwar], Marsilio 1999; Paesaggio e Architettura nell’Italia contemporanea [Landscape and Architecture in Contemporary Italy], Donzelli 2003, Etiche dell’intenzione. Ideologie e linguaggi dell’architettura contemporanea [Ethics of Intention. Ideologies and Languages in Contemporary Architecture], Christian Marinotti, 2014.
In 2017 published, with Alessandro Armando, Teoria del progetto architettonico. Dai disegni agli effetti [Theory of Architectural Design. From drawings to Effects], Carocci https://www.teoriadelprogetto.com/recensioni
Founder and member of the Advisory board of the peer-reviewed journal “Ardeth” (Architectural Design Theory).
Founder of office DAR-architettura.
Some of his works and projects have been published on several architectural magazines, including “Casabella”, “Abitare”, “Costruire”, “Edilizia Popolare”, “Ottagono”, “A&RT”, “Controspazio”, “Il Giornale dell’architettura”, “Aion”; in various architectural guide books of Turin, and moreover were exhibited at the Biennale di Venezia, 2003 and 2006. His works were presented in many national and international lectures.
Alessandro Armando, architect, is Associate Professor at the Department of Architectural and Design (DAD) of the Politecnico di Torino since 2011, where he teaches Architectural Design and Architectural Design Theory. He is also the Coordinator of the Msc Degree Programme “Architecture Construction City” and a member of the Board of the Doctoral programme DASP (“Architecture. History and Project”) at the same Politecnico. His current research activity focuses mainly on the political and bureaucratic effects of architectural design on the urban processes, and he has published articles and essays investigating the connection between design and politics. He is founder and member of the editorial board of “Ardeth” (Architectural Design Theory) magazine, and he is currently the editor of “Rivista di Estetica”, 2, 2019 (The Sciences of Future). In his professional practice as an architect, he is a partner of the DAR Architetturaoffice, with M. Di Robilant and G. Durbiano. Among his publications: Teoria del progetto architettonico(2017); Rome: Carocci (with G. Durbiano); Watersheds. A Narrative of urban recycle(2015), Guangzhou: Sandu Publishing (with M. Bonino and F. Frassoldati); La soglia dell’arte: Peter Eisenman, Robert Smithson e il problema dell’autore dopo le nuove avanguardie(2009) Torino: SEB 27.
Caterina Barioglio (1985) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino. She earned a Ph.D. in History of Architecture and Urban Planning in 2016, with a dissertation carried out between Turin and Columbia University in New York City. Bridging history and design, her research and publications relate to urban regeneration processes, with a main focus on spatial effects of urban rules and socio-economic transformations. After two years of operative research at the Masterplan Team of the Politecnico di Torino, she is currently member of the interdepartmental centre Future Urban Legacy Lab.
Edoardo Bruno is an architect who earned a PhD from the Politecnico di Torino in 2018 in Architecture, History and Project, with a dissertation on the Guangzhou southern urban extension. He has been Executive Curator of the last edition of the Bi-CIty Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture of Shenzhen. From 2015 he has been responsible for the activities of the South China – Torino Collaboration Lab, a joint research center between the South China University of Technology and the Politecnico di Torino. He was among the curators of the Italian Pavilion realized during the 2018 Shenzhen Design Week as well as a project architect for the transformation of the Oxygen Factory within the Big Air Venue for the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, Shougang – Beijing 2022. He is currently Research Assistant at the Politecnico di Torino and a member of the China Room research team. Since 2009 he is among the founders of the Italian design firm 2MIX.
Daniele Campobenedetto (1986) is an architect and a Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture and Design of Politecnico di Torino. He holds a Ph.D. in History of Architecture and Town Planning from Politecnico di Torino and in Architecture from Université Paris Est. His research activities investigate especially urban transformation and re-use strategies and have been carried out in Paris, Shanghai and Turin. From 2017 he is part of the Masterplan Team of Politecnico di Torino and from 2016 he is a member of the Editorial Board of Ardeth – Architectural Design Theory – Journal. Among his most recent publications: Paris les Halles. Storie di un future conteso, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2017.
Valeria Federighi (1986) is an architect and Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture and Design of Politecnico di Torino. She holds a Ph.D. in Architectural and Building Design from Politecnico di Torino and a Master of Design Research from University of Michigan. From 2015 she is part of the South China-Torino Collaboration Lab and the China Room research group at Politecnico di Torino and from 2016 she is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Ardeth – Architectural Design Theory. She is author of The Informal Stance – Representations of architectural design and informal settlements, ORO Editions, 2017.
Caterina Quaglio is a doctoral student in “Architecture. History and Project” at the Politecnico di Torino. She graduated in architecture in Italy in 2015, spending two years abroad for exchange programs: in 2012/2013 she studied in ULB, in Brussels, and in 2104/2015 in ETSAM Madrid. Since her master thesis and during an internship in Chile, she has worked on the issue of public housing. Her PhD research is focused in particular on the policies and practices of urban regeneration deployed in public housing districts in the last thirty years, studied through in-depth analysis of European case studies. During her PhD she has also taken part in several activities related to methodological issues on project and design, in particular in the context of a seminar dedicated to masters students working on their final projects.
