Lino Gentilini Award

Giovanni Conca graduated from the Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio in 2015 and has practised in Geneva, Paris, Milan and Neuchatel. Since 2016 he has been registered with the Order of Architects, Planners, Landscape Architects and Conservators of the Province of Lecco. He currently works in private practice and is a researcher at the Archivio del Moderno in Balerna - Universita della Svizzera Italiana, as well as a lecturer at the Scuola universitaria della Svizzera Italiana. In December 2024 he obtained his doctorate in architecture at the Ecole nationale superieure d'architecture de Versailles (LeaV/Universite de Paris-Saclay).

Rune Frandsen is a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL in Lausanne in the Heritage, Anthropology and Technologies (HAT) research group led by Professor Florence Graezer Bideau. Trained as an architect at EPFL, he graduated in 2015 before working in several architectural offices in Geneva, where he specialized in timber construction. He subsequently completed a Master of Advanced Studies in the History and Theory of Architecture at the gta Institute, ETH Zurich.
In 2020, he joined ETH Zurich as a doctoral researcher within the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) project "Industrialization in the Alps" led by Prof. Günther Vogt. He received his PhD in 2023 under the co-supervision of Professor Silke Langenberg. His dissertation committee also included Prof. Hollyamber Kennedy, and Dr. Seraina Renz. His research explores the intersections of architecture, heritage, and administrative practices, with a particular interest in spatial histories of labor.

Andrea Olivieri obtained his Master's degree in Building Engineering and Architecture at the University of Genoa in 2024.

Christian Toson studied architecture from 2012 to 2017 at the IUAV in Venice and at the University of St Petersburg, Russia. He graduated in 2018 with a thesis on the architecture of St Petersburg and Palmyra. He has continued his research into architectural theory and has worked in private practice since 2018.

Giuseppe Galbiati is an engineer and architect. He studied at the Politecnico di Milano, where he graduated in Architectural Engineering (2020) and later at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the UCLouvain, where he earned - in cotutelle - his PhD (2023, title of the thesis: ‘Preserving suspended structures with light façades (1960-1980). Architectural study and retrofitting proposals’). Galbiati is currently postdoctoral researcher and teaching assistant at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, USI. His interests deal with the fields of construction history, architectural preservation and energy efficiency of existing buildings, developing and testing interdisciplinary methodologies for the thermal retrofitting of the second post-war building stock.

Martina Motta is a researcher in the field of environmental history. She obtained her Master's degree in Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano in 2013 and her doctorate in the History of Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino in 2023. She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Pavia. Between 2014 and 2020 she carried out research in international settings: the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale (2014); the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2016); OMA - Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam (2016-2017); Manifesta, the European Nomadic Biennial (2018); MAAT - Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia, Lisbon (2020). Her research interests concern the impact of architecture on extractive territories, historical transitions in the use of natural resources, and the emergence of conflict in the modern age.

Aleksandra Kosykh is a civil engineer and construction historian. She holds a master’s degree in Underground and Civil Engineering from the Perm National Research Polytechnic University in Perm (2007–2013). She worked as a structural engineer in 2013-2015 and graduated from the Advanced Master’s Program in Structural Analysis of Monuments and Historical Constructions that was offered at the University of Minho, Guimaraes, and the Czech Technical University in Prague, in 2016. Between 2017 and 2022, Aleksandra was a member of the Research-Training Group “Cultural and Technological Significance of Historic Buildings” at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, where she worked on her doctorate on load-bearing iron structures that were built in Russia in the 18th century. Results of this research were published in 2023. Aleksandra currently lives in Berlin. She works as a planner for monument care, restoration and repair work on historic buildings.

Giulia Boller is a lecturer and post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich. She is both an engineer and an architect. Her research interests lie at the interface between history, architecture and structural engineering. In 2022 she completed her doctoral dissertation at ETH Zurich, investigating the role of models in the engineering practice of the Swiss engineer Heinz Isler, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Joseph Schwartz. Her dissertation received the 2023 Premio Lino Gentilini for the best doctoral dissertation in the history of engineering, and the ETH Medal for outstanding doctoral theses. Giulia gained professional experience at the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. She graduated with honours in Building Engineering and Architecture from the University of Trento in 2015.

Chiara Gaddi

Chiara Gaddi has been a doctoral candidate in Structural, Seismic and Geotechnical Engineering at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano since November 2022. She took her degree in Building Engineering and Architecture at the same university.

Cecilia Lega

Cecilia Lega studied on the single-cycle degree course in Building Engineering and Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, Lecco campus, graduating in April 2022, and began her career at the multidisciplinary practice BMS Progetti in the field of structural design.

Claudia Rota Graziosi

Claudia Rota Graziosi attended the Politecnico di Milano at the Lecco campus, graduating in April 2022 in Building Engineering and Architecture. She currently works with an engineering practice, collaborating across disciplines on residential and industrial buildings.

Boris Hamzeian (doctorate at EPFL, 2021) is an architect and architectural historian specialising in the avant-gardes of the second post-war period, in the experiments of so-called 'technomorphic' architecture, and in experimental teaching practices in architecture in the 1960s. He is a researcher in the architecture department of the Musee national d'art moderne - MNAM CCI at the Centre Pompidou, where he is responsible for the inventory and the promotion of the archive of the construction of the Centre Pompidou, advising on the Centre Pompidou 2025-2030 transformation project and editing a series devoted to the architectural and constructional history of the Centre. He is currently a fellow at the Academie d'Architecture de France - La Cite Internationale des Arts, co-director of a research project promoted by the Italian Council programme of the Italian Ministry of Culture, and associate lecturer at the Ecole nationale superieure d'architecture de Saint-Etienne.

Sofia Nannini has been a fixed-term researcher in the History of Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino since 2023. Between 2021 and 2023 she was a research fellow at the University of Bologna and an adjunct lecturer at the universities of Bologna, Florence, Pavia and IAAD. She is the author of 'Icelandic Farmhouses: Identity, landscape and construction (1790-1945)' (Firenze University Press, 2023) and of 'The Icelandic Concrete Saga: Architecture and Construction (1847-1958)' (Jovis, 2024). She sits on the editorial boards of the journals 'Architectural Histories' and 'Studi e ricerche di storia dell'architettura'. She was a visiting research fellow at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH, 2022, with the support of the Fondazione Lerici) and a research fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA, 2023). She is currently working on a book manuscript provisionally titled 'The Mechanization of Life: An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming'.

Federica Di Serafino obtained her Master's degree with honours in Engineering and Building Techniques at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. A Project Manager since 2019 and registered with ISIPM, she has worked since 2020 at Rete Ferroviaria Italiana in the fields of railway traffic safety, project management and training. Since 2023 she has collaborated on international projects between RFI and UIC concerning the development and dissemination of a culture of safety, as well as on projects relating to digitalisation and BIM.

Vincenzo Pace graduated with top marks in Architecture at the University of Basilicata, Matera campus, and is today an architect and a doctoral candidate in the Cities and Landscapes: Architecture, Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, History and Resources doctoral school of the Department of European and Mediterranean Cultures at Unibas. After a dissertation addressing the regeneration of disused industrial heritage, and specifically of Italian cement works, his research now focuses on walking routes and their use: in particular on how to apply game design for all to a system of slow travel along the border between Basilicata and Calabria, seeking to create relationships between and with the communities it passes through. He volunteers at the Matera prison, where he works with inmates on the newspaper of the association Disma odv, of which he is a founding member and president.

Eliana Alessandrelli studied Building Engineering and Architecture at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, graduating with honours in February 2013 with a thesis entitled 'Seismic exposure and adaptation of the Ovipol pavilion of the Mercati Generali complex in Rome', centred on a method of structural strengthening using fibre-reinforced composite materials. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Civil Engineering (Architecture and Construction) at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Since the beginning of 2013 she has carried out research in collaboration with the SIXXI group, coordinated by Sergio Poretti and Tullia Iori, studying the Italian contribution to twentieth-century structural engineering. Eliana's research is devoted in particular to the figure of Eugenio Miozzi and focuses mainly on techniques for eliminating parasitic stresses in arch bridges: the method of systematic deformations and the method of systematic cracking.

Vito Quadrato is an architect and adjunct lecturer on the course in Materials and the Design of Building Elements in the ArCoD department of the Politecnico di Bari, where he was a junior assistant professor until 2023. In 2019 he won the seventh edition of the Premio Federico Maggia promoted by the Fondazione Sella, 'Visions and change. Young designers manufacture ideas', with the installation 'Gravitazioni. Di-stanze di pietra'. In 2024 he obtained the national scientific qualification as an associate professor in CEAR-08/C, Technological Design of Architecture. His publications investigate technological culture in the architectural heritage of the Modern period, with reference to the expressiveness of construction in the use of materials in architecture.

Building Engineer and Architect. After his studies he has collaborated with universities and associations engaged in the public enjoyment of cultural heritage, and as a freelance with engineering and architectural practices. In November 2022 he began a doctorate in Architecture at the University of Naples Federico II.