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portfolio [2022 - 2025]

Lara Cattani

Curriculum vitae Lara Cattani 16/01/2001 Imola, Italy via Cesare Battisti 25a - 40059, Medicina (BO), IT (+39) 3319496400 lara.cattani2@studio.unibo.it laracattani@icloud.com

[Short Biography] Lara Cattani has an educational background in architecture, engineering, and landscape studies, developed through her studies and professional experience between Bologna (DA-UNIBO) and Brussels (LCH-ULB). Originally from Medicina, east of Bologna, she also received an early artistic education, which continues to inform her multidisciplinary approach. Her sensitivity to landscape issues has grown through several workshops across Europe and through her personal, everyday experiences of the rural territory of her childhood. She is currently working on a narrative and photographic catalog documenting the lost elements of the agrarian landscape following the mechanization of agriculture in the lower Po Valley.

Availability 5/6 months flexible starting from October 2025 or January 2026

(a) Education a.06 2024 - 2025 Scholarship for thesis abroad under the supervision of Professor Nadia Casabella, with the work titled ‘Shifting Ruralities: Territorial Rewritings in the Landscape in-between Quaderna Streams’. - Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

c.02 2022 Summer School Visiting professor Giovanni Chiaramonte “Abitare l’interno, vivere l’esterno - Il piano per il centro storico di Bologna e l’opera di Paolo Monti” Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy (https://phd.unibo.it/architettura/it/agenda/abitare-linterno-vivere-l-esterno-il-piano-per-il-centro-storico-dibologna-e-l-opera-di-paolo-monti)

a.05 2023 - 2024 Ersmus+ scholarship - Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta, ULB, Bruxelles, Belgium

c.01 2022 Alongaline - NOCITY Summer School Lead by Università degli Studi Roma Tre, TUDelft, AA School of Architecture, IUAV, UniCam, ENSA Versailles Reatini Mountains, Rome, Italy (https://no-city.org/)

a.04 2022 - 2023 Ersmus+ scholarship - FAUP, UPORTO, Porto, Portugal a.03 2019 - present Integrated Master in Engineering and Architecture Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy a.02 03/07/2019 Art high school diploma - studies in Architecture and Environment (100/100). Liceo artistico F. Arcangeli, Bologna, Italy

(d) Achievements d.03 2025 From Sacred Trees to Mechanized Fields: Pictures of a Disappearing Landscape, Lara Cattani - paper selected in the next international Shifting Ruralities Symposium (NERU) - ULB Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta and CIVA, Brussels, Belgium d.02 2024 A Madder of Landscape, Lara Cattani, Catherine Yang, Eleonora Pavese - project seleted for the Prix du Projet de la Faculté d’Architecture La Cambre Horta and Projects Exibithion, accademic year 2023-2024. Bruxelles, Belgium

a.01 2017 Summer Junior English program EC Dublin, Dublin, Ireland (b) Work Experience b.03 10/2024 - 12/2024 Internship Taktyk - landscape and urbanism - Brussels, Belgium Assistant project leader in the development of a metropolitan cycle lane, analysis for the placement of a stormwater retention basin for the city of Brussels. b.02 2021 - 2024 Occasional collaboratoration INOVING Associate Engineering firm - Reggio Emilia, Italy Suastainability project management, direct surveys of real estate, cad drawigs, BIM 3D models, renders, collages, hydraulic management reports.

d.01 2023 Waterborders, Marta Marino, Hon Cho Lai, Lenka Zdravkovic, Lara Cattani, Alice M. Polaro - poster selected in DCE23 - Symposium on Spatial Planning, UPorto. Porto, Portugal (e) Pubblications e.01 M. Marino, H. C. Lai, L. Zdravkovic, L. Cattani, A. M. Polaro. “Waterborders” in Book of Abstracts DCE23 -Symposium on Spatial Planning, edited by F. B. Alves, C. Gonçalves, A. R. Sousa, J. Corgo, FEUP Edições, June 2023, pp. 95. ISBN: 978-972-752-304-7 (f) Language skills Italian - Level: Native

b.01 2017 Internship Rizoma Architecture - Bologna, Italy (c) Workshops and summerschools c.03 2024 NEW RURALITIES international summer class Lead by ULB, UDC, UMINHO, POLITO, ETH, and UACG Porto do Son, Galicia, Spain (https://newruralities.eu/)

English - Level: Advanced Franch - Level: Beginner (g) Technical skills Microsoft Office Suite, Autocad 2D and 3D, Lumion, Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Allplan, Metashape, QGIS, Hand Drafting, Physical Model Making.

Contents p.01 Shifting Ruralities

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p.02 A Madder of Landscape

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p.03 Waterborders

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p.04 Trail on the Island of the Interned

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p.05 Alongaline - Nocity

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SHIFTING RURALITIES thesis project 2025-in progress

SHIFTING RURALITIES

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Territorial Rewritings in-between Quaderna Streams [Thesis project - 2025-in progress]

University of Bologna La Cambre Horta - ULB Professors Matteo Agnoletto, Nadia Casabella 44°32’56.4”N 11°39’49.5”E The eastern Po Valley (Emilia-Romagna, Italy), between the Po River and Via Aemilia, is a fragmented yet uniformly artificial rural landscape. Subtle variations and small settlements interrupt its dominant agricultural pattern. This study examines the northeast Bologna plain, representative of the “Italian Holland”, where elevation changes are minimal. The current landscape results from continuous anthropogenic interventions, from Roman centuriation to centuries of reclamation, urbanization, and agricultural transformation. These processes erased the original marshland conditions, creating an entirely artificial environment. Natural forces have also shaped this landscape, leading to a persistent tension between human activity and nature. In the early 18th century, repeated hydraulic collapses led to an expansion of flooded lands. Maps reveal how former wheat and hemp fields were overtaken by reeds, reshaping the agrarian landscape, depopulating rural areas, and undermining prior hydraulic achievements. However, as the environment transformed, new adaptive strategies emerged, enabling alternative forms of profit. Cadastral maps highlight productive structures often concealed by urban plans. The marshlands—occupying Bologna’s northern plains at the time—emerge as dynamic landscapes, expanding and contracting in contrast to the rigidity of urban structures and the linearity of artif icial canals. Marsili’s manuscripts reveal how reeds, rushes, and fish formed the basis of marshland economies. His drawings integrate diverse knowledge systems, emphasizing the expertise of woodsmen, sailors, and fishermen. By depicting each environment with detailed annotations and sectional views akin to anatomical studies, Marsili conceived the land as an “organic structure”.

Above, Po Valley and Po Delta, with the extent of the research area highlighted in color. Below,the area of Fiorentina (Bologna, Italy), between the artificially channeled Quaderna stream and the former natural course (shown as a dashed line), now-buried. Source: personal elaboration.

Before the mechanization of agriculture in the 1950s, this landscape was defined by a more balanced relationship between human and natural elements, where religious, cultural, and social practices were deeply intertwined with agriculture and ecology. However, modernization has led to a shifting baseline syndrome—the tendency to accept the present-day artificial landscape as the norm, forgetting its historical transformations. Beyond its physical disappearance, this process threatens the memory of the pre-operational landscape3 within local communities. The mechanization of agriculture severed the bond between people and their land, erasing traditional agrarian rituals, vernacular cycles, and the sacred presence once embedded in the Italian countryside. However, aided by the law of inertia characterizing agrarian landscapes—such as the preservation of ancient centuriation layouts—it is still possible to trace historical imprints within the contemporary plain. These include now-vanished socially signifi cant landscape structures, such as the piantata bolognese, of which only faint remnants survive at the edges of fi elds—the last documented traces appear in RAF aerial photographs from 1944. This lost landscape encompassed the microcosm of austere rural life, punctuated by church bells from scattered pievi (rural churches).

The widespread presence of small brick chapels, often dedicated to the Madonna, refl ects a distinct rural phenomenon that contributed to the revival of the Italian agricultural landscape in the 17th century. In most cases, these chapels signaled localized demographic concentrations, with many pievi concealing older tree cults at their origins. The veneration of Marian images frequently began with their placement on large tree branches—often elms— functioning as natural shrines and archetypal oratories. This practice of pre-architecture, for which no physical evidence predating the 14th century survives, precedes formal design and responds to a fundamental human need for spirituality. Natural elements such as rivers, mountains, and trees have historically been interpreted as monumental, spontaneous non-human constructions, predating human architecture and serving as templates for its origins. By the 18th century, sacred tree traditions had nearly vanished in northern Italy, and during the 20th century, most pievi fell into ruin due to war and flooding. Even their remnants were later removed to facilitate agricultural mechanization. Today, the only surviving traces exist in scattered votive pillars, historical maps documenting their former locations, and the writings of local historians. Reintegrating the ecological and cultural dimensions of the landscape may be essential to resisting the homogenization of contemporary agriculture. How can the absence of the past elements inspire alternative models of rural development? What relationship did our ancestors have with water landscape of the past? A renewed perspective might view again the territory as an organic, stratified entity—a dynamic coexistence of human and non-human elements across time.

A MADDER OF LANDSCAPE

student project 2024

A MADDER OF LANSDCAPE

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[Student project - 2024]

La Cambre Horta - ULB Urban Nature Atelier Professors Nadia Casabella, Uri Wegman Bruxelles, Belgium Prix du projet de la Faculté d’Architecture La Cambre Horta 2023-2024 nomination 51°22’19.6”N 3°28’19.1”E

The Herritage of a Madder-Colored Landscape In the small village of Nieuwvliet on the seaside of Nederlands (approximately 400 permanent residents), in recent decades, the bond that the locals once had with the surrounding agricultural and maritime territory has weakened. The aggressive “touristification” of the area in the early 2000s has disrupted the natural relationships and activities that had been established over hundreds of years between the population and the rural landscape. What was once a cultural and productive landscape has now become a landscape commodified by the exploitation logic of tourism. The village is no longer having its former agricultural production vocation and it has been completely absorbed by the needs of nearby tourist establishments, worsening the quality of life for local residents, especially during the summer months. Many lands that were once cultivated have now been sold to large companies to build expanses of identical gray bungalows. The rural landscape is interrupted by these episodes of architectural monotony. During this process of “touristification,” much has been lost, including the ancient tradition of working with madder, a plant from which it is possible to obtain a natural purple dye through its drying process. The project consists of multiple parts distributed throughout the landscape of the municipality of Nieuwvliet, working synergistically to bring to light the traces of a lost production system. With the intention of diversifying the economic activities of the village, we have thought of involving the residents of Nieuwvliet in the production of this dye. The farm is configured through the conversion of an old barn between the coast and the center of the village, right where the rural landscape has now been “urbanized” by the camping bungalows. In this way, sending a message of reappropriation of agri-

cultural space by local residents. The barn has been converted into residences for seasonal workers who want to join the residents of Nieuwvliet during the winter months when the madder is sown and harvested. In summer, following a seasonal transformation process, it will become a residence for artists who want to experiment with new techniques of using the natural dye. Following a similar seasonal logic, a space located in the center of the village where the municipality’s house once stood will be reused. Here, only the ancient facade will be preserved, in continuity with the row of historic houses that characterize the street. Behind it, a space dedicated to the community will come to life, flexible and modular. A tall tower will be visible from the street, a kiln traditionally called Meesthof, a multi-level construction dedicated to the drying of madder. At the center of the kiln , a fire is lit to begin the drying process under a chimney of air and light; the environment created is imaginative, reviving the ancient lost spatiality. The expandable space in height can also be used as a meeting space in the winter months, for small concerts and gatherings. In summer, when the flux of tourists increases, these types of events will be moved outdoors to the park along with the mobile cafe, also called Core. There are still some ruins in the area that will be preserved and transformed into didactic madder garden, showing the triennal phases of growing of this plant. Finally, an open-air exhibition space will be placed as a filter between the park and the traffic of the nearby highway. The space will be able to accommodate the works of artists during the summer months, encouraging passersby to explore the rear side of the neighborhood that now only interacts with the highway.

Dorpo Futuro

Diagram of Madder Production System Program in Nieuwliet. Source: personal elaboration. (Cattani Lara, Catherine Yang, Eleonora Pavese).

The Four Seasons The temporary housing is a space to rest and socialise for seasonal workers in the summer, when seaside resorts are full of guests, it houses sheep15 in the colder months, and protects them from strong winds. When it is time to harvest the dyer’s madder plant (used to make red dye) towards the end of fall, a different crowd may occupy the space to take care of the harvest and drying of the roots.

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(b) Project masterplan for Nieuwvliet. Source: personal elaboration.

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On the page beside, Nieuwvliet landscape’s pictures: the countryside, the polder and the campings. Source: personal eleboration; Below, pictures related to the Mudder production environment. In this page, Axonometry drawing of the Madder Garden showing the seasonality concept, with the new kiln for the village. Source: personal elaboration.

On the page beside, Masterplan drawing of the Madder Garden. Source: personale elaboration. Below, north elevation, south elevation and north-south section of the Kiln building with the old facade in the main road of Nieuwvliet village. Source: personal elaboration.

In this page, Perspective drawing of the inside. Source: personal elaboration. On the page beside, The Core, functioning and modular expansion acros the seasons.

The Herritage of a Madder-Colored Landscape During this process of “touristifi cation,” much has been lost, including the ancient tradition of working with madder, a plant from which it is possible to obtain a natural red, pink or even yellow dye. Th e roots are best harvested after the fi rst frost in late fall or early winter, when the dye concentration is highest. It is a labor-intensive endeavour, as workers must pull three year old roots from the ground with forks without damaging them. Th e roots are then soaked in water for washing, and, once free of soil debris, they are roughly chopped into smaller pieces. Th en begins the drying process, where the roots must be dried slowly over a period of around 10 days. Back when madder was one of the most popular crops in Zeeland, the drying happened in kilns, on four levels that each accomodate a stage of the process. Nowadays, even though there are industrial dehydrating machines, the temperatures tend to be too high and too fast for an optimal dye extraction. Aft er the root pieces have dried, they are ground into a fi ne powder and can be used as pigment for textiles or paints (for example).

Ghosts Our attention to the ancient cultivation of madder arose from the search for a “ghost” within the peri-rural territory of the western Netherlands. Indeed, that cultivation has gradually disappeared, leaving only sparse traces of its past presence on the territory; some kilns, still remain today, confused among the average buildings of the towns in Zeeland. They have suff ered a less fortunate fate compared to that of the ancient windmills, which are now revered as tourist attractions. In fact, since the early 19th century, madder production has been in decline due to the invention of cheaper synthetic dyes. The production buildings, the meesthof, characterized by the typical multi-level brick drying towers, were gradually abandoned, some destroyed, others converted into residences. Our aim, therefore, is to initiate an active memory, a call to the past that is not contemplative and passive at all, but that can also actively produce results for the future.

In this page, Axonometry drawing of the Seasonal Housing showing the seasonality concep. Source: personal elaboration. On the page beside, ground and first floor plan of the Seasonal Housing; Perspective drawing of the bulding from the countryside. Source: personal elaboration. Source: personal elaboration.

Active recalling an inheritance With the intention of not further disrupting the delicate (dis)equilibrium that characterizes the territory of Nieuwvliet -already disturbed by the presence of campsites and the invasive unfolding of bungalows with very low architectural and environmental quality- we have sought to integrate into the context as quietly as possible. To achieve this, we have chosen, wherever possible, to reuse existing buildings such as the barn and the former community house, creating a synergy between old and new through the available elements, an active recalling of a tradition that was lost and then rediscovered. From a material perspective, we have also tried to maintain as much as possible the traces of each building’s past function, such as preserving the original facade in the village center, to avoid creating a discontinuity in the built fabric of the main street. Similarly, we have chosen to reuse materials like the bricks from the walls slated for demolition in the barn, repurposing them for new masonry, as you can see in the following drawings.

In this page, pictures of the model of the Seasonal Housing: aereal view, the courtyard from the old wall, the courtyard from the entrance.

WATERBORDERS student project 2023

WATERBORDERS

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[Student project - 2023] FAUP - University of Porto Professors Fernando B. Alves, Teresa C. Augusto Porto, Portugal 41°08’48.7”N 8°34’45.4”W

Rio Tinto as a new urban stitching for the city of Porto The eastern part of Porto has been identified as a priority area for the city’s urban policies, with a focus on physical, economic, and social regeneration. By addressing main contextualization factors, such as improving educational opportunities, promoting employment, upgrading housing conditions, leveraging the area’s biodiversity potential, and revitalizing the Rio Tinto, it is possible to foster sustainable development, enhance social well-being, and create a more vibrant and resilient Eastern zone within Porto. In developing our proposal, we focused on the Rio Tinto as a central element, observing how it interacts with the surrounding territory and the people who inhabit it. Our goal is to transform this existing blue-green infrastructure into a bridge that unifies the adjacent neighborhoods and establishes a resilient management system for the city’s territory by creating a comprehensive green network. An important factor influencing our decision was the park’s proximity to the eastern border of the city, an area often overlooked by development policies and characterized by a high concentration of social housing and low-income families. By developing this green network, we aim to provide the community with suitable, healthier, and safer spaces to spend time in, ultimately creating a more livable environment for everyone. The Rio Tinto flows through this specific area of the city, and our concept of Riverborders seeks to expand the boundaries of the park to encompass the adjacent neighborhoods, establishing direct connections between them, the park, and the river. Our objective is to reestablish the city’s relationship with its rivers, rekindle the connection between citizens and flowing water, and bring significance to border areas. Through our proposal, we aim to shift the focus back to these border areas and embrace their distinctive qualities, creating mixed-use spaces that offer a sense of vitality and uniqueness.

Below, Mapping of Alluvial and Floodable Area in the Municipality of Porto and Mapping of the Study Area/ Site. Source: personal elaboration. On the page beside, Water Lines over the City of Porto, Source: personal elaboration. (Alice Polaro, Hon Chio Lai, Lara Cattani, Lenka Zdravkovic, Marta Marino)

On the page beside, Masterplan. Source: personal elaboration. Below, The Stramp and Pedestrian Bridge Concept, Pedestrian Bridge in Axonometry Prjection, Illustration of the “Fitas”. Source: Personal Elaboration.

TRAIL ON THE ISLAND OF THE INTERNED

student project 2022

TRAIL ON THE ISLAND OF THE INTERNED

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[Student project - 2022]

University of Bologna Professor Matteo Agnoletto Bologna, italy 44°55’02.0”N 10°36’52.5”E

Po Riverbank between the emptiness and the possibility of filling it Our project is part of the “Conservation of Memory” initiative that has focused on the territories of the municipality of Gualtieri (RE) in recent years. Specifically, our design activity has concentrated on the riverbank area, a territory steeped in the events of the First World War, where nature still clearly prevails over human intervention. It is indeed the latter element that sometimes adapts to adverse conditions, while at other times it simply allows itself to be overwhelmed. During our site visits to Gualtieri and the riverbank, we have observed how these places continuously refer to each other, almost invisibly. Searching for these echoes from one place to another, we discovered that what the city, the poplar grove, the square, the arch, and the riverbank have in common is emptiness, thetrivial possibility of being filled or crossed. And it is here that the theme of water comes into play, to which we have decided to relate creating shaded areas, community spaces, connections to the history of the place, and privileged observation points towards nature. We have thus chosen as the core of our project the development of one of the minor paths of the Gualtieri riverbank, the one that centrally traverses the Island of the Interned. The project is articulated into three interdependent architectural episodes that spontaneously arise among the vegetation and have the task of explicating to the visitor the character of the place in which they find themselves. The first to emerge among the vegetation is the chapel, located on a lateral branch of the path, nestled in a clearing directly overlooking the water. The arch that allows access frames the sky of the riverbank above and a narrow opening on the opposite wall. From here, a steep staircase - too narrow to be physically traversed - descends to the waters of the Po River, evoking the baptismal gestures of the Christian religion, whereby man descends into the waters.

The second architectural episode is a theater, but also an outdoor shaded space, and finally an elevated observatory. Drawing from the square shape of the space representing the community of Gualtieri par excellence, the central square. Here is also the 60-seat theater enclosed in a thin glass membrane, permeable to the external landscape. Finally, we wanted to conclude this journey by bringing people close to those boats stranded among the sands. We were interested in creating a new viewpoint, so we thought of a series of walkways that descend below the level of the path and approach the water until partially submerging like metal hulls alongside the wrecks.

Below, Project Morphema, the typical poplar plantations that characterize the project area. Source: personal elaboration, Lara Cattani and Anita Surace. On the page beside, Project Masterplan Source: personal elaboration, Lara Cattani and Anita Surace.

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On the page beside, model views, showing the water behaviour of golena’s environment. In this page, model view of the Theater and the Poplars Chaple. Source: personal elaboration.

On the page beside, Axonometry view of the golena park. In this page, model viewa of the Theater and the Water Walkways. Source: personal elaboration.

ALONGALINE-NOCITY summerschool 2022

ALONGALINE-NOCITY

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[Summerschool - 2022]

Lead by Università degli Studi Roma Tre, TUDelft, AA School of Architecture, IUAV, UniCam, ENSA Versailles Poggio Nativo, Reatini mountains, Rome, Italy 42°13’12.6”N 12°48’01.0”E

The Urban Remains Unseen Described as a complex and unknowable phenomenon, the ‘no-city’, which has succeeded the construction of the historical city, is described by Lefebvre as a ‘blind field’ something we can only partially know. “We see only things, operations, objects, forces, and tensions” but we are unable to know and understand them entirely or to define their shape. Exploring the territory of the Reatine Mountains and the Farfa Valley, we tried to reveal some of the hidden forces and relationships embedded into the landscapes; visioning potential socio-spatial transformations; anticipating the processes of the urban logics.

On the Rrght Mapping the case study area. Source: personal elaboration Lara Cattani and Ting-Yu Chao. In the page next page Mapping Casaprota municipality and Farfa valley. Source: personal eleboration, Lara Cattani and Ting-Yu Chao.

1, 3, 6 Final exibition in San Pietro cloister, Poggio Nativo (RI), Italy. 2 A sale announcement of a crop of 55 olive trees with direct spring water (Casaprota, Lazio. Credits: Lara Cattani). 3 Final exibition in San Pietro cloister, Poggio Nativo (RI), Italy. 4, 5 Olive crops in Farfa Valley (RI), Italy.

Sabina: the Urban, the Rural and the Global [essay] I’ve been in Casaprota in September 2022. A small village of 693 inhabitants (2022) between Rieti an Rome, connected through the ancient roman road Salaria and close to Farfa river (tributary of the Tiber). For centuries olive gowing has played a major role in this rarea of Lazio called Sabina, with hectares of olive groves surrounding hill towns as part of a strong deep-rooted farming tradition. The key to the cultivation of the olive is the presence of water on site. There are numerous cases of crops with their own spring from which water is drawn directly for irrigation. But in most of the hilly areas of Sabina olive trees cultivation is shrinking, why? Nowadays, we can see how much of the mass market in olive oil is controlled by foreign companies especially Spanish. Moreover, demographic surveys show that since the 1950s economic boom there has been increasing depopulation in Sabina area. When global urbanisation happened the traditional productive and social model in Sabina –and in many inner areas of Italy- didn’t resist to the change of paradigm. Finally, many activities linked to the territory see the olive cultivations as an idealised scenery, but in facts it’s a reality in danger. Next to Rome, the urban sprawl has reached the Sabina, transformed some farmhouses into second homes to escape from chaotic city life. Various streams of urban ecological thought conceive urbanisation as a sociometabolic process. From this point of view, cities are supported by diverse metabolic inputs (labour, materials, fuel, water and food) and then outputs (like waste) absorbed back into non-city zones. We should adopt a multiscalar aproach for understand what happens not only in cities but also in landscapes of commodity production. In our case, Metropolitan area of Rome keep expanding incorporating low-density development. The unfolding urbanisation require ‘countryside’ for consumption, both in terms of production and of leisure time. In the age of planetary urbanisation, this position is undeniable: city/hinterland relations lie at the heart of the contemporary urban problematique.

In this moment, exploitation of Sabina lands mostly occurs in terms of primary commodities, water that has always been the only wealth of this territory, now, it has been privatized in exclusive favour of the increasing demand of water consumption from Rome’s urban agglomeration. In a planetary urbanisation scenario, where only the capitalist logic of profit counts, restoration of the ecosystem balance is directly combined with restoration of the traditional olive trees cultivation. Not for increasing olive groves productivity through intensive farms (which could happen in a worst-case scenario) but in a potential regulated agro-tourism perspective. This type of tourism remains one of the few opportunities to attract the necessary funds to restore the social, economic and environmental fabric of such a depopulated territory. Possible trends within olive landscapes and economies can be discussed and the administrations should consider new perspectives in agry-forestry strategies combined with an increase of ecotourism practice. The latter, if properly regulated can create greater environmental awareness and preserve the cultural heritage of the area, in order to enhance and transmit it to future generations. Oil economies and olive landscapes should be seen as main components of such ever broader ‘urban domain’ and be at the core of any regional planning instruments and policies, for the material preservation of this cultural landscape. In conclusion, the importance lies in the persistence of land use, which makes olive farming an enduring cultural practice facing the increasing planetary urbanisation. So, the questions are: What is the new meaning of olive trees landscape today? How can we manage this land use to find a balance? And who ho will take care of this landscape in the future?

On the next page a collage with three different scenarios for Sabina (Casaprota (RI), Italy). Source: personal elaboration, Lara Cattani and Ting-Yu Chao.