Contributor

Born in Cuneo, she has a BA in Humanities from Parma University, where her thesis was based on the character of Medea. After a decade in classic ADV agencies, she currently is a Creative Director, a consultant for several Nonprofit Organizations and an author. She writes short stories, screenplays, reviews, travel reports and obsessive to-do lists. She coauthored the lyrics of an album with singer-songwriter Sarah Stride. Traveling has always saved her life.

Susanna Antico, IALD, has a degree in architecture. She was the founder of the architectural lighting consultancy Susanna Antico Lighting Design Studio, active in Milan, Italy, from 1995 to 2023. 
Antico’s research, teaching, and practice focus on creating a sustainable nighttime identity for the urban environment. She has developed lighting master plans and many urban lighting projects, recognized by awards and numerous professional publications in Italy and abroad. 

Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator of Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research & Development.

Her work investigates design’s impact on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices, and combining design, architecture, art, science, and technology.

Among her most recent exhibitions are the XXII Triennale di Milano Broken Nature and MoMA’s Material Ecology, on the groundbreaking work of architect Neri Oxman.

Alberto Apostoli was born in Verona in 1968, graduating in Architecture in Venice in 1993 and at the same time studying and working in various European countries. In 1997 he founded Studio Apostoli, characterized by a multifaceted professional vocation, a consequence of his personal career. In 2006 he held his first personal exhibition in the seat of the European Parliament in Brussels entitled “Architecture contaminated between Communication and Design”. In the same year he opened a studio in Guangzhou (China) and in 2007 a representative office in Casablanca.

He took his degree in Architecture from the Catholic University of Chile in 1992, becoming self-employed in 1994. Director of the Venice Architecture Biennale (2016). He spoke at TEDGlobal (2014) and was a member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury (2009-2015). He became an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects – RIBA (2010). He taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2000-2005) and was a Visiting Professor at the IUAV University in Venice (2005). He now chairs the Pritzker Jury.

My first step into the nautical industry was 18 years ago when, during my Interior Design course, I took the opportunity to intern for a company that fitted out public spaces aboard large cruise ships. "What is the difference between a large ship and a house?" It was this very question that drove me to seek out answers and step into a world that was completely new to me.

Joni Baboci is an architect, planner, knowledge-seeker and all-around urban enthusiast. He is currently the senior advisor for urban planning to the Mayor of Tirana. He has previously led the city's urban planning and development department as well as a governmental planning start-up dealing with national and regional strategic planning. Joni has executed planning, design & development projects at different scales on national and local levels. He has consulted on urbanism and planning for various cultural and multilateral institutions.

Francesca Balena Arista is an architect, a PhD in industrial design, and a member of the Italian Association of Design Historians. She teaches at the Politecnico di Milano’s School of Design, and at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Milan.

Her monograph Poltronova Backstage: Archizoom Sottsass and Superstudio. The Radical Era 1962-1972, was published by Fortino Editions Miami.

Mattia Balsamini (1987, Italy) is a photographer. He began his studies at the Brooks

Institute of California, graduating with an Honourable Mention in 2011. He worked as a studio assistant and archivist at David LaChapelle’s studio in 2010.

Born in Tokyo in 1957. Graduated from the Cooper Union. Started working for Arata Isozaki & Associates in 1982. Founded Shigeru Ban Architects in 1985. Became consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1995. Established the NGO, Voluntary Architects' Network (VAN) in the same year to support disaster relief. Selected works include Centre Pompidou- Metz, Oita Prefecture Art Museum, Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre, Shizuoka, Musical Complex of La Seine Musicale, and Swatch Omega Headquarters.

Italian by birth, Brazilian by choice, she has always gone to and fro between both countries.  She took her degree from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of di São Paulo in Brazil in 1979,  obtaining degree equivalency from the Polytechnic of Milan in 1985.

Valia Barriello, architect and Ph.D. in Design, works professionally in Milan. She combines architectural planning with constant research on design and product through writing, university collaboration and curating exhibitions. From 2011 to 2015 she directed the design column for Artribune. He has collaborated with a number of design publications, including: Living, Domus, Artribune, Artemest, The House in Order, Exibart. 

Silvia Anna Barrilà is a freelance journalist and consultant. She has covered the art market and collecting for the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore since 2008, and has taught the Masters Managing Art and Cultural Heritage course at the  24 Ore Business School since 2011. She co-founded Collective, an association of Italian collectors, set up to support the art system in Italy, and is responsible for the content of its dedicated website. She has been working on her Contemporary Art Galleries project, a platform that collects interviews with contemporary art gallerists, since 2015.

Laura Barsottini (Milan, 1964) is a freelance professional journalist with 33 years’ experience with a number of Mondadori publications (from Sorrisi and Canzoni to Icon Design, by way of Donna Moderna, Panorama, CasaFacile and Cosmopolitan) and collaborations with daily newspapers behind her, experiences that have enabled her to see publishing products from the inside, with all their pros and cons.

Yves Béhar, Founder and CEO of fuseproject, is a designer and entrepreneur who believes that integrated product, brand and experience design are the cornerstones of any business. Béhar has pioneered design as a force for positive social and environmental change. 

His humanitarian work includes the One Laptop Per Child and See Better to Learn Better, which has distributed 6 million free corrective eyeglasses to schoolchildren in Mexico for the last 10 years. He received the INDEX Award for these projects, making him the only designer to have received the award twice.