Ecology

Ecology, for Rural Futures, is not a separate “environmental” chapter appended to design; it is the lens through which territories are read, interpreted, and transformed. We investigate how architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture interact with soils, water systems, biodiversity, and climate, as well as with cultural heritage—understood not as a static backdrop, but as living evidence of past practices and ways of inhabiting. Every landscape is simultaneously an archive and an infrastructure: it records conflict and adaptation, while also revealing capacities for regeneration.

Our approach is both cultural and operative. Through field research, mapping, historical inquiry, and project-based experimentation, we consider places as socio-ecological systems shaped by ecoregions, local economies, mobility networks, and urban metabolisms. We are interested in how the actions of architects, planners, and landscape architects can reduce harm, repair relationships, and cultivate new forms of stewardship—from water management and ecological corridors to the performance of open spaces, housing, and local productive landscapes.

For us, ecology also implies re-inhabitation: developing strategies to repopulate rural communities and small villages facing decline by mobilizing local resources and shared heritage. It likewise means learning from the countryside to imagine more resilient, frugal, and solidaristic cities—urban futures capable of coexisting with the environments that sustain them over time.