Elisa Cattaneo

Graham Foundation Grant Recipient in 2014, She is Adjunct Professor in Landscape Design at the Politecnico di Milano. She researches experimental ecological urbanism and its theoretical implications.
In 2015 she is selected and invited candidate for the WheelWright Prize, award of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, the research grant that is awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work inside the international panorama of Design.
In 2004, after a degree cum laude in Architecture and Urban Planning, she attended the European Master in Strategic Planning for the Architectural, Urban and Environmental Resources. In 2009, she completed a PhD with Merit in Architectural and Urban Design, defending the thesis Void Density: a Relational Approach for Urban Design. In 2010, she was Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developing the research project: Space, Place, Context, Landscape: the Hermeneutical Circle US-Europe since 1956. In 2011-2012, she was Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, developing the research project: WeakCity: Notes on Landscape Urbanism.
She is founder and director of an independent research agency Weakcircus, active in studies, research, and project development in contemporary urbanism within the Theory of Weakness.
She is co-founder and co-director of B.L.U.E. (Building Ecological and Landscape Urbanism), platform of research on landscape as new strategy for contemporary cities. Since 2002, she has been the principal of her firm, active in public projects and international competitions.