The thesis investigates the role of architectural practice in engaging with the systemic fragility and uncertain futures of the Cadore region in the Italian Alps. Initially guided by the question of architecture’s agency in the Alpine context, the research gradually evolved into a deeper interrogation: does the territory require architectural intervention at all? Through a multi-scalar and interdisciplinary methodology, The Cadore region is framed as a complex palimpsest - where ecological, infrastructural, and symbolic forces intersect and co-produce the landscape. Architecture is not positioned as a solution, but as a medium of observation, representation, and care. Central to this approach is the reactivation of the Ex-Cementificio Marchino, a former cement factory in Castellavazzo that once played a pivotal role in transforming the Alpine landscape into a resource-extraction machine during the era of the Great Acceleration. The factory’s current state as an industrial ruin offers a critical lens through which to examine the legacies of extraction and territorial violence, while also opening spatial and conceptual opportunities to reframe architecture’s role in a post-industrial Alpine context.

The design engages with the complexities of brownfield reuse in the mountainous landscape, reinterpreting the former cement factory not as a static object, but as a dynamic form in transformation. The factory, once instrumental in supplying materials for hydroelectric infrastructures, has been reimagined as a "landscape" from which to extract meaning and material rather than mere resources. The project is realised through a phased strategy of dismantling, re-scaling and recomposition. This process serves to reduce the alien monumentality of the industrial artefact, thereby initiating a process of contextual digestion. This process involves the demolition of parts of the structure and the reappropriation of their debris. Consequently, the factory becomes the quarry. The final phase of the transformation process involves the introduction of new architectural elements, constructed using the processed remnants of the original building. These interventions are designed to support a new programme, which involves the establishment of a basecamp for landscape observation, environmental monitoring, and community engagement. The site functions as both civic infrastructure and territorial lens, and is embedded within a broader network of observation points across the Caodre region.
The reconfigured ruin, articulated along a path that connects it to a newly designed inhabited wall, now acts as a spatial and symbolic filter between the former machine and its surrounding landscape. Through this mediation process, the site's context is progressively restored, healing the scars left by past extraction regimes and reorienting it towards novel perspectives and connections with the site itself.

The Room for the River project stands as a stepping stone in water management strategies, distinguished by a paradigmatic shift in Dutch water culture towards decentralization of the decision-making process and spatial quality embedded in spatial planning projects. The research presents a comprehensive analysis of the program, focusing on the case study of Nijmegen, through interviews with relevant stakeholders, revealing insights into the planning process, its execution, and the final outcome.
The pivotal concepts of decentralization of the decision-making process towards a bottom-up approach, and the one of spatial quality strongly embedded in the design phase, are analyzed and discussed, first on a general level and then relating to the specific case study.
The outcome of the project is analyzed through the interviews, understanding the point of view of the involved stakeholders and their perception on the execution of the works, and discerned with the mapping tool, comparing the information gathered personally during visits on site to the information extracted from the interviews. Moreover, challenges such as the unforeseen uses of the designed spaces are taken into consideration in the personal analysis and discussed at the end of the research, providing possible implementation to the process for the future.