Towards resilient communities through prototypes for human-centered public spaces. Interview with Marcella Del Signore

Architect, urbanist, educator, scholar, and the principal of X-Topia, a design-research practice that explores the intersection of architecture and urbanism with technology and the public, social, cultural, and cognitive realm. She has been involved in evidence-based research and applied-design projects investigating the intersection of architecture, urbanism, emerging technology, livability, and emotional/cognitive spaces. She is an Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Science in Architecture, Urban Design at New York Institute of Technology. Since 2007, she has taught Architecture and Urban Design in international institutions of higher education in the USA and Europe, and in 2019 she received the NYIT Presidential Award for the integration of Technology and in 2023 the Outstanding Faculty Research Award. She has published five books on urbanism, human-centered design, and emerging technologies, including Urban Machines: Public Space in a Digital Culture (LISTLab, 2018; OROEditions 2020) and "Data, Matter, and Design" (Routledge, 2020). She co-curated the Data and Matter exhibition during the 2018 Architecture Venice Biennale. She was invited to exhibit at the 17th Architecture Venice Biennale in 2021 in the Italian Pavilion Resilient Communities, and she was the deputy curator of the NYIT Students as Researchers Collateral Event at the 18th Architecture Venice Biennale in 2023.