Laura Villa Baroncelli

Ph.D. candidate in Architettura. Storia E Progetto , 38th cycle (2022-2025)
Department of Architecture and Design (DAD)

Profile

PhD

Research topic

The thesis explores, at a global scale, how border fortification operates as a spatial device that reshapes urban morphology, generating fragmentation and discontinuity.

Tutors

Research interests

City
Built Environment
Urban Code
Urban management
Urban Morphology
Cultural Landscapes
Cartography

Biography

After earning a degree in Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, she moved to Paris, where she completed a second degree in Human and Social Sciences at Université Paris V René Descartes – Sorbonne. In parallel, she began a professional career in photography, which has since developed alongside her visual and theoretical research. In 2015, she interviewed Yona Friedman and deepened her interest in urban studies, which would go on to shape her subsequent investigations. That same year, she moved to Arcosanti (Arizona), where she collaborated with the Paolo Soleri archives and the Cosanti Foundation until 2019, developing projects of visual documentation and curatorial research.
Her photographic work has appeared in numerous international publications, including The New York Times Magazine (T), Le Monde (M), D – la Repubblica, Il Sole 24 Ore, AD Italia, Forbes, and Vogue. She contributes to Il Giornale dell’Architettura and has published in academic journals including Officina – Journal of Architecture, Technology and Environment.
She currently lives in New York City, where she combines her visual practice with doctoral research focused on the relationship between urban morphology and territorial control infrastructures. Her project investigates the spatial effects of fortified borders through a comparative approach that integrates satellite data, archival sources, and critical visual analysis, with particular attention to morphological fragmentation and the erosion of spatial conditions that sustain access and continuity in public space.

Publications

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