Guest editors: Alejandro Aravena, Michela Bassanelli, Agim Kërçuku, Matteo Poli
From the middle of the afternoon, after the violent tremors and rumbling pushing up from deep in the earth, the Tohoku area and its vicinity was cut off from everything. It was then that the wall of water came pressing in from the sea, swallowing up the coastal area. The wall enveloped everything, surging inland with a momentum that eclipsed past experiences and records, engulfing people and houses forcefully wresting them away from the land before receding back in the direction of the sea. Ishizawa M., 2025, The Place of Shells. New York: New Directions Books, 19-20.
In recent years, post-disaster reconstruction has been increasingly recognised as an opportunity not only to restore damaged areas, but also to innovate and integrate new values that strengthen communities. While it is true that, on the one hand, the debate on architecture and urban design for post-disaster reconstruction has often focused on the immediate aftermath of a disaster, when humanitarian response and technical expertise prevail, on the other hand, the medium- and long-term dimensions of reconstruction have received less consideration. This issue aims to address the complexity of reconstruction following events of various kinds, including earthquakes, tsunamis, forest and urban fires, floods and inundations, soil erosion, extreme drought and phenomena linked to climate change. However, it is essential to make a clear distinction between the emergency response (day zero, rescue and first aid) and the actual reconstruction process. This special issue focuses on the latter, intended as a “reconstruction handbook” for those who are actually dealing with the problem in the field.
The reconstruction is a plural, negotiated process, in which social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors are as decisive as technical ones. We are not interested in a purely conceptual or terminological approach, but in a technical and realistic account of “how it was done”. These studies emphasise that post-disaster reconstruction unfolds through interactions and negotiations between multiple actors, and that the quality of reconstruction depends on the collective ability to manage this complexity. In this sense, a crisis must be seen as an opportunity to implement changes that would be impossible under normal circumstances.
These perspectives have been further advanced by research initiatives and exhibitions that critically reinterpret disasters and their aftermath (e.g. “Reporting from the Front”, 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2016; the “Home-for-All project”, 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2012; “Casa per tutti. Abitare la città globale”, Triennale, 2008). We invite contributions that report on case studies, analysing the scale of the disaster, the economic costs and the time required for reconstruction. We recognise that every type of event – whether it be an earthquake that destroys the built environment or a flood that redefines the boundaries between land and water – poses specific challenges and requires different technical and urban planning solutions. We are interested in both success stories and emblematic failures.
Furthermore, while large-scale projects have often attracted attention, small-scale interventions implemented with limited resources have also proven effective in establishing lasting social and spatial value for affected communities. In these contexts, the home emerges as a central element, a place that accommodates daily practices, social relations and community identity, and which can be transformed incrementally through informal, adaptive or self-build strategies. It is also essential to investigate the “unexpected outcomes” of the emergency (corruption, organised crime, land speculation) and the issue of “follow the money”: understanding where the funds come from, the constraints they entail, and how they navigate across different ministries and public systems.
Key features of these innovative efforts include participatory design, ecological and social responsibility, awareness of resources, and integration with local contexts, materials, and people’s daily lives. More recently, the concept of “Building Back Better” has encapsulated the ambition to go beyond restoration towards greater long-term resilience. However, these approaches, while promising, remain the exception rather than the norm in post-disaster reconstruction worldwide.
The aim is to map how reconstruction can mitigate future risks, for example by transforming areas prone to erosion into resilient parks or rethinking building materials in areas at high risk of fire. The special issue aims to gather contributions that go beyond traditional academia, opening up to “irregular scholars”, practitioners, economists and finance experts, and actors working in affected territories. The goal is to provide real tools and lessons learned from experience (e.g., the evolution of building codes after each disaster) for anyone who has to respond to similar situations in different parts of the world.
Territorio’s Call for Abstracts aims to explore what reconstruction means today, what conditions influence its outcomes, and how different strategies operate across different locations and scales. We invite authors to submit an abstract of up to 300 words and one relevant drawing or image (black and white), identifying one of the three reference sections below (Themes and Projects, Visual Essay, Paths).
Please also include in addition to the abstract the following information: short biography of author(s) and keywords (maximum 3).
Please submit your abstract by May 15, 2026, to: agim.kercuku@polimi.it and michela.basanelli@polimi.it
After submitting your abstract, you will be notified of the decision by June 15.
If accepted, you will then be asked to submit your full article by October 30.
Languages: Italian and English. Accepted articles must comply with the journal’s editorial guidelines and be submitted through the Territorio platform. Detailed instructions will be provided upon acceptance.
Sections
Themes and projects
This section is dedicated to the publication of individual contributions that address research topics on case studies aligned with the call. Articles must not exceed 30,000 characters, including spaces and footnotes, but excluding the bibliography. The text must be accompanied by up to five drawings or images (black and white).
Visual essay
This section welcomes contributions in the form of visual essays consisting of a maximum of 8 images (black and white), a title and a short text of 2,500 characters, including spaces.
Paths
This section welcomes critical texts dealing with topics that combine relevant books, exhibitions, events, and educational experiences that offer a distinctive perspective on the subjects of the call, with a maximum length of 12,000 characters, including spaces.
https://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/sommario/63/territorio
ISSN 1825-8689 ISSNe 2239-6330