We believe in the power of sensual spaces not only because sensuality is a source of knowledge and pleasure but also because it has the ability to generate affections of care and exploration and these affects, could have the competence to safeguard us and our planet since it is part of human nature to take care of what we love.

Ilaria Di Carlo Architects is an office of Architecture and Urban Design based in Rome and working worldwide. Our international career in several different countries has exposed us to different contexts, landscapes, cultures and practices that have enriched our background, sensibility and knowledge enabling us to read and interpret the most diverse places. Places in terms of context and identity, together with a specific interest in ecological processes, aesthetics practices and transdisciplinarity, are at the core of our methodological design process.
The importance in every project of integrating a concept with a landscape, climate and light, local materials as well as techniques and practices at the different scales of the design process becomes the occasion to experiment new strategies in order to reach an original solution in terms of quality of the space and its aesthetic dimension, functionality, flexibility, and resiliency.
Different tools are used to pursue our objective: from the most traditional ones, hand sketches and physical models, to the most technically advanced such as digital drawings, 3Dmodels and renderings, results also of our academic research.
A fundamental part of the project is represented by the client’s vision and the users of the project who are a primary part of the process since the very beginning: their role is essential and their involvement is ensured by continuous communication and participation.

Ilaria Di Carlo is an architect, urban planner, writer and researcher.
Graduated with Honors at the Polytechnic of Milan in 2000, she obtained a Master in Landscape Urbanism at the Architectural Association in London the following year.
She has worked for different international offices and was an Associate at Skidmore Owings and Merrill, London.
In 2011 she founded her own practice Ilaria Di Carlo Architects, a multidisciplinary award winning design research based company.
In 2016 Ilaria concluded her PHD research in Environmental Engineering at the University of Trento, obtaining the title of Doctor Europaeus with the her thesis entitled “The Aesthetics of Sustainability. Systemic thinking and self-organization in the evolution of cities” which also became a book.
Ilaria’s work has been exhibited and published in various occasions at the Venice Biennale, the Rotterdam Biennale (NAI) and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London.
She complements her work in the office with research as well as teaching activity: she has been visiting tutor at the Polytechnic of Milan, the Architectural Association, the Bartlett School of Architecture, the Westminster School of Architecture in London and the University of Trento and from 2009 to 2013 she was appointed UCL Teaching Fellow in the Master in Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London.
Ilaria is currently History& Theory tutor in the B-Pro MArch in Urban Design (RC15)  and in Architecture Design (RC8) at the same school and she is Director of the AAVisiting School Milan, an academic partnership between the Architectural Association and the Polytechnic of Milan.
She lectures worldwide and regularly participates as speaker at international symposiums and conferences. She is also the author of numerous articles and scientific papers.
Her research interest focus on the importance of aesthetics, revisited through the lenses of systemic thinking, complexity theory and transdisciplinarity, in the sustainable design of city and territory.

Doctor Europaeus in Environmental Engineering
AAMA in Landscape Urbanism_Architectural Association
March (Hons) Polytechnic of Milan