Francesca Rizzetto
I am an architect and urban designer, working across scales from the territory to the architectural project. Over the past ten years, I have worked in regional planning, urban design and architecture, developing a particular interest in places where environmental fragility and processes of urbanisation come into direct contact.
My work explores how politics and economic processes become spatial, and how they intersect with polluted landscapes, ecological systems and everyday environments. I am particularly interested in situated forms of urban design: ways of working that begin with the specific conditions, histories and conflicts of a territory rather than with predefined solutions.
I currently pursue these interests as a researcher within the Delta Urbanism group at TU Delft, where I investigate the relationships among space, ecology, culture, and politics in highly dynamic delta landscapes. Alongside my academic work, I continue to practice independently, working with public and private clients in Italy and the Netherlands.
Exemplary graduation projects I supervised, related to the themes of the cluster:
2025-26
G.A. Cappa. (2026) Genua Liquens: Speculating a Fluid City from the Coastal Interface. Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Arjan van Timmeren. (link)
G.W. Simons. (2026) Mining Material Resiliency: Designing Frameworks Of Resilient Public Spaces Through Direct Circularity.
Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Arjan van Timmeren. (link)
A.F.P.L. van der Nat. (2026) Reclaiming the Isla: How to remediate and redeveloped the Isla refinery, to benefit Curaçao’s local citizens, ecosystems and economies. Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Arjan van Timmeren. (link)
F.B. Kaaij. (2025) To The Next level: Redefining the Common between the Horizontal and Vertical realm. Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Erwin Heurkens. (link)
F.M. Schepel. (2025) Fluid Borders: Exploring re-B/ordering the Dutch-Belgian Border at Zeeuws-Vlaanderen. Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Laura Cipriani. (link)
V.K. Bansal. (2025) Banishing or Embracing: Adaptive strategies for achieving dynamic water equilibrium in a climate-responsive Rhine basin. (link) Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Claudiu Forgaci.
M.C. Kruizinga. (2025) A playce like home: A play-focused approach to designing a nostopia. Mentors: Francesca Rizzetto, Machiel van Dorst. (link)
T.G. Brouwer. (2026) Time moves tide: Exploring a resilient future for small islands in the Wadden Sea. Mentors: Fransje Hooimeijer, Francesca Rizzetto. (link)
K.T. Hauge. (2026) Arctic as Territory: An intrumentalization of offshore urbanization towards Arctic agency. Mentors: Nikos Katsikis, Francesca Rizzetto (link)
S.M. Tönsmann. (2026) Ground, in Motion: A Regenerative Framework for the Vietnamese Mekong Deltas Operational Landscape. Mentors: Nikos Katsikis, Francesca Rizzetto. (link)
A. Stolyarova. (2026) Moscow state of mind: From Object to Subject: A Metamorphosis towards Context-Sensitive Urban Futures. Mentors: Diego Andres Sepulveda Carmona, Francesca Rizzetto. (link)
D.D. Vermeij. (2026) Poldering Between Landscape Layers: A landscape-based urbanism approach for a climate resilient and authentic peat-polder landscape. Mentors: Steffen Nijhuis, Francesca Rizzetto. (link)
F. Kovács. (2025) Towards a Transformative Battery Territory: A Spatial Exploration of Response-able Future Pathways for North-East Hungary.
Mentors: Alexander Wandl, Francesca Rizzetto. (link)
