With a commitment to valuing the existing fabric and respecting local heritage, MOTU engages with context through the urban ground floor as a space of interaction, solidarity and negotiation. With attention to all forms of life, the studio explores practices in which urban nature and wilderness act as catalysts for ecological and social transition, creating new forms of encounter and fostering new approaches to design and a shared culture of nature in the city.
Projects are conceived as evolving processes — a form of authorship that unfolds over time through observation, dialogue, and a series of coordinated, incremental, and flexible actions. At every scale, from large territorial frameworks to the intimacy of daily life, each intervention is rooted in local context and draws on the rhythms, practices, and memories that shape it. The studio uses artistic and investigative methods to engage with context, reveal its character, build common ground, and open dialogue with residents. This approach enables the office to support urban transformation as a situated and attentive process.
By recognizing the richness of inhabited landscapes — where nature, people, and cultural heritage intersect — MOTU cultivates a project culture inspired by design practice, rooted in process and oriented toward transition. It responds to the built environment and embraces the city as a lived experience, moving with agility between strategic vision and concrete implementation to shape renewed ways of inhabiting cities and territories.
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All images and sketches featured on this page are part of a personal research project by Filippo Medolago - MOTU, developed within the framework of Urban Domesticity. They form part of an ongoing exploratory work, focusing on the relationships between nature, urban ground, and ecological aesthetics.