Qualified Architect in Italy, Valeria holds a Ph.D. in “Technology and Design for Environmental Quality at Urban and Building scale” at the Politecnico di Milano, Milan (Italy), with a research focused on the potentials offered in the architecture field, to make design decisions that allow environmentally friendly scenarios during the whole life-cycle of the built environment.

The research, supervised by professor Alessandra Zanelli, highlighted the increasingly critical relationship between the high ecological footprint of the built environment and the contemporary needs of more flexible and shorter-term uses of space, which dramatically shorten the cycle from production to waste. The end-of-life scenarios of buildings (maintenance, renovation, adaptations and disposal) were therefore particularly investigated. Analysis of existing case studies and assessment tools pointed out the close link between the design phase of a building and future opportunities to reverse the construction process, to recover material resources for a second useful life, formerly referred to as reversible design. Broader goal of the research was to promote design in a life-cycle thinking view, considering and planning the lifespan of the designed system for an eco-friendly and intelligent use of resources along its lifetime.

She then won a Research Fellowship on “Environmental analysis and assessments of embodied and useful energy at building and product scale” project, coordinated by Politecnico di Milano and ANDIL Assolaterizi, whose main aim was to improve the advanced knowledge of energy use and carbon emission reductions in buildings.

She conducted the research “Design and eco-friendly end of life scenarios in construction field”, a project supported by Regione Lombardia and co-funded by European Social Fund, and whose main output was a database for construction materials and components, related to construction performance, environmental data and end of life scenarios information. At POLIMI she has been an active member of the academic community, co-tutoring final dissertations and thesis, and working on a number of project teams: she has been a former member of the Research Unit SPACE (experimental process for architecture and life cycle of building products) and of the multidisciplinary Research Cluster “Innovative textile”. She co-curated with professor Zanelli the hugely successful Tensinet International Symposium Exhibition in 2007.

Selection for international programmes include the AA Visiting Teacher Programme at Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, Rebuilding after Katrina design and build studio, Louisiana and Mississippi, USA, programme coordinated by Penn State University with Design Corps and Basic Initiative organisations, Decon07 Deconstruction, Building Materials Reuse, and C&D Recycling training programme Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin and Building Material Reuse Association, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Footprint Forum 2006 training programme Colle Val d’Elsa, Siena, prof. M. Wachernagel, Global Footprint Network and University of Siena, School in Chemical Sciences.