An Architect by education, Barbara E. A. Piga is Assistant Professor at the Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), where she is Coordinator of the Laboratorio di Simulazione Urbana Fausto Curti - labsimurb (Dep. of Architecture and Urban Studies) since its foundation in 2007. She is founding partner of the REAACH - Representation Advances and Challenges Association established in 2022. She is member of the Board of the interdepartmental research laboratory i.Drive - Interaction Between Driver, Road Infrastructure, Vehicle, And Environment since 2019, and of the POLIMI laborA laboratory since 2022. She is member of the Steering Committee of the European Architectural Envisioning Association - EAEA since 2009, and of the International Ambiances Network since 2015. She is the POLIMI Coordinator of two European Projects H2020 EIT Digital (Digital Cities) AR4CUP: Augmented Reality for Collaborative Urban Planning (2019 and 2020) where the exp-EIA© (experiential Environmental Impact Assessment) method, applied in the City Sense app, was developed to favor inclusive and collaborative urban design processes. She is also the POLIMI Coordinator of the current Next Generation EU project MUSA – Spoke 1 developing a collaborative “4P-Phygital” (Physical + Digital) Platform. Her research interest is the human/environment relationship, that she investigates by applying experiential simulation solutions in X-Reality for sensory urban design. She fosters a human-centered, multi-scalar, and interdisciplinary approach in research and profession.
