LAND ITALIA SRL

Their core work

LAND Italia is a Milan-based landscape architecture and urban design consultancy that applies design thinking to city transformation challenges — specifically where green infrastructure, participatory processes, and urban regeneration intersect. In H2020 projects they contributed co-design facilitation, scenario thinking, and roadmapping methodologies to help cities develop and test nature-based solutions. Their practical strength is translating complex urban challenges into collaborative design processes involving city authorities, communities, and funding bodies. They also brought expertise in developing innovative financing models for urban nature projects, addressing a persistent gap between concept and implementation.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their earlier H2020 work (UNALAB, 2017), LAND Italia was firmly grounded in design process methodology — co-design workshops, co-creation, scenario thinking, roadmapping, and financing models. The focus was on equipping cities with tools to plan and fund green urban infrastructure, a hands-on facilitation role. By their second project (T-Factor, 2020), the keyword shifted to "societal transition," signaling a move toward broader frameworks of urban change driven by culture and creativity rather than purely green design. The trajectory suggests LAND Italia is expanding its positioning from urban landscape design specialists toward systemic urban transformation consultants.

LAND Italia is moving from design facilitation methodologies toward systemic city transformation frameworks, positioning themselves for future projects at the intersection of urban regeneration, social innovation, and cultural strategy.

How they like to work

LAND Italia has participated exclusively as a consortium member — never as coordinator — across both H2020 projects. Despite only two projects, they accumulated 61 unique partners across 18 countries, a high network density that reflects the large, multidisciplinary consortia typical of Innovation Actions in urban sustainability. This profile fits an organization that contributes a focused, specialized role — design expertise and facilitation capacity — to larger research-driven urban programs rather than building and leading its own research agenda.

LAND Italia's 61 unique partners across 18 countries, generated from just two projects, reflects participation in broad European urban innovation consortia. Their network spans the EU-wide urban research community rather than any single geographic cluster.

What sets them apart

LAND Italia occupies a rare position as a practitioner firm — not an academic group — bringing real landscape architecture and urban design implementation experience into EU research consortia. Where most participants contribute research capacity, LAND Italia contributes the practical know-how of designing and delivering real urban spaces, which strengthens the implementation credibility of any consortium. Their dual capability in physical design and co-design facilitation makes them a useful bridge between research partners and the cities where projects are tested.

Highlights from their portfolio

• UNALAB
  LAND Italia's foundational H2020 project, where they deployed their fullest toolkit — co-design, scenario thinking, roadmapping, and innovative financing — for urban nature-based solutions across European cities.
• T-Factor
  Their largest individual grant (EUR 210,875) and a thematic pivot toward culture and creativity-led urban transformation, signaling an expansion beyond green infrastructure into broader societal change strategies.