Francesco Scullica of the Design Department of the Milan Polytechnic tells us how the projects for the next Winter Olympics are changing the face of mountain hospitality

2026 Olympics: Milan, Cortina, Valtellina. Three territories are preparing to welcome an international audience – athletes and their (numerous) teams, the public, sports enthusiasts – in intelligently designed spaces and, above all, with an eye already turned to the post-Olympic context.

We talked about it with Francesco Scullica, scientific director of the Interior Design Master of the Design School of the Polytechnic University of Milan and of the Executive Design Management Master in collaboration with Tongji University in Shanghai. We still have Paris 2024 before our eyes: athletes who pack their bags and leave the Olympic Village due to an excess of sustainable good intentions. But an Olympics is undoubtedly a ground for experimentation and reflection for the project.

What is happening in Italy?

Francesco Scullica: "The focus is on the possibilities of identity regeneration of the mountain contexts that will be the setting for outdoor sports. And for several reasons.

Cortina d'Ampezzo and Valtellina are territories that can really change under the regenerative push of an international event and, obviously, they are planned with a broad, long-term view. In this sense, I am a privileged observer in my role as president of the scientific committee of Welcoming Gate Projects and Development, the platform for comparison and networking in the hospitality and tourism sector conceived and coordinated by MC International. There are two major issues on the table.

First of all, the future of the mountains, a territory that, Olympics aside, must reconfigure its identity. Climate change forces us to a conceptual change of pace: the mountain must imagine itself as a new place starting from a solid local culture".

In this context, what is the work of architects and designers?

Francesco Scullica: "The work of the architect presupposes the ability to project oneself beyond. To imagine the hospitality space not only in its most obvious requirements, such as the beauty of a hotel room, but in the capacity of the sector to be a magnifying lens of the culture of a territory and its values.

Questioning the most traditional codes means above all carefully observing the materials, the construction techniques, the formal elements, both decorative and architectural, to give life to a compositional nomenclature that respects the cultural and historical identity, bringing it into the contemporary.

This is done by placing oneself in a positive relationship with the city, in a dialogue that takes into account the infrastructural components. Hospitality places must open up to the relationship with the inhabitants, present and future.

The projects of Cortina and Sondrio respond to a new type of tourism, more interested in experiencing the place in its entirety, in a more conscious contact with the beauty of the landscape, more respectful of the natural context, sustainable in every dimension".

Let's talk about Cortina, a place of somewhat faded luxury that is undergoing a truly important transformation...

Francesco Scullica: "Cortina is experiencing a tourism revolution. A city that, two years after the Olympics, is taking on the challenge of redesigning itself to become a year-round mountain destination.

It is the ambition of the entire Alpine territory and is pursued with projects that highlight the relationship with the city, with its structure and its inhabitants, not just with hotel guests.

The pre-existing architectural heritage is collective, strongly identifying and the correct way for it to be brought into the present is linked to the idea of ​​imagining a type of tourism that seeks and recognizes local codes as part of the experience, that wants to understand the place, not just use it".

With the students of the Metaproject Laboratory of the School of Design of the Polytechnic of Milan you worked on the analysis and reinterpretation of the former Convent of San Lorenzo in Sondrio. What were the results?

Francesco Scullica: "A collective work that started from a critical reflection on the tourist experience in Alpine contexts. We invited students to operate with a custom-made perspective in the context of the contract.

The result was projects that include value, human and cultural elements. Not just spaces where you can stay as tourists but places of relationships, where you can fully experience a time that is not simply for leisure, but for life. We are in fact observing a great change in the concept of hospitality architecture: the hybridization of the concepts of living and traveling. The hotel is increasingly a 'home', a space that welcomes those who are passing through but want to stop, understand the territory and open up to the countless possibilities that a place can offer.

Another interesting project conducted with students was created for the Sustainable Hospitality Challenge by students Rosanna Caldarella, Giulia Ettori, Davide Grasso, Elisa Schembri with the tutoring of Elena Elgani.

Hòstraka is a floating resort, a set of small suite-boats that facilitate the direct experience of the natural environment and the marine ecosystem while participating in the collection of micro-plastics. Here too it is clear how appropriating even the most sensitive and urgent themes of the place is one of the most important aspects of an architecture that designs a new type of tourist experience".