Global Modernism and the Built Environment; Urbanization and Agrarian Change; Human, Nature, and Technology Relations; Land and Territory; China Rural-Urban studies.

Ettore studies rural restructuring as an emerging cultural and architectural practice of the 'urbanized world.' His Ph.D. research investigates China’s ‘ecological civilization,’ a multifaceted national campaign driving the transformation of rural areas into spaces for intensive food production and ecotourism consumption. It examines different rural restructuring projects in Hunan province as a product of different forces: the techno-scientific episteme of the state and designers, and the local practices of spatial production. Ettore's inquiry on the cultural and material production of rurality in contemporary 'urban China' intercepts discourses on the politics of ecological modernism in design practice and the socio-spatial forms of planetary urbanization in the Chinese Dream era.

Before joining UC Berkeley, Ettore has practiced architectural and urban design in diverse firms in Italy and China. He has lectured in Polytechnic School of Milan about architecture and power, contemporary urban history, and Chinese urbanism. His previous research encompasses issues of design politics and national identity in Shanghai.