After every catastrophe, whether natural or caused by humans, the importance of the building context and its effects in any environmental disaster becomes clear. This is also true in humanitarian disasters resulting from war and conflict, as well as social hardship, and in most cases is related to problematic living conditions. Each time, architecture is shown to occupy an essential role. Its contribution, however, is not limited to pinpointing the appropriate quality of a building or settlement; its scope can go significantly beyond, offering tools to analyse pre- and post-disaster phenomena. Authors Roberta Lucente and Nicoletta Trasi examine this in their topical research.