ARS Progetti is 20 years old in November 2012. This publication is issued to celebrate this birthday. During last 20 years the world has considerably changed, from the collapse of the Berlin wall to surge and fall of hopes in the globalisation and in the market forces, to the present need for new ways to regulate those global forces which affect the destiny of all and each single country well beyond the capacity of any country, irrespective of its size and strength, to bring them under control. As a consulting firm engaged in the international arena and in the area of “development”, with the idea in mind to provide a contribution to a better world, we have found ourselves faced with a constant challenge to change our approaches, adjust our organisation, update and upgrade our tools, evolve towards new ways of doing business, re-tune our objectives, discover new markets. This continuous challenge is perhaps the most significant descriptor of our activity and of the destiny we have chosen for ourselves. We have experienced many frustrations, but have never lost love for our profession and hopes in a better world. We have been gratified by many successfully accomplished projects, but have remained always conscious of the precariousness of these successes. We never thought of being on the safe side in our activity and in our market and we have always remained conscious that our ship could sink. However our ship did not sink, it bravely resisted all the storms it encountered, and it continues to navigate flying the flag of professional ethics.This publication has a double purpose, on one hand to summarize our story and the ideas which have guided us and on the other hand to reflect in general on the joys and sorrows of the work as a consulting and design firm.