The ALICANTE project proposes a novel concept towards the deployment of a networked 'Media Ecosystem'. The proposed solution is based on a flexible cooperation between providers, operators, and end-users, finally enabling every user to access the offered multimedia services in various contexts, and to share and deliver his own audiovisual content dynamically, seamlessly, and transparently. Towards this goal, ALICANTE's advanced concept provides Content-awareness to the Network Environment, Network- and User Context-awareness to the Service Environment, and adapted services/content to the End-User for his best service experience, taking the role of a consumer and/or producer.The ALICANTE architecture introduces two novel virtual layers on top of the traditional Network layer, i.e. a Content-Aware Network layer (CAN) for network packet processing and a Home-Box layer for the actual content delivery. The innovative components, proposed to instantiate the CAN are Media-Aware Network Elements (MANE), i.e. CAN-enabled "routers" and associated managers offering together content- and context aware Quality of Service/Experience, security, and monitoring features, in cooperation with the other elements of the ecosystem.The upper layer, i.e., the Service Environment, uses information delivered by the CAN layer and enforces Network-Aware Applications procedures, in addition to user Context-Aware ones. The novel proposed Home-Box is a physical and logical entity located at end-user's premises and gathering Context-Aware, Content-Aware and Network-Aware information essential for realising the big picture. ALICANTE will develop an interoperable middleware for the adaptation of advanced, distributed media resources to the user's preferences and heterogeneous contexts. The adaptation will be deployed at both Home-Box and CAN layers making use of scalable media resources.Finally, the validation of the project architecture and results will be done in a large-scale pilot.