We report the experimental results obtained with a novel architecture for random lasing, in which the active material, free of scatterers, is placed between two large scattering regions. Lasing emission is investigated as a function of the illuminated area of the scattering regions, obtaining typical "resonant" and "non-resonant" random lasing spectra, depending on the device geometry. We propose a theoretical approach for the understanding of the observed phenomena, modelling the scattering elements with arbitrary spectral profiles in amplitude and phase and considering strong coupling between lasing modes. Good agreement between experiments and simulation results is obtained.