OVERVIEW

Advanced urbanism studies the mutations produced in the contemporary land and city in recent years-with the advent of the information (or digital) age-and its multiple approach from strategic, socio-cultural and environmental, spatial and interactive parameters (from dynamic information processing to flexible orientation of urban phenomena) at all levels and scales of impact; from the human habitat to the landscape that supports it and the social relations that are generated.
 

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The training course, to be developed through an innovative design experimentation, with a clear conceptual and strategic vocation, aims to promote the ability to recognize and manage problems linked to the transformation of our cities and territories, in order to outline a settlement reorganization aimed at the reassessment of architectural quality and environmental and environmental and socio-economic sustainability in open and complex temporal processes. The qualifying training objectives are: the acquisition of analysis and synthesis techniques for the assessment of the settlement conditions and the socio-cultural and socio-economic context and its possible resonance with holistic approach logics; the acquisition of intervention tools and methodologies for the definition and verification of the project; the ability to place the project within the framework of urban planning and legislation and develop it in relation to the needs of the communities settled and a transversal culture accorded to new times and new technologies; the ability to identify appropriate proposals and design references, through the in-depth study of significant experiences developed nationally and internationally.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The Urban Planning laboratory of the Bachelor of Science in Architecture the teaching introduces the student to the analysis of quadruple valence Territory-City-Architecture-Landscape, specifying from a theoretical point of view the methodologies used and developing the essential skills for a basic and perspective interpretation and conceptualization of the scenarios and contexts under investigation.

The main purpose of this theoretical-practical teaching clearly related to Architectural and Urban Design at different scales, is to provide students with in-depth knowledge on the growing holistic capacity of interrelation between different levels of spatial, functional and environmental intervention, oriented to link contextual and architectural response, urban and environmental reading, urban-territorial, in mutual synergy (from analytical recognition to synthetic strategy, from global interpretation to local operation). Exploring complexity, fostering and articulating diversity, raising multiple interaction--between processes and information, programs and uses, contention and reality, city and citizens (designing and formulating new spaces--new scenarios--transversal, architectural, urban, spatial and social, in tune with a new, more open and adaptive relational logic) is the course's overriding goal.

Grand Scale, Landscape, Mapping and Multi-scalar Urban Design are essential aspects of the course's multi-scalar approach: the course aims to foster this cross-cutting thinking by presenting a theoretical-practical approach to the multiple (multi-level and multi-relational) conditions of the contemporary city and territory. This approach seeks to explore the cross-relationships between "city and territory" (especially in the case of Europe) and its relationship today to the emergence of integrated and innovative strategies, particularly in the areas of new strategic planning, mixed planning, urban resilience and new technological capabilities.

Attendance and active participation in the proposed educational activities (lectures and laboratory activities) and individual study will enable the student to gain an in-depth knowledge of the main dynamics present today in our living and relationship spheres and to understand their complex, hybrid, mixed and intertwined conditions.

PREREQUISITES

The course is designed as a continuation of a sequential process of approaching urban planning and urban design and a City-Architecture cross-reading for Architectural Design students. The expression and communication of a new kind of challenges for the contemporary city and the design of new convivial/relational scenarios (interactive and proactive public and collective spaces) will be in the basis of the sampled experiential course.

Key requirements are:

- To be able to critically employ the knowledge, analytical apparatus, operational, design and strategic tools of the urban planner to analyze and interpret places, define their transformation processes, assess their conditions of transformability and prefigure their future scenarios.

- To be able to respond to the demand for new urban spaces and the new landscape with innovative projects, taking the project as a transversal tool with respect to contemporary urban and territorial scenarios.

- Be able to identify innovative strategies for the design of public space, understood in its productive and social values and in its relations with contemporary urban conditions.

- To be able to set up morphological-spatial, economic and social simulations of urban transformation, evaluating their potential effects and outcomes.

- To be aware of the socio-cultural challenges related to the use of new technologies and the emergence of new forms of citizenship, in order to instruct and guide shared and participatory design processes.

TEACHING METHODS

The course will consist of ex-cathedra lectures, seminars, mainly collective exercises, seminar corrections of the exercises, and a final intensive workshop.

The lectures will cover issues that are deemed essential for the acquisition of critical and design skills appropriate to the workshop theme. The tutorials are designed as a path of progressive deepening of the workshop theme.

Attendance at lectures and laboratory is compulsory, as per the Teaching Regulations. The laboratory will be taught by the teaching faculty members, assisted by laboratory tutors. At the beginning of each laboratory activity there will be a brief theoretical-practical introduction with the aim of providing the basic principles on which the methodologies used are based and the account of the fact up to that moment. In the practical part, students, divided into groups of two or three and with the support of lecturers and tutors, will have to apply the provided experimental tools and the described methods. At the end of each particular activity, students will have to exchange a critical view with the lecturer on the results obtained from the experimental activity itself. The organization and dates of the laboratory activities will be communicated directly by the lecturers at the beginning of each project phase.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course organized around the GIC-Lab Research Group is articulated -starting from a primarily theoretical approach capable of introducing the student to the trinomial Conception/Organization/Formulation (or if you prefer System/Logic/Action) at different levels and scales of intervention, with particular weight in the parameters or factors of simultaneity, dynamism, diversity, intersection and interchange or interaction.

The course program will, therefore, develop simultaneously on different conceptual and design levels:

- at the urban and/or spatial scale (maps, schemes and strategic diagrams)

- at the architectural scale (mixed "residence-production-use" programs)

- at the collective scale (approaches to contemporary public space)

- at the environmental scale (proposals for positive interaction with the environment)

- at the ephemeral scale (temporal actions and participatory installations)

- at the socio-cultural scale (transversal exchange and synergy)

The territories of complex development in its different urban and landscape declinations - and in particular the Mediterranean coastal scenarios as paradigmatic contexts of this process - will constitute the main fields of research and investigation.

At the end of the course the student will be able to have acquired essential notions on:

- The knowledge of the methods and criteria by which the transformations of the city, territory, environment and landscape are analyzed, controlled and planned;

- The synthesis of methodologies of analysis, interpretation and design of landscape architecture with the aim of fostering knowledge of different approaches, methods and techniques for the analysis and design of the landscape itself, understood as a system of eco-systems;

- Knowledge of the dynamics of contemporary urban and territorial transformations: practices and regional dimensions of living and producing; systems of mobility, accessibility and urban welfare; forms of regeneration, as well as objectives of sustainability and resilience;

- Knowledge of innovative approaches to urban and territorial design and strategies for adapting living environments understood as dynamic, complex and evolving systems.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

All slides used during lectures and other lecture materials will be available on aul@web. In general, the notes taken during the lectures and the material on aul@web are sufficient for exam preparation. The books, presented in the graphically curated syllabus available on aul@web.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MANUEL GAUSA NAVARRO (President)

NICOLA VALENTINO CANESSA (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

One-year course, beginning first semester. See Official Calendar

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will involve the production of an A3 dossier and A1 tables in competition mode, as well as the layout of the various exercises carried out during the year. Initiative in creating additional formats will be considered a plus.

The presentation of the material will coincide with an end-of-course workshop (on-site or out-of-town) within which all projects can be compared together in one space. The examination will thus consist of the delivery of the planned materials and an oral test presenting the production, as well as a short essay integrated into the summary dossier or book.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Details on how to prepare for the exam and the degree of depth of each topic will be given in the course of the lectures. The mainly oral examination but with a short written essay will test the effective acquisition of basic knowledge of the methodologies assayed and their applications to the analysis and synthesis of the proposals presented. Narrative, communication skills and problems and open questions will allow assessment of the ability to apply knowledge in practical situations that may occur with reference to good laboratory practices. The student should be able to link and integrate knowledge learned during laboratory activities with that provided during the lectures.

The oral presentation will focus mainly on the proposal developed in relation to the topics covered during the lectures and will aim to assess not only whether the student has achieved an adequate level of knowledge. The ability to describe the processes and proposals clearly and with correct terminology will also be assessed.

FURTHER INFORMATION

The course will assess the originality and strategic and conceptual relevance of the proposals, the degree of sophistication and development of the drawings and graphic expressions connected with the projects, the communicative and expressive ability and the clear and committed implication with the course, individually and collectively, in synergy with the working group. Identity of particular work and consistency of group research will be values taken into account.