OVERVIEW

The course intends to explore the relationships that are established between architectural space, objects at the scale of urban design and the human body, through a dual point of simultaneous observation: that of the designer and that of the user.

One of the theses at the base of this workshop is that it is possible to talk about architecture and multiscalar composition techniques, without necessarily using as keys to interpret topics such as style, language and form.

The tools of investigation will be related to the study of the expressive and relational capacities of the human body and how to use architectural space that, over time, man has activated or deactivated depending on specific needs and social forms more or less radicalized.

The concepts around which the research will focus will be qualitative characteristics of space: openness, closure, inclusiveness, exclusivity, dynamism, staticity, expansion, compression, etc. ... applied to the theory of the human body and in parallel to that of architectural composition.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The laboratory has as its primary objective the design activity applied to complex and integrated projects for architecture, the city, the landscape. It deals with the different scales of design verifying them through drawings and models. The design activities are carried out in seminar form, through critical comparisons and collective discussion within the laboratory.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The attendance of theoretical lessons, together with the delivery of three exercises allow the student, together with the reading of texts recommended by the teacher, to :

- define the contemporary panorama within which the discipline of Architectural Design is placed in relation to the discipline of Interior design and Urban design.

- to define the main disciplinary parameters: Human Body, Space, Composition, Dimension, Use

- to establish a clear relationship between cultural models, forms of interpretation and reading of the human body with the evolution of the discipline of the project

- provide the primary operational tools aimed at performing manipulations on the material of architectural objects. These tools can be assimilated to primary actions derived from the world of artistic disciplines and, specifically, of plastic arts: add, subtract, insert, connect, bend, cleave, etc...

- To arrive at the control of compositional techniques and representation that allow to give completeness to design exercises gradually more complex, until the execution in adequate scale of some parts of them.

PREREQUISITES

The following knowledge is required to effectively address the content of the course:

- basic knowledge of architectural history.

- good knowledge of two-dimensional and three-dimensional representation and rendering programs.

- good knowledge of graphic programs and good sensitivity to the themes of project communication.

- minimum capacity of project management of the space, intended at the architectural scale, and ability to develop representative tables of the same (plans, sections, elevations).

TEACHING METHODS

The course will be organized over one semester into 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 topic. The exercises are conceived as a path of progressive deepening of the laboratory theme.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course will investigate the theme of the contemporary habitat at the scale of architecture and urban space, through the description of case studies that span a wide time period, capable of interweaving the areas of design, urban space design and architecture.

In this part of the course, a series of lessons that will aim to transmit the tools for the design of utopian urban spaces imagined by the avant-garde and active between the '50s and '60s of the '900, will be followed by a design exercise, concerning the definition of complex urban spaces starting from the reconceptualization of the living cell.

The second part of the course will deal with the relationship between architectural installations and urban space. The student will be guided in the learning of techniques related to the design of temporary living environments that interact with the constitutive characteristics of an urban place, such as squares, streets, arcades, loggias, etc. ... This critical phase will be accompanied by two specific exercise experiences.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The teaching is structured around two texts, knowledge of which is essential for carrying out the exercises and understanding the theoretical lectures:

_Massimiliano Giberti, FAST FORWARD: DAL FUTURO AL FUTURO. L’habitat contemporaneo immaginato nelle utopie domestiche degli anni ’50 e ’60. - ISBN:9788863737721. In Collana De-Signs, ricerca e progetto, Sagep, Genova 2021.

_Giberti, M.; Maskineh, C., La Città [con]divisa, manuale di convivenza urbana nell’ epoca del conflitto. - Sagep, Genova ISBN:978-88-6373-616-8 2019.

_Massimiliano Giberti, La casa è un sogno. - ISBN:978-88-6373-491-1. In Collana Opera Metrica, Sagep, Genova 2017.

_Massimiliano Giberti, Giacomo Delbene, Made in GOA, guida alla città ibrida. - ISBN:978-88-6373-463-8, Sagep, Genova 2016.

_Massimiliano Giberti, Piccolo manuale d’uso per l’architettura contemporanea, 22 Publishing, Milano, 2013/ Sagep, Genova, 2015

_ Massimiliano Giberti, Compendio di anatomia per progettisti, Quodlibet, Macerata, 2014

The following texts are also recommended, knowledge of which should form the basis of any architecture course :

- Le Corbusier, Verso un’architettura, edizione italiana a cura di Pier Luigi Cerri, Pier Luigi Nicolin, Longanesi, Milano, 1984

- Georges Perec, Specie di Spazi, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1989, ed originale Espèces d’espaces, Galilée, Paris, 1974

- Herman Hertzberger, Lezioni di architettura, edizione italiana a cura di Michele Furnari, Roma, edizioni Laterza, 1996

- Colin Rowe, La matematica della villa ideale e altri scritti, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1990

- Ben Van Berkel, Move, NAI, Rotterdam, 1998

- Robert Venturi, Complessità e contraddizione nell’architettura, Bari, Dedalo, 1984

- Rudolf Wittkower, Principi architettonici nell’età dell’umanesimo, Torino, Einaudi, 1964

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MASSIMILIANO GIBERTI (President)

MARCO CASAMONTI

CHRISTIANO LEPRATTI (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://corsi.unige.it/9915/p/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will be carried out through the verification of the theoretical knowledge acquired by the student, as well as by passing the practical exercises carried out during the semester. The contents of the theoretical lessons and of the topics dealt with in the volumes in the bibliography will be examined.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Details on how to prepare for the exam and the degree of thoroughness of each topic will be given during the lessons.

The oral exam will focus mainly on the topics covered during the lectures and textbooks and will aim to assess whether the student has reached an adequate level of knowledge.

The presentation of the first exercise will verify the student's learning of the design tools and their application.

The presentation of the second and third exercises will aim to verify if the student has acquired the ability to critically analyze and translate into an applied form the case studies presented in the classroom and the compositional techniques transmitted during the classroom exercises.

Exam schedule