OVERVIEW

Advanced urbanism studies the mutations produced in the contemporary territory 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 sustains it and the social relations that are generated. The scale of Design for the City is now a working scale complementary to other design scales for telling and designing urban transformations, and the course focuses on these synergies and trajectories.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Through the course the program introduces the student to the analysis of the quadruple value Territory/City/public space/experiential space, specifying from a theoretical point of view the methodologies used and developing the essential skills for a perspective interpretation and conceptualization of the scenarios and contexts under investigation. The main purpose of this theoretical-practical teaching clearly linked to the Urban celebratory event Project and the new public space at different scales, is to provide students with in-depth knowledge on the growing holistic ability to interrelate between different spatial, functional reading levels and environmental, oriented to connect contextual response, urban and environmental reading and multiple social and territorial purpose, in mutual synergy (from analytical recognition to synthetic strategy, from global interpretation to local operation). Exploring plurality, promoting and articulating diversity, raising a multiple interaction - between processes and information, programs and uses, disputes and realities, cities and citizens (designing and formulating new spaces - new scenarios - transversal, architectural, urban, territorial and social , in harmony with a new, more open and adaptable relational logic) and the priority objective of the course.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims to foster cross-disciplinary thinking, presenting a theoretical-practical approach to the new multiple (multi-level and multi-relational) condition of the contemporary city and territory based in the ability to work with the communication between city and citizenship, city and society. This approach seeks to deepen the cross-relationships between different disciplines and Design, understood as a proactive tool in the transformation of cities, with the emergence of integrated and innovative strategies, particularly in the areas of new mediating actions of exchange, sharing, celebration and mixing: from urban resilience, to new technological capabilities. 

Starting from the anticipatory perspective as a guideline vectorized and flexible at the same time. The approach to various systemic techniques of analysis, graphic expression, representation and conceptual and communicative formulation (mapping, diagrams, info-graphics, multimedia elements, etc.) will be fundamental to the development of the course, based in an analytical-critical and critical-propositional methodology, through operational approaches to concrete situations, preferably similar and differential -at the same time-, in the local Ligurian and global international environment.

Attendance and active participation in the proposed training activities (frontal lectures and laboratory activities) and individual study will enable the student to -know in depth the main dynamics present today in our spheres of life and relationships and understand their complex, hybrid, mixed and intertwined conditions.

The aim of the course is to foster an interaction with different levels and scales of intervention, spatial, functional and environmental.

PREREQUISITES

The course is designed as a continuation of a process of introduction to urban design for Design students. The expression and communication of a new kind of approach to the challenges of the contemporary city and the design of new convivial/relational scenarios (interactive and proactive public and collective spaces) at the basis of the experimental course of the course.

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

- 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.

- To 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 and express and communicate 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.

- Have notions of ephemeral settings and architectures and the temporal transformation of public space.

TEACHING METHODS

The course will consist of ex-cathedra lectures and theoretical seminars with a final intensive workshop. The course may work in synergy with other courses with several associated exercises.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course will present a theoretical/practical approach to the spatial and socio-cultural condition of the city, landscape and public space, understood as active multi-scalar scenarios (urban and territorial) connected with possible networked and multilevel systematics.

This approach will consider the evolution over time, its relationship with new technologies and the development of innovative strategies for a new logic of complexity.

The importance of public space as an active space and as an inter-connective, relational, and social, productive and interactive space (Pro(d)active Space) and its relation to the new urban condition (Smart city- Intelligent City) and its communicative and co-participatory expression (Empathic-City, Convivial-City) will be another of the key themes of the course.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

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

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://corsi.unige.it/9007/p/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam includes the production of a dossier with all the materials from the exercises, as well as physical models in case the theme of the year is prototyping or making physical or virtual installations. 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 off-site) within which all projects can be compared together in one space. The creation of the final event or one during the year will be part of the examination material.

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-ended questions will allow assessment of the ability to apply knowledge in practical situations.

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.