AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Design Studio 2B, Module 1 [LPA2B_01], aims to explore the concepts of aura, identity, and threshold as applied to the architectural and urban scale, with particular attention to the perceptual, bodily, and atmospheric dimensions of spatial experience. Through lectures, studio-based activities, individual exercises, and group work, students will acquire theoretical, analytical, and design tools to observe, interpret, represent, and transform the built environment.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
[1] Recognize and describe the fundamental elements of architectural and urban space, understood as those elements that, throughout history, have maintained continuity in use and meaning while taking on different forms in relation to diverse territorial, cultural, and social contexts.
[2] Understand and interpret the relationship among perception, memory, and the identity of places, developing an aesthetic and critical sensitivity grounded in the conscious practice of “knowing how to see.” Careful observation of the built environment makes it possible to grasp not only the formal and functional aspects of space, but also its sensory, atmospheric, and affective qualities — often invisible and difficult to verbalize — which contribute to the definition of its unique and distinctive character, namely its aura.
[3] Apply tools of observation, description, and representation, both verbal and graphic, to convey the spatial, perceptual, and atmospheric qualities of the built environment.
[4] Analyze and critically assess architectural works and urban phenomena, with particular attention to twentieth-century architect-designed work in Genoa, including built and unbuilt projects.
[5] Develop and communicate a coherent design proposal capable of translating the analyses carried out into conscious spatial, compositional, and atmospheric choices; the project will be understood as the outcome of a critical process that integrates contextual reading, perceptual interpretation, and architectural composition, presenting the work through appropriate expressive and representational tools.

TEACHING METHODS

The course program, consisting of a total of fifty hours distributed over the semester, is organized into lectures, ex tempore exercises, and two major assignments designed to explore the relationship between body and space, perception and design. The lectures, delivered by the course instructor, introduce the main theoretical topics and discuss their design implications through the analysis of case studies. The ex tempore exercises, carried out individually and in groups, are intended to further develop the themes addressed in class and translate them into design hypotheses, fostering students’ capacity for synthesis and creative immediacy. The two major assignments include intermediate presentations, on screen and/or in printed form, conceived as moments of review and collective discussion; these occasions are intended to encourage peer exchange, self-assessment, and effective oral presentation. As an integral part of the course, external guests, including researchers and professionals with expertise in the topics addressed, will contribute to students’ work through theoretical and design-oriented interventions. Finally, an intensive workshop will be held at the end of the module, dedicated to preparation for the final exam (consolidation of projects and refinement of graphic materials).

Course materials, including slides, exercises, and bibliographic sources, will be made available on the course Teams channel.

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Students with a valid certification of physical or learning disabilities, officially registered with the University, who wish to discuss potential accommodations or other aspects related to classes, coursework, or exams, are required to contact both the course instructor and the Disability Services Coordinator of the Department of Architecture and Design (https://architettura.unige.it/commissioni_e_referenti_dipartimento).

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Since the 1980s, there has been a gradual reassessment of the body and its emotional reverberations within individual and relational processes. In the design disciplines, this tendency has found expression above all through the concept of atmosphere; architectural atmospheres constitute a paradigmatic manifestation of the ineffable and the ephemeral, the bodily and the emotional, the subjective and the merely suggested: an intimate form of feeling that is extremely difficult to articulate and share, as well as seemingly impossible to decipher, measure, and reproduce. It is precisely this irreducibility that has fueled growing interest in the atmospheric vocation of architectural experience, raising questions about how to restore the body to a central role, understood as the privileged medium of feeling and making architecture. The body as listening, the body as dialogue, the body as design.

The LPA2B_01 course program includes the presentation, discussion, and design experimentation of the following topics:
[1] Fundamental elements of architectural and urban space: compositional principles, essential regulatory references, and design precedents.
[2] Atmospherology applied to architecture and the city: definitions, theoretical perspectives, interdisciplinary contributions, and design implications.
[3] Case studies of “aura machines”: architectural and urban devices that generate atmospheric immersion, perceptual-emotional intensification, and the narrative montage of spatial experience.
[4] Methods for the critical reading of inhabited and imagined space: an introduction to practices of observation and interpretation capable of producing a more nuanced understanding of spatial experience, with attention to the sensory, atmospheric, and affective aspects that shape the perceptual specificity of each place.
[5] Tools for the verbal and graphic representation of lived spatial experience: exercises in description, narration, and diagramming aimed at making the material and immaterial qualities of space communicable.
[6] Design translation of phenomenographic traces: the development of design hypotheses starting from the reading of context, perceptual interpretation, the composition of the fundamental elements of architecture, and the orchestration of atmospheric effects.

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In addition to the general course program, which will be presented before the start of the semester, each assignment will be accompanied by a specific brief clarifying its objectives, tools, and operative methods.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bloomer, K.C., & Moore, C.W., with Yudell, R.J. (1977). Body, Memory, and Architecture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Canepa, E. (2022). Architecture is Atmosphere: Notes on Empathy, Emotions, Body, Brain, and Space. Atmospheric Spaces, 11. Milan & Udine: Mimesis International.

Forty, A. (2000). Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson.

McCarter, R., & Pallasmaa, J. (2012). Understanding Architecture. London and New York, NY: Phaidon.

Neutra, R.J. (1954). Survival through Design. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Norberg-Schulz, C. (1971). Existence, Space, and Architecture. London: Studio Vista.

Pallasmaa, J. (2005). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. London: Wiley.

Pérez-Gómez, A. (2016). Attunement: Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Tidwell, P. (Ed.). (2014). Architecture and Atmosphere. Espoo: Tapio Wirkkala–Rut Bryk Foundation.

von Meiss, P. (1990). Elements of Architecture: From Form to Place. New York, NY: Spon Press.

Zevi, B. (1957). Architecture As Space: How to Look at Architecture. New York, NY: Horizon Press.

Zumthor, P. (2006). Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects. Basel: Birkhäuser.
 

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For further bibliographic references, please see the “Material” section of the AURA project website: “Affective Unities: A Site-Specific Research on Architectural Atmospheres” (https://aura.unige.it/material).

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

The LPA2B_01 course will begin according to the Academic Calendar.

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The final exam will consist of an oral assessment focused on the ex tempore exercises and major assignments developed over the course of the semester. Each student will present the work produced, illustrating the design choices made and the stages of development followed, with particular attention to the quality of representation, the appropriate use of language, and clarity of communication. The assignments and intermediate critiques that structure the semester will be integral to the overall learning process and will be taken into account in the final evaluation. The participation of external guests during the intermediate reviews and final exam will provide qualified feedback intended to enrich the critical discussion of the work presented.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Assessment of learning will be based on the entire body of work carried out during the semester, taking into account both the design development process and the outcomes presented at the final exam. Evaluation will consider students’ capacity for critical analysis, the evolution of their design reasoning, their awareness in the use of representational tools, their ability to articulate and discuss their work, and their familiarity with the use of specialized terminology appropriate to the topics addressed in the lectures. Reviews with the teaching staff, moments of collective discussion in class, and intermediate critiques will serve as opportunities for the progressive assessment of the skills acquired. Consistent attendance, active engagement during lectures, reviews, and workshop sessions, as well as contributions to group work, will be included in the overall evaluation. The evaluations assigned at the end of the first semester will be considered together with those obtained during the second semester and will contribute to the definition of the final grade for the Studio, expressed on a thirty-point scale.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Please contact the instructor for any additional information not included in the course description.