AIMS AND CONTENT

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

In the second semester, the Laboratorio di progettazione 1A (cod. 95263) will share theoretical and critical themes and content with the Laboratorio di progettazione 3A (cod. 107025), coordinating lectures and activities and exchanging feedback periodically on the progress of projects. The courses will also draw on contributions from faculty and researchers in related disciplines, including architectural history and urban planning. Sharing teaching across two courses is intended as an opportunity for enrichment: students can learn through dialogue with their peers and through a mode of working analogous to that of an architecture atelier.

The Laboratorio di progettazione 1A and 3A will reflect on the idea of the future in architecture. The courses take the form of an inquiry into the possibilities of contemporary dwelling and into the transformations of the built environment, with particular attention to urban and domestic dynamics. Studio work will offer students the opportunity to engage actively with the current challenges of architectural design through practice grounded in compositional processes, formal experimentation and critical awareness. The studios aim to stimulate deep reflection on the evolution of residential and urban spaces, fostering visions and strategies capable of contributing to the definition of new paradigms for the dwelling of the future.

In particular, the Laboratorio di progettazione 1A aims to:

• provide tools for the understanding and critical interpretation of simple architectural organisms;
• foster the development of critical design reasoning and control over compositional choices;
• develop in students critical and creative competences, stimulating reflection on the evolution of the domestic and urban environment;
• train students in the principal drawing codes necessary for the correct representation of an architectural project;
• equip students with a first, selective set of bibliographic and design references oriented towards progressive and autonomous learning.

TEACHING METHODS

The course is structured around lectures and exercises devoted to the study of architectures and urban visions oriented towards the future. Students in Laboratorio 1A will be asked to investigate the transformations that have affected residential architecture in the past, using this knowledge as a critical tool for imagining new housing solutions. In parallel, students in Laboratorio 3A will focus on the design of collective buildings, exploring design scenarios inspired by a progressive, technologically advanced and functional vision of the built environment.

The projects developed in the two courses will contribute to the construction of an imaginary city of the future, in which collective functions are integrated with housing, offering a perspective — including a problematic one — on how urban life might be configured in the near future. The dialogue between past and future will serve as an occasion for refining the capacity for critical reading of architectural and urban design.

Both studios include lectures, exercises, and individual and collective reviews, with students organised into working groups. At the end of the semester, an intensive workshop involving both courses is scheduled. Attendance is compulsory for all students.

Students with a currently valid certification of physical or learning disability on file with the University who wish to discuss possible accommodations or other circumstances relating to lectures, courses and examinations should speak both with the course instructor and with the disability coordinator of the dAD.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Throughout the twentieth century, the evolution of the idea of the city of the future reflected the complex interaction between social and economic transformations, technological advances and architectural innovation. In this context, the second half of the century represented a particularly significant phase: America, in a climate of optimism, economic growth and confidence in progress, played a key role in shaping urban and domestic visions inspired by a modern, functional and technologically advanced future.

The space age, the explosion of car culture and the expansion of the suburbs fed scenarios in which the city was transformed into an efficient and performative system, while the home became the site where design, comfort and innovation converged. These visions — often utopian — left a lasting mark on the architectural and urban imaginary, forming a critical reference point for reflecting on the relationship between design and the future.

Today, in a profoundly changed context — marked by accelerated urbanisation, climate crisis, technological shifts, post-pandemic social transformations and geopolitical instability — questioning the idea of the city and of future dwelling becomes more urgent still. Understanding the past not merely as an archive of forms but as a critical lens through which to read the aspirations and contradictions that accompanied modernity offers students a valuable instrument for confronting the design challenges of the present and imagining new scenarios for tomorrow.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Course texts and lecture slides will be made available on AulaWeb.

Essential bibliography (subject to revision)

Ábalos, I. (2009), Il buon abitare. Pensare le case della modernità, Christian Marinotti, Milano.
Banham, R. [1960] (2005), Architettura della prima età della macchina, Marinotti, Milano.
Banham, R. (2004), Architettura della Seconda età della macchina: scritti 1955–1988, Electa, Milano.
Banham, R. [1971] (1983), Los Angeles: l'architettura di quattro ecologie, Costa & Nolan, Genova.
Bradbury, D. (2019), Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Houses, Phaidon Press, New York.
Canevari, A. – Servente, D. (2020), Abitare nel Tempo. Venti ville del Novecento, Sagep Editori, Genova.
Ferriss, H. [1929] (2022), Metropoli del futuro, Pendragon, Bologna.
Fishman, R. [1997] (2016), Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Hess, A. (2004), Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, Chronicle Books, San Francisco.
Koolhaas, R. [1978] (2004), Delirious New York: un manifesto retroattivo per Manhattan, Electa, Milano.
Le Corbusier [1923] (2005), Verso una architettura, Longanesi, Milano.
McCoy, E. (1962), Modern California Houses: Case Study Houses, 1945–1962, Reinhold, New York.
Mumford, L. [1922] (2008), Storia dell'utopia, Donzelli, Roma.
Mumford, L. (1971), Il futuro della città, Il Saggiatore, Milano.
Venturi, R. – Scott Brown, D. – Izenour, S. [1972] (2010), Imparare da Las Vegas, Quodlibet, Macerata.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The examination is taken in groups. Students must demonstrate knowledge of both a theoretical kind — based on the course lectures and bibliography — and a practical kind, with reference to the work carried out in the preparatory and design exercises (completed both in groups and individually).

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The oral examination assesses the quality of the work produced and its conceptual, theoretical and compositional foundations.