ARCHITETTURA E COMPOSIZIONE ARCHITETTONICA III E LABORATORIO ARCHITETTURA E COMPOSIZIONE ARCHITETTONICA III

Module ARCHITECTURE AND ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION III

With a view to completing their degree programme, students will be required to undertake a project on an urban scale, adopting a multi-scale approach.

Knowledge and understanding / The course aims to introduce students to the complexities of urban design, engaging them with the disciplinary debate through a critical reading of seminal texts that have marked the transition from modernity to the contemporary era.

Applying knowledge and understanding / By the end of the course, students will have gained an understanding of the various issues and scales involved in urban design, and will be able to draw up an urban masterplan, preceded by interpretative studies of the site (mapping) and accompanied by in-depth thematic analyses.

The two courses of ‘Architecture and Architectural Composition 3’ will be taught in an integrated manner. The programme includes theoretical lectures focusing on topical monographic subjects relevant to the disciplinary debate. Students will be involved in shaping the programme through practical exercises. These will be preceded by specific introductory lectures and the establishment of a methodology for carrying them out. Work on a complex urban project will begin immediately. A multi-scale approach will be required, starting with the masterplan and exploring all scales of the project in depth, including through the use of physical models and unconventional representations.

It is essential to have already attended and taken previous years' courses in Architecture and architectural composition, urban planning, history of architecture, technical architecture and drawing.

The course aims to provide students with the tools necessary to understand contemporary disciplinary debates and architectural production. The theoretical content of the programme will be explored in greater depth through practical exercises, during which students will engage with real-world contexts and issues. The projects will address complex topics and urban settings characterized by the simultaneous presence of multiple themes, ranging from architecture and landscape to public space and mobility, from infrastructure and cultural facilities to new technologies and sustainability.

Specifically, the theoretical aspects of the educational programme will be addressed through two monographic courses which, through the reading and critical analysis of texts by key authors, will explore contrasting yet complementary aspects of the challenges posed to the design disciplines by our contemporary condition:

1 Architecture and Artificial Intelligence

2 The Architecture of Survival. Starting from the writings of Yona Friedman, alongside other readings proposed by the instructors and the students, the course will investigate the defining characteristics of the Anthropocene—the era in which we currently live, according to some scientists—taking them as a starting point for experimenting with new paradigms for architecture. The aim is to move beyond the rhetoric of sustainability and shift from a form of design that merely limits the impact of human beings on nature towards a form of design for both humans and nature, capable of fostering assemblages between more-than-human worlds.

Monographic Course 1

Monographic Course 2

The bibliography will be further supplemented in class, depending on the issues that emerge during the discussion of the students’ work.

Throughout the course, continuous assessment will take place during discussions of the assigned exercises.

At the end of the course, the examinations – in accordance with the timetable published on the department’s website – will focus on the presentation and discussion of the assigned exercises and the end-of-course project. The latter must be adequately illustrated with scale drawings, models and any other graphic techniques that may help to showcase the design ideas.