ReSTa - Temporary Social Residence [in Milan] Architecture of Interiors - Design Studio 2
proff. Gennaro Postiglione (Interiors), Peter Beard (Photography), Stefania Sabatinelli (Sociology)
THE "5 CONDITIONS" OF [MY] ARCHITECTURE OF INTERIORS The 5 Crucial Words for an Architecture of Interiors Manifesto - meant as a process-based discipline and not a typlological one - are: HERE/THERE; GESTURE; TRACE; DEVICE/AFFORDANCE; CLOSE-UP and they represent an emancipation of a previous set: INSIDE/OUT-SIDE; HUMAN DIMENSION; GIVEN ROOM; FURNITURE; DECORATION. The shift allows to re-think the Typological Conditions into a Processual dimension, focusing not on the object but on the activity, on the process connected in performing each specific recognized activity. By doing this, we emancipate the Interiors monological discourse – as other disciplines have done during the last 20 years – to move towards more a dynamic and processual interpretation, casting new light and opening new horizons to INTERIORS work and understanding!
DESIGN APPROACH Freed from the obsession for authenticity, and from the utopia of a ‘return to the roots’, driven by a healthy will to research, read and understand existing spaces as they are (with their imperfection, with their history of transformations and transitions), Italian architects of the second generation of Modern Movement managed to combine the attention for the context without giving up that necessary productive attitude that should sustain every project. To these architects and to the ones that successfully followed their path – in Italy as abroad - we should look at. The work as text, the space as place for gesture, the project as ‘re-writing’ and 'search for hospitality' are then the fundamental elements of a new idea of Architecture of Interiors, a praxis that expresses itself through a conscious manipulation of the existing that is continuously transformed and whose identity is kept while its authenticity is disintegrated.
FRAMEWORK The current program will be part of a coordinated activity between the Housing and Neighbourhood Workshop (offered in the Master of Science in Urban Planning and Policy Design: proff Stefania Sabatinelli and Massimo Bricocoli) and our Architecture of Interiors Design Studio 2. Joint seminars and presentations will be aiming at exploring the interactions and connections between urban policy and architectural design. We will also foster the cooperation between students from both Curricula.
THEME AND TOPICS During the 20th century the issue of dwelling in the city was mainly solved with the production of mass housing. “Home” as social right, as project category, as economic datum, ended up in a model narrowing down the natural experience of dwelling in a thick network of scientific parameters (typologies, functional schemes, values taxonomies, hierarchies of behaviours), even translating it in a spatial and interior design project inspired to a pure calculation of structural, ergonomic, industrial, standards, within a framework of blurred, but still normative, social and ethical representations.
At the turn of the 21st century this model shows patent signs of crisis. Not because of the obsolescence of the technical tools developed over time, but rather because of the fading away of its cultural premises, of the ideology that had shaped it, of the social project that defined its role and scope. In order to design forms, uses and interiors of contemporary dwelling it is, therefore, necessary to shift from the functional concept of dwelling as an object to the cultural concept of dwelling as an experience, focusing the analysis on the ‘dweller’, with its corporeality, behaviour patterns, social interactions.
A further major transformation challenges architecture: while the production of new dwellings has dramatically reduced, due to ecological concerns and the economic recession, it is the renewal, re-use and transformation of the existing housing stock that could come to the front-scene, in order to answer in a more proper way to quantitative and qualitative needs of contemporary dwelling. What type of dwellings? What forms and uses? For whom? At what price?
Global economic and political factors as well as changes in the labour market, in the family formation patterns, in the ways of living, give origin to a number of “new” social needs that have implications on the forms and meanings of dwelling.
In this light, the concept of home itself is to be reconsidered as more and more for many people it tends to turn into a plurality of different places which are simultaneously (loss of unity) and/or temporarily (loss of stability) used as dwellings. Multi-local living and cohabitation are growing trends that go in parallel with, and indeed stem from, the pluralization of job positions and of family arrangements and assets. The various – and changing – ways and solutions in which the people organise and re-organise their living in the city in order to be able to afford their housing costs (despite the scant public support) and at the same time cope with the labour market requests and their family life needs, is to be more closely investigated, as this brings along significant changes in terms of housing cultures, patterns of solidarity/community, and socio-spatial organisation.
The phenomenon of temporary dwelling has become more and more relevant: it can characterize different steps and phases in the individual life; it regards very different profiles, individuals and families. Temporary dwelling is a condition of many students and young adults in search for educational, training and/or working experiences (that due to the increased flexibility of the labour market more and more often require geographical mobility and impose short-term contracts); of many professionals pursuing their career and sharing their life in more than one city (multi-local living); of many people with family ties in different places. But temporary dwelling is also a severe need for extremely fragile people. Two profiles have become particularly urgent in recent years: individuals and families unable to guarantee themselves a roof over their head, mostly for reasons related to the Great Recession (typically evicted people); refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants reaching Europe under extreme circumstances in search of life opportunities.
Temporary dwelling is therefore a temporary need for each single individual or household, but it has come to represent a structural need for societies and for cities, where this need becomes concretely visible. Societies and cities need to cope with the challenges posed by these phenomena, which largely descend from global factors out of the control of local and even national actors. What is more, they need to do this in conditions of not only contingently but structurally decreasing resources.
ORGANISATION The workshop intends to explore these themes in the city of Milan, through three main working phases:
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Exploration and mapping of places, practices, policies and options at work. Exploration will be carried out in the city of Milan.
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Best (and also worst) practices from other contexts will be considered and reviewed.
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Proposals for new scenarios and visions imagined as upgrading and reshaping of existing Milano Municipality Social Temporary Housing program.
ReSTa Design Studio - Agenda
WEEK#01 A#01.1_Temporary housing in home country/place - individual assignment Delivery: WEEK#02 Edit a a two pages description of an example of Temporary housing in your home country/place using the A#01.1-template (A4 booklet)
A#01.2_Photo survey - own place - individual assignment Delivery: WEEK#03 Edit a Photo survey of the place you live using the A#01.2-template (A4 booklet)
WEEK#02 A#02_RST in Milan: Case-study-project_UNDERSTANDING - group assignmen Delivery: WEEK#04 + #06 Edit a detailed understanding of Milanese RST case-study using the A#02.1-template (A4 booklet) + D#01.1 presentation
WEEK#03 A#03_Mapping Best Practices - individual assignment Delivery: WEEK#06 Edit a detailed understanding of Best Practices in temporary housing using the A#03-template (A4 booklet) + D#01.2 presentation
WEEK#04 SEMINAR#02 D#02 In-progress presentation + A#04_Case-study-project_providing proposals - group assignment Delivery: WEEK#14 Edit a detailed description of the RST assigned case-study Re-shape, using the Leporello template (H = A3 vertical) + a A#04-template (A4 booklet).
WEEK#06 SEMINAR#03 ReSTa MID TERM PRESENTATIONS D#02 + D#03
WEEK#13 SEMINAR#04 FINAL ReSTa PRESENATIONS D#01 > #04
WEEK#17 SEMINAR#05 ReSTa EXAMs & EXHIBITION
Bibliography
Architecture of Interiors Design Studio 2 - 2016 Report http://www.lablog.org.uk/2017/03/01/trash-studio-report-201617/ Bricocoli M. & Sabatinelli S. (2016) House sharing amongst young adults in the context of Mediterranean welfare: the case of Milan, International Journal of Housing Policy, 16:2, 184-200.
G. Postiglione (2013). Methods of Research and Criticality. In: (a cura di): G. Brooker, L. Weinthal, The Handbook of Interior Architecture and Design . p. 50-60, London:Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9781847887450
E. Lupo, G. Postiglione (2007). The Architecture of Interiors as re-writing of space. In: E. Hollis. Thinking inside the box. p. 145-154, London:Middlesex University Press, ISBN: 9781904750222
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