The Studio explores the fields of action of the urban planning within the current contexts, characterized by a socio-economic transition that raises new questions about technical knowledge and its tradition. In the Studio, therefore: are experienced new forms of urban planning, useful in addressing the emerging problems of contemporary territories; are constructed problematic frameworks of design alternatives; are tested the relations between the spatial transformation of landscapes and the regulatory dimension of the urban design.

Finally, the Studio focuses on the crucial issues of the identity of places in a time in which new life cycles for existing housing structures need to be imagined in a perspective of prudent and sustainable development.

Students:

- acquire knowledge and understanding of the techniques and tools of urban design;

- acquire knowledge and understanding of a critical approach to urban and landscape design on the various scales, correlated to work planning, economic and feasibility assessment, and accessibility design;

- are capable of doing historical and critical analysis and interpretation of locations and contexts;

- are capable of developing design solutions coherent with the location and context, even in highly complex urban environments.

In Urban Design Studio, students are introduced to a (post) metropolitan environment (Soja, 2015), built-out through its past, current and future layers of specialized clusters, neighborhoods, open spaces and infrastructures. Nowadays, a variety of interactions (between fragments, growths, populations), tensions (between spatial phenomena and institutional/administrative borders, implosions and explosions, etc.) and contradictions (between new forms of centralities and marginalities, quality of life and new poverties, physical and digital networks) marks territorial systems and create new peripheral environments. Despite the continuous process of transformation of this territory, often those spaces, infrastructures and/or artifacts that have supported the process of regional urbanization (Brenner, 2015) have become obsolete, unsuitable or not adequate to answer to those issues produced by these new spatial conditions. They require an array of emergent Urban Design tools for transforming these drosscapes (Berger, 2007) - an evolution of greyfields/brownfields or terrain vagues – in new centralities or infrastructures of a polycentric urban region. Through actions oriented to regenerate areas, according to Roberts and Sykes (2000), students will propose innovative solutions for local contexts, discovering, underlining and creating new values from them.

Working between scales and research fields, students will elaborate a mixed-use masterplan, according to local needs and potentials and considering the current context of limited resources for Italian peripheral areas. These projects aim to become an open node for various kinds of populations, that will interact with the territorial complexity. At the same time, these compounds will affect local economies and living conditions, stand for innovative, non-conventional proposals that deal with environmental and sustainable mobility, housing inclusion, social promotion, territorial regeneration and development of public spaces, common goods, and green networks.

The Urban Design Studio is a practice-based module delivered through studio teaching that involves collaborative and reflexive learning. It provides an opportunity for students to deal with a consolidated methodology (Analysis, Strategy, Concept, Proposal) through a learning-by-doing as the basis for the design research approach. Under the guidance of teaching team and following the hints of local stakeholders, students will be free to determine what kind of intervention they deem appropriate for the site and want to pursue in their own interest, following the address suggested by the cultural structure of the program. Outcomes will transform the asset of existing areas, introducing a new program based on a mix of functions (housing, urban economic activities, individual and community spaces) and looking for impacts on the social, economic and environmental dimensions of local contexts.

 Urban Design Studio includes the modules of Urban Design (Mario Paris) and Urban Planning (Catherine Dezio).

URBAN DESIGN

In Urban Design module students will deal with contemporary approaches to master-planning and the design of urban spaces, supporting their actions with specific spatial knowledge, produced through solid, multi-scalar (from metropolitan to local one) and open analysis. During the practice, students will discuss existing protocols and narratives related with the intervention on existing urban spaces, focusing on proposals based on key elements of integrated urban regeneration strategies, presented during a set of lectures during the course. They will be expected to provide: 
- an original analysis of the context in which their actions will take place, comprehending both: physical/spatial/morphological transformations and territorial vocations, together with current settlement dynamics (new functions, new populations, new issues, new opportunities, etc.);
- a strategy of intervention that takes into account local constraints and values, reflecting on existing and possible transformations and envisioning innovative solutions for a polycentric metropolitan structure;
- a design concept adapted for a specific context, in which students will reflect about the spatial organization and emplacement for a contemporary urban space, densities, and program for built and unbuilt space, typologies and design for public and private functions, etc. 
- a proposal in which they can challenge and test their approach, focusing on design solutions for public/shared spaces, able to foster local identities and improve vibrancy and livability of these places.

URBAN PLANNING

The Urban Planning module deals with urban, social and environmental topics as opportunity to stimulate an open, holistic and critical approach to the territory, in order to solicit and trigger the interpretation of settlement phenomena through the understanding of significant dynamics of the contemporaneity  (i.e. sustainability, resilience, common goods, food policy, social integration, management of environmental resources and its inclusion in the project, etc.). Through a process-oriented design activity at different scales and through the exploration of international and national research useful to indicate a position with respect to the topics dealt with, the course accompanies: i) the identification and reading of traces and fluxes; ii) the restoration of the original geographies and identities of places; iii) the analysis of international experiences and case studies as a replication abstraction methodology for the design process; iv) the development of skills and tools to approach the multidimensional complexity that concern the tangible and intangible aspects of the territorial dimension.

The Studio, crossing the two disciplines with a holistic and critical research attitude, provides a framework for students to expand their approach to urban design oriented to regeneration processes, using territorial solutions as driving forces for the sustainable development of the physical, social and economic tissue of places. It includes a variety of activities that enable students to deliver research and practice-based contents.

No

The final mark will combine the evaluation of the group practice (70%) and the assessment of an individual written exam (25%), taking in account also the attendance and the involvement during the class activities (5%).
Students, in groups of two/three people, will develop throughout the course a territorial regeneration practice on a specific area of the Italian context. Teaching team (Professors and tutors) engage with the students in the process of delivering assessed work. Deliverables – consisting of a series of posters (2/3) and a A3 report – will be deepened, updated and revised throughout the semester in desk reviews and pin-ups, and presented in a final seminar/charette.
An individual, written exam about the contents of the course and the official bibliography is mandatory and will take place over the semester. The list of bibliographic references for the written exam will be provided at the beginning of the course and uploaded on the BEEP online platform.

Attendance at the course is mandatory and punctuality highly recommended; presence, engagement and punctuality will be part of the evaluation.

Those audits and intermediate deliveries along the semester aim to improve and verify students’ skills and capabilities about the application of knowledge and understanding; their learning and communication skills and their ability to making judgements (Dublin descriptors).
The written exam, some ex-tempore and discussions about on the contents of the course and the listed bibliographical references aims to improve and verify the following skills and capabilities of students: knowledge and understanding; learning skills.