The design studio encompasses three integrated disciplinary modules of “Urban and territorial recycling” (ICAR /21), “Environmental design” (ICAR/12) and “Recycle and landscape design” (ICAR /15) which address the theme of integrated landscape and territorial design through design practice applied to contexts of high environmental complexity and fragility.

In particular, the studio will focus on the transformation of declining and inefficient urban settlements according to a recycling-based approach: an approach aimed at reassigning new value and meaning to existing building stock; reactivating natural resources and increasing landscape resilience; innovating technological and mobility infrastructures.

Students will be asked to develop design proposals for a portion of contemporary Italian urbanization, tackling specific processes of environmental crisis and climate change, building decline and property value loss. It will not be just a matter of learning how to integrate environmental, landscape and territorial design methods or techniques. Students will learn how to translate their design vision into a long-term transformation strategy on different scales that will necessarily have to deal with social context, building-embodied values (both material and intangible) and the limits of public action.

The course has the aim of developing the knowledge and understanding of the topics analysed during the studio activities and their application through the design process, the ability to make judgements demonstrated through the design choices, the acquired communication skills through the presentation of the project and, finally, lifelong learning skills through the learning of a working methodology.

The design exercise will focus on a series of unauthorized coastal settlements located along the 20 kilometres-long Adriatic shoreline in the Municipality of Lecce, in Apulia Region. Such settlements – which grew between the 1960s and 1980s as second-homes satellites linked to the urban centres a few kilometres inland – reveal today a bunch of critical issues: the lack of public facilities, the intrinsic building and infrastructural fragility and the environmental degradation are preventing the development of these environments within a qualified residential and tourist perspective. The emergence of a new social demands connected to quality landscapes, however, is calling for design approaches capable of re-establishing an idea of common good beyond individual exploitation and reclaiming degraded spaces.

Within this framework, the project will prefigure a transformation of such coastal settlements by addressing:

- the relationship between natural open spaces and the built sectors, improving biodiversity and environmental quality;

- the integration between the coastal ecosystem and the private houses, creating new public accessibility to the sea;

- the mediation between land and sea forces through the configuration of a resilient edge that can adapt and have a “dynamic stability” respecting the natural actions;

- the development of regenerative processes for the built environment, also according to circular economy approaches;

- landscape strategies aimed at the prevention of the environmental risks connected with climate change and pollution, with particular attention to the comprehensive reconfiguration of water management system.

The “Built Environment and Landscape design studio” is organized according to an agreement signed between the Dept. of Architecture and Urban Studies at Politecnico and the Municipality of Lecce, in the mutual interest for developing innovative strategies dedicated to the reform of unauthorized coastal settlements in southern Italy regions.

A basic fieldwork experience and a practice of photographic survey are requested, as well as basic knowledge in ecology principles end built environment regeneration processes.

Student’s evaluation will be based on both individual and group work. During the semester different didactic tools and experiences will be experimented, ranging from extempore to traditional tutoring and intermediate critiques of the design development scheduled steps.

In particular, the final evaluation will comprise the presentation and discussion of the design proposal and of the activities performed during the program. Deliverables will consist of a research booklet, project panels and models, and a digital individual photographic work.