The Studio proposes an experience in architectural design facing the proper complexity of the process. Contextual, typological, functional, constructive, expressive and formal issues of the architectural design process will be treated in their mutual relationship and interaction. The design is challenged to critically appreciate ongoing transformations in real contexts and propose appropriate solutions. To achieve this goal students are guided: in a first phase, in the comprehension of the context of the project, in the evaluation of the alternative approaches proposed for the case study area in public debates, and in the appreciation of the relations between buildings and urban structure; in a second phase, in a research of experimental building types and forms able to combine compositional questions with design and technical aspects of the building.

The aim of the teaching is the elaboration of the design of a building facing the questions referring to the urban scale as to the detail scale, considering formal, technical, material and functional issues in their mutual relations.

Within the design process, the conceptual design of a structural system for seismic actions is of special interest, as it requires the adoption of an effective bracing system, in the context of a 3-d resisting frame with regularity properties both in plan and elevation.

Students:

- acquire knowledge and understanding of the techniques and tools for architectural design;

- acquire knowledge and understanding of the principles of seismic structural engineering;

- are capable of facing a critical approach to all necessary scales of an architectural design with advanced levels of specialisation and detail;

- are capable of facing a critical analysis of locations and contexts in the close relationship between building and city, history and taste, and the technique and function of architecture;

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

- are capable of applying the principles of structural seismic engineering in the architectural project.

Why is living in Milan so exhausting?

Despite the elegance of the architecture that in the last century structured the expansion and later the postwar reconstruction of a large part of the urban fabric; despite its residential construction has higher standards than in any other Italian city; despite also recent virtuous examples, it seems almost impossible to be happy in Milan. Hurry, anxiety, social inequality; no sea, no mountains, no squares, no public space.

The course will address the issues of inhabiting through a multiscale and multisensory approach. On the one hand, a series of real problems related to a given context will be illustrated in depth (the program will be developed in collaboration with local stakeholders), on the other hand the student will be given the opportunity to respond to those problems in a radical and non-standardized way. A design tool kit for each student will be built by collecting typological and architectural references, but also fiction books, movies, and sensations.

The course will be structured in a series of specific exercises and in different phases. Students will be involved in individual, small group and collective exercises, depending on the work phase.

In addition to the lectures, several shared seminars will form the backbone of the course, and will be integrated, compatibly with the evolution of the health situation, with: meetings and reviews with local stakeholders; meetings and reviews with invited international architects and critics; visits to interesting case studies; visits to construction sites and a study trip to a European destination.

• SDG10 - REDUCED INEQUALITIES

No prerequisiti.