1. Didactic purposes and course theme
The course, which is designed as a logical continuation of that of the first year, intends to introduce the student to the study of spatial, functional and constructive situations of some complexity, proposing a student residence as a design theme and focusing the exercise on the relationship between individual spaces and collective spaces.
If the exercise of the first year had intended to focus attention on the fundamental experience of residency, directly comparable with the biographical and ancestral experience of each one, this year an expansion of the problematic field is proposed, asking the student to become an interpreter of needs and aspirations that continue to be perceptible in the first person, in everyday university life.
Through the choice of the student home, three thematic areas are addressed, which are:
1. the relationship with the physical and social context, of which the student settlement becomes a part;
2. the variety of spaces: individual, collective and intermediate between the individual and collective spheres, (closed and / or open, internal and / or external, serving and / or served) however understood as places of coexistence among students, such as decisive areas to remove student residences from the logic of a pure dormitory, and instead establish a relevant social role;
3. the living cell, as a module-object which can be aggregated in various ways to constitute a building and / or fabric.
2.Individual and collective
The individual as well as the collective sphere correspond to specific organizations of the space, relating to the way it is used.
A house is a place of intersection between individual areas (one's bed, one's room, one's wardrobe, etc.) and collective ones (the dining table, the kitchen, the living room, etc.); similarly, a city is a place where areas of different degrees of individuality and / or collectivity are arranged, compared and overlapped.
This is why the relationship between individual and collective is one of the great themes that have always accompanied the discipline of architecture and, in particular, since the postwar period, reflection on these aspects has assumed a crucial role.
In general terms, the definition of individual and collective spatial areas, and the organization of the space that follows, is one of the engines of the construction of the city and the territory. It is therefore considered extremely appropriate for the student to become aware of it from the early years.
3. Organization of the course
The course is organized in two parts:
3.1 Preparatory exercise (February-March, three weeks)
It is an exercise whose analytical and interpretative nature is only apparent, which will consist in the study of examples of student houses. Of these, functional, spatial, distributive, structural, linguistic and urban devices will be included, elaborating suitable sketches and drawings. Subsequently the students will have to produce an interpretative model. An interpretative model is an elaborate different from a descriptive model, since it does not propose to represent the artefact as it is, but rather to provide an adherent critical reading: adherent, since it will be based on a relevance to the artifact capable of avoiding any arbitrariness; critical, because it will try to capture one or more salient aspects of the building and highlight it in the construction of an object which, for what has been said, will not be similar to the starting building but rather analogous. On closer inspection, this exercise is a planning act.
3.2 Design exercise (March-June, nine weeks)
It is a question of designing a student house, to be installed in the city of Pescara in the area, currently vacant, between the via Foscolo, Manzoni and the waterfront. The program plans to install about 150/200 students, with all the necessary services (canteen, living rooms, laundries, study rooms, gym, etc.) and some cultural equipment of urban interest (library and multipurpose space). Particular attention must be paid to the living meanings of the choices made on the spatial organization: from the cells, to the confined spaces for small groups, to the distribution, to the spaces intended for the entire population of the student home, including the external appurtenances.
4. Conducting the course
4.1. Teaching group
The course is divided into ex cathedra lectures and communications, and seminars.
Lessons and communications
The lessons are divided into lessons in group courses (with the students of professors Misino and Valais), and lessons of this course. The first will be communicated from time to time; the lessons of this course, designed in continuity with those of the previous year, will cover:
. Introduction (presentation of the course)
. Student houses 1
. Student houses 2
. Critical models
9. Space 1/3
10. Space 2/3
11. Space 3/3
12. Types of houses
13. Construction of the plant
14. More on planning
15. Stairs and elevations
.Epilogue
These lectures are accompanied by communications on the work of some architects, chosen from among the leading masters of contemporary architecture (which follow those of last year relating to the masters of modern architecture):
Rem Koolhaas
Angelo Bucci
Smiljan Radic
Renzo Piano
Josep Lluis Mateo
These communications will consist of a concise illustration of the architect's work in question, and a detailed illustration of three works. In total fifteen works will be meticulously presented. The week following the last presentation, an individual interrogation will be carried out on the blackboard, in which, in three minutes, it will be necessary to illustrate the salient features of the requested work with schematic graphics. Information on the modalities of this study phase will be provided in due course.
Materials provided by the course
The course will make available to students, at one of the copy shops in Viale Pindaro, a CD containing this same program, basic cartographic materials and anything else necessary and appropriate.
4.2 Students
Attendance of the course is compulsory. Attendance will be recorded on special sheets and through the revision register. Please note that an excessive number of absences prevents you from taking the exam.
Seminars and Reviews
The seminar activity consists of classroom work under the supervision of the teaching team; the work done in the classroom is different from that done at home, it is an opportunity for discussion and deepening of the issues raised by the exercises and allows for a comparison with the activities of other students, evaluating similarities and differences between the ways of doing things. This confrontation is a moment of reflection and therefore of growth.
Revisions are a fundamental didactic act, the intent of which is not only (not so much) to direct the processing towards the best outcome, but to make the student acquire awareness about the mechanisms of the design process, the internal coherences to the project, to a conduction of the same congruent with the premises and the initial reasoning, even in the case of their complete subversion.
Computer use and hand drawing
Students will be able to use the computer for various writing software (such as Word), graphic and photographic processing (such as Photoshop), presentation (such as Powerpoint) and also 3D modeling (such as 3DStudiomax).
And if this year, unlike the previous one, it will be possible to use computer drawing programs (such as Autocad), intermediate (i.e. not definitive) hand-made graphic or collagistic drawings will still be appreciated. This in order to make the student understand which phases or moments of the design process it is good to carry out by hand and which ones it is good to lead to the computer.
Course notebook
Students are required to look for and show the references used in the development of the work (notes, reasoning, photocopies of articles and projects, how to use them.).
The activity of accumulating references, various materials, reflections, sketches, diagrams etc. it will constitute a notebook of the course, that is a sort of instrument for recording and measuring the growth achieved; which is also a way not to waste the thought and the work done. This notebook must be created day by day (not prepared the week before the exam) and will be requested and observed by the teaching team during the seminar activity. The notebook will be subject to specific evaluation.
Method of examination
The exam will be individual and will consist of a discussion on the results of all the exercises, on the topics covered by the various lessons and contributions, on the compulsory texts. All partial assessments will help define the final grade.
To this end, each student will have to prepare the course notebook, the project tables (presumably three, of the A1 format), the models established by the teaching group and answer the questions on the texts of the course anthology, the reading of which is mandatory
Rules of good conduct
The use of computers is not allowed during lessons: they will be turned off and put away; we kindly ask you to silence personal phones; the tables are used to work and not to deposit backpacks and jackets. Students are asked to observe these elementary rules of conduct, so that inside the classroom there is always a "laboratory" atmosphere.
