04002 - Architectural Composition II (A)

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Cesena
  • Corso: Single cycle degree programme (LMCU) in Architecture (cod. 0881)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module, the student is able to tackle the architectural project with particular attention to the themes of the public and collective building in the context of the contemporary city

Course contents

The Design Studio IV - Laboratorio di Progettazione Architettonica IV (C.I. 12 CFU) consists, in addition to the characterizing teaching of Architectural Composition II (8 CFU), by the teaching of Landscape Architecture (4 CFU).

The Design Studio deals with the theme of the collective building and the neighborhood understood as an integrated system structuring the city as well as a morphological reference on the scale of the landscape. Considering public buildings as those artifacts that participate in the culture of a place, which reflect the characteristics and contradictions of civil life, the Architectural Composition Course deals with the theme of a piece of the city through the definition of a new relationship between built space and open space, private and public space.

If history transmits the principles through which to arrive at the verification of the reasons that led to the design of the urban morphology, understood as the result of a process of modification that took place over time, where collective buildings, also according to their positional value, assume the role of catalysts for the development of the city, the relationship that exists between public building and urban form also constitutes a central value for the project, the context in which the theory finds expression through the architectural form.

The architectural project therefore represents the place to verify the hypothesis of new interventions intended for urban areas that need to be rethought or regenerated, through new settlement strategies aimed at defining a more sustainable, safe and meaningful city. To achieve these objectives, the verification of the relationships that exist between the new intervention and architectural tradition takes on a priority role, but also the reflection on the relationship that, especially in the contemporary project, exists between building and place, between typology and morphology, between form and structure. For this reason, the project measures itself with the pre-existing architectures in order to understand the relationships between the different artifacts, analyzes the different parts that make up the city to search for the generating principles of the urban form but also the conditions for future development. The identification of urban facts on which to base new intervention strategies, according to new scenarios of contemporary living, finally leads to considering the project as an area open to confrontation with history and a privileged place in which new settlements and new buildings can to experience relationships of an analogical nature.

Through the components of the project, the Design Studio is therefore configured as a methodological tool for addressing the study of architecture and the city by identifying the same settlement principles in the cultural characteristics of the place. The central theme of the Studio will be the housing project intended as the place where private, public and collective spaces find a synthesis. Particular attention will be paid, in this context, to the knowledge of the determinants of the place, to the values it transmits with respect to the natural and built landscape, to the cultural factors and to the identity characteristics of belonging.

Targets:

- To achieve the understanding and interpretation of the characters of the place through the tools of composition and graphic and iconographic representation.

- Establish a clear and logically motivated relationship between urban form, residential fabric (private dimension), buildings and collective places (public dimension).

- Consider the project for the collective building and the urban whole as an opportunity to rethink, in critical terms, the relationship between architectural type, tradition and innovation.

- Understanding the collective building as a primary element capable of orienting reflection on the urban form but also as an essential reference for defining the space of relationships.

Readings/Bibliography

Essential bibliography

- R. Moneo, La solitudine degli edifici ed altri scritti, 2 voll., Allemandi, Torino 1999;

- R. Moneo, Inquietudine teorica e strategia progettuale nell'opera di otto architetti contemporanei, Electa, Milano 2005;

- R. Moneo, L’altra modernità. Considerazioni sul futuro dell’architettura, Christian Marinotti edizioni, Milano 2012;

- N. Pevsner, Storia e caratteri degli edifici, Fratelli Palombi srl, Roma, 1986;

J. Rykwert, L’idea di città. Antropologia della forma urbana nel mondo antico, Adelphi, Milano 2002;

- E. N. Rogers, Esperienza dell’architettura, Einaudi, Milano 1958 (Milano: Skira 1997);

- A. Rossi, Scritti scelti sull'architettura e la città, Clup, Milano 1975;

- O. M. Ungers, La città dialettica, Skira, Milano 1997.

Specific bibliography will be provided during the lectures.

Teaching methods

The teaching of the Design Studio is based on the constant comparison between design and theory and is manifested through the tools of drawing. The Design Studio foresees the comparison and continuous discussion with the different working groups, it will be divided into three parts: the first part is intended as a cognitive phase, it will therefore be oriented to the study of the place, the context and case studies; the second part will be dedicated to the definition of the urban project aimed at identifying the system of relationships that are established between the new intervention, the existing fabric and the landscape; the third part will focus on the design of a building or a system of collective buildings developed on an architectural scale.

The project will be supported by exercises in reading and analyzing the city and by a series of lectures dedicated to the knowledge of the study area, the theoretical aspects related to the themes of the urban project and the typological definition of the public building.

Assessment methods

The exam will consist in the evaluation of the project documents and in the discussion around the theoretical issues dealt with in the course.

The Design Studio IV - Laboratorio di Progettazione Architettonica IV A (C.I. 12 CFU) consists, in addition to the characterizing teaching of Architectural Composition II (8 CFU), by a Landscape Architecture course (4 CFU).

The final grade will be awarded taking into consideration the results obtained in the exercises carried out during the semester and together with the contents and the paper produced in the integrated course module. Each criterion will be awarded from 0 to 6 grades.

1 - Knowledge of the research themes and coherence of the project path;

2 - Compliance of the project proposal with the requests indicated (project tables);

3 - Quality of the architectural project in relation to the urban space;

4 - Graphic quality of the drawings of the models presented;

5 - Congruence with the theoretical aspects transmitted through the lessons, revisions and the Landscape Architecture module.

Teaching tools

The thematic bibliographies provided during the course will constitute the main reference for the acquisition of the information necessary for the development of the analysis and the project.

The use of audiovisual materials is foreseen to support the lessons and thematic seminars. Students will use tools for digital drawing, for 3D modeling, particular attention will be dedicated to the realization of physical models.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Saverio Fera