93716 - Architectural Design I

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student will have acquired the ability to articulate and organize the whole complexity of the contemporary architectural project in patterns of opportunities able to comply with contemporary and future functional maps. The student will be able to develop this skill through the use of computation-based tools, such as mediums, which permeate the entire project process, from the initial exploration to the realization.

Course contents

The educational objective of the course is to convey to the student, through moments of both collective and individual reflection, the principles and theoretical and practical tools of a “compositional culture” in architectural design.

The theme of the studio concerns the design of a “Student House” and takes as the site for the design experience the “urban void” within the Santa Marta university complex, between the Cotonificio and the Warehouses overlooking the Giudecca Canal and, more generally, the western front of the city of Venice towards the mainland. This area has been affected by the “modernization” interventions that have impacted this part of the city since the second half of the 19th century.

Based on a broad reflection on a specific idea of “collective living”, the student will be asked to operationally articulate its contents through the study of the “constitutive elements” of architecture and the definition of their relationships, to shape the “internal” and “external” space of the architectural object in relation to precise “constructive” logics and the “figurative” reasons behind its form.

Developing a reflection on design concepts and tools that history and architectural theory have identified as the disciplinary corpus of architectural design: geometry, type, the use of constitutive elements, language, construction, scale, the relationship between form and place, in connection with notions and techniques borrowed from other artistic disciplines such as dissonance, counterpoint, montage, and bricolage, the studio experience aims to foster a broad theoretical and practical reflection on the concept of “dialectical space” in architecture.

The design process is understood as a moment of construction and verification of a “method” of design, which materializes through a “dialectical” relationship between the organizing function of the design operation, expressed in the “construction” of the architectural “form”, and the reasons for its “figurative” impulses, to which the theme of the “character” of architecture and its inescapable expressive component must be referred.

The study of the history of architecture, particularly certain works situated within the historical and cultural framework of an “alternative Modernism”, assumes a primarily operational value in the design experience, manifested as an “abstraction” from the historical data of themes, tools, procedures, principles, and compositional techniques of architecture.

Thus conceived, the educational experience becomes the “place” of a broader theoretical construction and an experimental operation that is both “analytical” and “synthetic”, focusing on the dialectic between “construction” and “figuration” and the value that the study of “history” takes on in the compositional operations of architecture. Here, the analysis of historical data is not viewed as a representation of a chronological sequence, but as an “a-historical” moment of inquiry into the deeper, internal structure of architectural language, in order to constantly historicize its constructive principles and expressive references within the concrete and distinct historical and cultural conditions of architectural design.

Readings/Bibliography

Le Corbuiser, Precisions oh the state of architecture and urban planning, Park Books, Zurich 2015.

Le Corbusier, Œuvre complète Volume 1-8, Les édition d’architecture, Zurich, 1948-1965.

Nicola Braghieri, Architettura arte retorica, Sagep, Genova 2013.

Giorgio Grassi, La Costruzione logica dell'architettura, Marsilio, Padova 1967.

Massimo Iori (a cura di), Analisi architettonica & progettazione analitica, CittàStudiEdizioni, Milano 1995.

Alioscia Mozzato, Colin Rowe and Aldo Rossi. Utopia as Metaphor of a New City Analogous to the Existing One, in Politics, “sITA studies in History and Theory of Architecture”, Vol. 5, Ion Mincu University Press, Bucharest 2018, pp. 140-153.

Alioscia Mozzato, Eminentemente rappresentativo e totalmente astratto. Le Corbusier e il Palazzo dei Filatori di Ahmedabad, Libria, Melfi 2023.

Alioscia Mozzato, L’eternità dell’attimo. Sul “Laboratorio Venezia” di Gianugo Polesello, LetteraVentidue, Siracusa 2024.

Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. 1984.

Aldo Rossi, Introduzione a Boulleé, in Etienne Louis Boullee Architettura. Saggio sull'arte, Marsilio, Padova 1967, pp. 7-24.

Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Collage City, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. 1979.

Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays, MIT Press, Cambridge Mass. 1982.

Luciano Semerani, L'altro Moderno, Allemandi & C., Torino 2000.

Manfredo Tafuri, Theories and History of Architecture, Harper & Row, New York, 1980.

Manfredo Tafuri, Venice and the Renaissance, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA), 1989.

Teaching methods

Teaching activities include lectures delivered by the teaching staff, aimed at outlining and framing the historical, geographical and cultural contexts of the studio. These lectures review a wide range of design experiences, focusing on the understanding of compositional procedures adopted in selected modern and contemporary architectural works that engage with the themes of the course. At the end of each lecture, a bibliography related to the topic discussed will be provided. The schedule of lectures and design exercises will be communicated during the course of the studio activities.

The design experience places freehand drawing and the construction of physical models at the centre of the process, as the primary tools for the control and verification of the project’s compositional operations. Each student’s interpretative and design path will be assessed by the teaching staff through desk critiques, held weekly in the studio, as well as through collective discussions on the progress of the projects.

Each student is required to keep a “Notebook” (with strictly white pages and a recommended size of 19 × 25 cm), intended to document the reflections developed throughout the design process by means of study drawings, photographs and any other materials (exhibition tickets, fragments of materials and fabrics, images, and objets trouvés of any kind) useful for representing the construction of a critical and design-oriented mode of thinking. This mode of thinking, it should be noted, is never linear or exhaustive; rather, it takes the form of a “constellation” of reflections that defines a possible framework for interpreting reality and for understanding the existence of architecture.

Assessment methods

The final examination will take into account the results achieved during the activities of the course “Building Information Modelling II” and will include the assessment of the critical-interpretative and operative-design process developed within the studio. This assessment will be conducted through an oral discussion of the content of the final outcomes and of the studio activities carried out during the course.

The examination grade will be based on the quality of the project and its representation, with reference to the theoretical topics and the course bibliography. Particular emphasis will be placed on the coherence between the proposed themes and the design outcomes, as well as the appropriateness of the techniques used for the representation of the project.

The examination will be preceded by an “final seminar”, which all enrolled students are required to attend. Upon completion of the seminar, students who have completed the assignments requested by the teaching staff (details of which will be provided during the studio activities) will be eligible to sit the examination.

The examination will take the form of a collective presentation and an individual discussion of the materials produced during the course activities and of the final design outcomes. The examination board will express its assessment according to an evaluation framework that considers the quality of the presentation, the knowledge acquired, the level of theoretical depth, the adequacy of the design operations in relation to the studio theme, and the appropriateness of their representation.

Teaching tools

Each student is required to equip themselves with the necessary tools for the development of the project, both for freehand drawing and digital design. Graphic work and physical models for analysis and design will be developed according to a layout provided at the start of the course. The construction of physical architectural models is mandatory.

Office hours

See the website of Alioscia Mozzato