Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
Qualifying training objectives:
The course aims to provide students with a solid theoretical and methodological foundation to address the complexity of contemporary urban design. It promotes an integrated vision of architecture, landscape and infrastructure within a resilient and sustainable framework. The goal is to train designers who are aware of the challenges of contemporary urban contexts and able to operate with cross-disciplinary tools, sensitive to ongoing environmental and social transformations.
Specific objectives:
Students will be guided in the development of “third ground” devices: elevated, suspended or stratified public spaces designed to intervene in areas affected by environmental vulnerability, social marginalisation or infrastructural abandonment. The course aims to equip students with the ability to conceive site-specific projects that are ecologically and socially responsible, through the use of light, reversible and adaptive strategies. The training process integrates morphological analysis, interpretation of urban sections, study of social and environmental dynamics, and advanced representation skills.
Course Prerequisites
Students enrolling in this course are expected to have a foundational understanding of architectural design principles, urban planning concepts, and representation techniques, including both manual and digital drawing skills. Prior experience with spatial composition and basic knowledge of landscape elements and materials will be advantageous.
Furthermore, a keen sensitivity to the environmental and social dimensions of public spaces is strongly recommended. This includes an awareness of sustainability issues, ecological processes, and the cultural significance of landscapes in urban and peri-urban contexts.
Students should also be prepared to engage in interdisciplinary thinking, integrating knowledge from ecology, sociology, and urban studies to approach landscape architecture projects holistically. A proactive attitude towards collaborative work and field analysis will greatly benefit students in successfully addressing the complex challenges presented in this course.
Teaching Methods
COURSE STRUCTURE AND TEACHING
1. Types of activities:
· Lectures: 30 hours
· Design exercises: 30 hours
· Practical activities / Studio: 60 hours
· Schedule: Second semester (12 weeks)
2_ AUTONOMOUS LEARNING OF THE STUDENT
1 ECTS = 25 hours (10 in class / 15 student-led)
· Study of theoretical texts (Phase 1)
· Site and case study analysis (Phase 2)
· Project development (Phase 3)
Assessment Methods
The final examination consists of the presentation of the project developed during the course, including graphic boards, physical models and a written report. The evaluation will consider the design quality, consistency with the assigned theme, clarity of presentation and the student’s critical approach.
Exam type: Theory / Practice
Texts
- Stan Allen, Points + Lines, Princeton Architectural Press
- James Corner, Terra Fluxus (in Recovering Landscape)
- Elissa Cattaneo, Dispositivi minimi. Suolo e pratiche spaziali, LetteraVentidue
- MVRDV, The Vertical Village, NAi Publishers
- Andrea Branzi, Modernità debole e diffusa, Skira
- J. Corner, Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press
- C. Waldheim, Landscape as Urbanism, Princeton University Press
- R. Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture, Taschen
- M. Desvigne, Intermediate Natures, Birkhäuser
- B. Secchi, La città del ventesimo secolo, Laterza
- J. Gehl, Cities for People, Island Press
- AA.VV., L’infrastruttura leggera, Quodlibet
Web resources: archdaily.com, landezine.com, urbz.net
Contents
1_DESCRIPTION
The course explores the ground as a complex design material and an active infrastructure, placing it at the centre of contemporary landscape and public space design. No longer a passive support, the ground is interpreted as a three-dimensional thickness, a dynamic palimpsest capable of hosting functions, ecological relationships, environmental cycles and social trajectories. Within this framework, students are required to develop an architectural project of a “third ground”: a new generation of suspended, elevated or hybrid public spaces that respond to environmental vulnerability, infrastructural decay or urban marginality.
The course integrates critical reading of the contemporary urban landscape with experimental design practices, encouraging the use of the section as an analytical and compositional tool, the hybridisation of architecture, landscape and infrastructure, and the adoption of light, reversible and ecological strategies. The approach is multidisciplinary, with a combination of lectures, design exercises, collective reviews and thematic workshops. Particular attention is paid to regeneration processes, the public dimension of space, and the construction of new urban imaginaries capable of blending nature, artifice and collective life.
2_COURSE PROGRAMME
The course proposes a theoretical and operative reflection on the theme of the “third ground”, understood as a new design dimension for urban architecture and landscape: an artificial surface, suspended or stratified, that inserts itself into voids, obsolete infrastructures or residual areas of the contemporary city.
In response to territories marked by natural disasters, environmental crises, urban decay or social marginalisation, the “third ground” acts as a light and adaptive infrastructure, capable of generating new forms of habitability, relationship and resilience.
The course is structured into three main phases:
1. Critical analysis and theoretical construction.
Through lectures, seminars and collective discussions, internationally significant case studies will be analysed (e.g., the High Line in New York, Seoullo 7017 in Seoul, Zorlu Center in Istanbul, The Bentway in Toronto), to understand the strategies, languages, materials and social impacts of these urban devices. At the same time, fundamental notions of urban ecology, public space sociology and slow mobility will be introduced to provide students with interdisciplinary and critical tools.
2. Construction of a design atlas.
Through graphic exercises and morphological interpretations, a taxonomy of design devices will be developed: suspended platforms, artificial topographies, hybrid structures, infrastructural landscapes, inhabited bridges, cultivated rooftops. Various relationships between ground, body, time and collectivity will be explored, focusing on reversibility, circularity, permeability and sustainability.
3. Design of an urban device.
Students will develop a project of a “third ground” within a selected real context, to be interpreted in terms of spatial conflict, absence or potential. The final design will take the form of an intervention capable of regenerating public space in an ecological, accessible and inclusive manner, using representation techniques that prioritise the section, three-dimensionality and the narrative of the intervention’s life cycle.
Key topics:
Ground as a three-dimensional device: section, palimpsest, stratification
Suspended architectures, infrastructural landscapes, inhabited platforms
Design of urban voids as spatial and collective resources
Light, ecological, adaptive construction strategies
Disciplinary integrations: urban ecology, sociology of space, slow mobility
The course encourages a design approach capable of combining technical innovation and environmental sensitivity, imagination and responsibility, to creatively address the challenges of today’s urban landscape.
The design experiment will consist in the development of a “third ground” (elevated park, public infrastructure, housing system), represented through sectional drawings, plans, diagrams, physical models and a booklet.
3_EXPECTED RESULTS
· Knowledge and Understanding: Students will acquire an advanced understanding of the concepts of urban soil, public space, territorial vulnerability, and the use of the urban section as a tool for analysis and composition.
· Applied Knowledge and Understanding: Students will develop the ability to apply theoretical and methodological knowledge in creating complex, coherent, and site-specific architectural and landscape design projects.
· Autonomy of Judgment: Students will enhance their critical skills to analyze environmental, social, and morphological conditions of the context and develop conscious and responsible design solutions.
· Communication Skills: Students will learn to effectively represent and communicate their design ideas using an integrated approach, including physical and digital models, graphic elaborations, descriptive texts, and oral presentations.
· Learning Skills: Students will consolidate autonomous and interdisciplinary learning methods to support the ongoing development of both design and theoretical skills in landscape architecture.
More information
During the course, students will engage in a landscape design project using CAD tools they have already acquired in their studies. The project will require the practical application of the theoretical and methodological knowledge covered in the lessons.
At the end of the course, students will create a physical or digital model of their design project, which will serve as a fundamental tool for representing and communicating their design ideas.
This activity will help consolidate both technical and creative skills, promoting an integrated approach between digital design and manual modeling.