60
Architecture Technology
REGGIO DI CALABRIA
Overview
Date/time interval
Syllabus
Course Objectives
Therefore, in order to achieve the expected outcomes of the Course program, the Educational Offering, divided into different Activities, pursues the following Educational Objectives:
- Qualifying Educational Objectives:
The theoretical aspects covered contribute to the Educational Profile of curricular experiences as per the Manifesto (EU Architect), using the project as a "specific" form of interpretation and reconfiguration of architectural, material, and object-related aspects, as well as the technological and environmental culture of the project.
- Specific Educational Objectives:
The Course, with reference to the theoretical and experimental aspects covered, contributes to innovation in the training of the Design Architect, through the study and analysis of the evolution and experimentation of Building Materials and production and application technologies, understood as central elements of the Construction of Architecture as well as processes of Transformation and Modification of Spaces and the Environment.
Course Prerequisites
Materials for Architecture, being a first-year course, requires no prerequisites. The course provides all the knowledge and tools necessary to address the topics listed.
Teaching Methods
1 - TYPE OF TRAINING ACTIVITIES:
The Course, according to the Scheduled Timetable, will be structured through three Lesson Cycles.
CYCLE I - IN/MATER - Material Culture and Design
Definitions, classifications, and historical systematization of materials, techniques of use, and production factors; critical principles and references to the implementation of the Architectural Project:
- Material Culture and Design Culture: Matter and Form;
- Materials in the History of Architecture;
- Materials and the Evolution of Production Factors;
- Knowledge of Materials and Architectural Design.
CYCLE II - Materials Science as a Knowledge Base
Materials Science as a knowledge base for understanding their behavior and use in construction; the relationship between construction principles and design choices; references to requirements and performance objectives:
- Information on Building Materials;
- The Quality of Building Materials (Classifications, Characteristics, Performance);
- Building Materials and Technological Solutions;
CYCLE III - The Construction of Architecture
Relationships between materials, construction techniques, and architectural form; appropriate technologies, issues of durability, reliability, and maintainability:
- The Architectural Organism reinterpreted as a Unitary System of Functions;
- The Architectural Organism: The Elements;
- The Construction of Architecture - The Workability of Materials; Methods and Means for the Construction of Architecture.
- The Construction of Architecture - Industrialized Processes.
2 - STUDENT INDEPENDENT WORK
In order to take the Final Exam, in the preparation of the Preparatory Activity Program, students must:
- Study the topics covered in the lectures in greater depth
- Study the indicated bibliographies
- Study the provided teaching materials (subject-specific bibliographies; fact sheets on materials, components, and technological systems; anthologies - manuals; subject-specific handouts)
Furthermore, students are required to summarize the previous path followed through a Personal Paper that includes the bibliographical insights conducted, the graphic elaborations produced, the synthetic and summary sheets as well as all the supporting photographic documentation.
Assessment Methods
In relation to the specificity of the topics of the Lessons covered within the individual Cycles previously indicated, the Students, through individual steps that take place during each scheduled Lesson, personally - but with supported direction - articulate the start in the classroom of a summary - in draft - of the themes of the topics of the Lesson attended, correlating them to the more general Theme of the Specific Cycle to which the lesson itself refers.
All of this - also provided after a verification dialogue with the Teaching Staff - therefore constitutes the preliminary phase of development, by the Students, of the production of a requested, personal register, which summarizes the characteristics of the themes covered during the lessons attended. This register, through the subsequent, parallel phase of specific, individual study and in-depth study path, which the Students will conduct - also through the teaching materials and thematic bibliographies, previously and contextually provided - will allow them to be able to rework - both in terms of content and graphic design - the material summarized during the lessons.
The required Summary, therefore, summarizing the educational path followed, reread and revised, and further summarized by the students in personal writings, graphics, photographic documentation, etc., represents the key work for the final exam.
The Personal Book, as the required and previously specified summary is called, will therefore represent a single, supervised Student Portfolio containing information on the educational path followed.
More specifically, it is considered a paper, structured according to the following structure:
- Notes, with Summary Sheets, Comparison Tables, and Graphs, according to specific guideline indexes.
- Monographic Studies on the Materials Studied: The project envisions the production of papers on the investigated materials, covering the evolution of materials throughout the History of Architecture; the evolution of production factors; the relationship between matter and form; material quality; and the physical behavior of materials in relation to environmental requirements.
- Graphic Works with drawings, comments, and annotations, using official graphic conventions and relating to the theoretical deconstruction of a theoretical architecture. This work will involve the development of various technical alternatives, with particular reference to the technical/constructive aspects derived from manuals and the manufacturing sector.
Please note that the work will be individual, although, during the preliminary drafting of the Book, which will be conducted in the classroom, students will be able to discuss the work with one another in small study groups.
Texts
Baratta A.F.L. (2020), Materials for Architecture, CLEAN Edizioni, Napoli
Campioli A. Lavagna M. (2013) Techniques and Architecture, Novara 2013, Citta Studi Edizioni
Giachetta A. Novi F. Raiteri R (2019) The Construction of an Idea, the Thinking of Material. Reflections on Architectural Design, Roma, Franco Angeli Editore
Pellizzari A. Genovesi E. (2021) Neomaterials 2.0 in the circular economy Edizioni Ambiente
Puglisi V., Cazzaniga M. (2022), Building a house. Construction techniques, systems, and materials. Maggioli Editori, Santarcangelo di Romagna
Reference Web Sites:
- www.materialdesign.it
Contents
"I have never taught my students anything; I have only tried to enable them to learn." (Albert Einstein)
The Architectural Materials Course—a first-year subject of the Five-Year Single-Cycle Degree Program in Architecture—aligns with the current Academic Regulations of the Program and is also informed by the subtle and illuminating consideration of merit and method mentioned in the opening quote. It constitutes a training program within which students, through an understanding of its intrinsic content and meaning, acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to define—in a variety of contexts and contexts—the characteristics of architectural construction.
A set of skills and knowledge, therefore, that enables them to make an appropriate and coherent combination of construction choices, capable of translating the formal, linguistic, and spatial characteristics of architecture.
Within the complex and detailed educational path of a Designer, the Course's contributions contribute to defining an important educational and informative pathway on Materials and Technologies for Production and Use. This is because, in a unified and complex vision, they themselves are connoted as Architectural Projects and, therefore, as characteristics that, historically, have always structured and determined the definition of the Processes of Environmental Modification and Transformation of both anthropized and non-anthropized realities.
Materials for Architecture is therefore the captivating phrase that outlines the scenario of a segment of the Disciplinary Culture of Architecture within which a Training Path is defined and articulated that outlines and articulates the framework of design intelligence through which Architectural Thought becomes Built.
A fusion of knowledge and understanding, therefore, that structures the corpus of choices that the Architectural Project makes, so that its Form achieves concreteness.
The Course, therefore, proposes the current structure of its Program, through the assumption of the following presuppositions:
- Build a mindset where there are no distinctions between the formal purposes of Architecture and the possibility of being realized through the characteristics and languages of Materials and Technologies (of production and use).
- Investigate Materials and Technologies, identifying such insights with knowledge of the means, the production cycle, and their place in the Construction of an Architecture.
- Define a path of understanding the characteristics of materials, in relation to the issues of stability, protection, and durability that the building components are called upon to address.
- Investigate the study of the relationships between the Architectural Organism and its Components, reinterpreted as a unitary and structured set of parts acting interactively and - contextually - related to a juxtaposition within the Cultural, Socio-Technical and Natural Contexts of the Places.