Tag: saggi

  • Andante veloce. Regarding two variations in intensity

    For better or worse, in the field of architectural education, there is no parameter by which to measure the greater distance between training and profession than that which concerns project timescales. For better, because it must always be remembered that the educational objectives of an architecture degree do not coincide, nor should they coincide, with…

  • Exceptions. The case of Thematic Laboratories

    The thematic laboratory, in its current form, evolved from a project within the Master’s Degree programme in Architecture Built Environment Interiors (ACI) and its English-language counterpart Architecture Built Environment Interiors (BEI) at the School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Construction Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. The course, which began in the 2017-2018 academic year,…

  • Three studios 2. Teaching design research

    When understood as a research operation, the teaching of the project allows us to advance some reflections on the construction of an idea of space, reflecting on what John Hejduk explained during the exhibition and in the catalogue Education of an Architect: a point of view, regarding the exercise of the Cube Problem: “the student…

  • Designing the teaching of the project

    “Designing project teaching” refers to the attempt to equate architectural project teaching strategies with a project itself, which aims to construct a workshop “space” based on a series of assumptions and supporting an idea to be developed at different times and through specific tools. To explore these aspects in greater depth, reference is made below…

  • Living in the laboratory

    «Education today is a great obsession. It is also a great necessity». It is not difficult to apply these words, which sparked debate in the 1960s and 1970s on the American educational process, when the right to education and the need to discuss teaching as a matter of social integration were urgent and deeply political…

  • The first apprenticeship. Between doing and watching others do

    The Design Laboratory I welcomes a class of about 80 students enrolled in the first year of the three-year degree course in Architectural Sciences. The course is structured in two semesters with compulsory attendance, the first taught by Vincenzo Moschetti and the second by Fabio Balducci who, with the support of a group of tutors,…

  • The architecture of learning

    Two different movements are linked to the concepts of teaching and learning. Often used as synonyms, their etymology tells of two distinct predispositions. In the first case, the action focuses on the person who teaches, instructs, shows and trains (gr. DIDAKTIKÓS instructive, from DIDAKTIKÓS which can be taught, Didaxis lesson, and derives from the same…

  • The conditions for a “cours préparatoire”

    Times and numbers My first reaction concerns the number of students mentioned in the course description. Such a large number makes it difficult to assess the students’ progress – something I consider fundamental – or to carry out a fair evaluation or comparative analysis of the results. At the Politecnico di Milano, we have a…

  • Preparatory work and architectural design

    The development of a first-year architectural design workshop programme is in itself a fundamental undertaking. Not only because it represents the student’s first “encounter” with the design experience, but also because, as the term “workshop” suggests, it requires the transmission of knowledge that is not linear in nature. Rather, it is made up of trials,…

  • Building narratives for communities

    The world of architectural education is becoming more complex with each passing year. At the turn of the millennium, design culture found itself having to face challenges that once seemed far from the world of “bella forma”, of an architecture that, at least in Europe, until not long ago spoke of the autonomy of the…