The Thesis Seminar is a multidisciplinary didactic experience, designated to study in depth the methodological aspects of the research activity, and notably aimed at developing the Master's Degree graduation Thesis. The seminar will specifically provide the students with some critical and methodological instruments, and with a collegial space for free discussion and debate, in order to allow them to systematize knowledge and skills learnt during their previous academic career and to define an individual and original research program positioned within the wider framework of the topics treated in the seminar. Once a common theme will be identified, the teachers of the various disciplines involved in the seminar will work together, exploring specific research or design topics, offering further opportunities of in-depth analysis and fostering collective debates about the outcomes of the individual research of the students. The continuous dialogue among the disciplines involved in the seminar will offer to the students an opportunity to test the application of a robust methodological structure to the manifold solicitations coming from the real world. Through ex-cathedra lectures and seminar meetings, specialised disciplinary insights will be provided. The originality of the contents and the proposed approach and the necessary topicality of the topics and issues proposed and addressed in the thesis seminar, will allow the student to start a first and important moment of in-depth knowledge; this work will be eventually completed in the subsequent graduation thesis, that will be developed under the tutorship of one o more of the tutors involved in the seminar.

At the end of the course the student will be able to interpret the state of the art, to analyze the basic scientific literature and to structure his or her own research work for the master's thesis on the proposed topics. The student will acquire: - the ability to broaden, update and apply the knowledge and technical skills learnt during the course of studies to the need to tackle complex and articulated design and research topics; - the ability to use an appropriate methodological approach when proposing and organising design or research work; - the ability to systematize, with respect to a research theme, the theoretical and applicative insights from the different disciplines that emerged during the seminar activities.

The student must be in possession of an adequate personal preparation, having acquired basic knowledge of the disciplines involved in the seminar activity and of the topics taught in the first and second level courses.

This seminar provides advanced research methodologies and operational tools to tackle final thesis dealing with complex design through the key of performance evaluation, in particular physical, technological and economic. Within the diversified range of the various thesis seminars, this one allows to conclude the Master's degree training towards a technical and technological specialization, based on quantitative metrics and analysis tools to contribute to the professional challenges of an architect, with specific attention to retrofit operations aimed to energy saving, environmental comfort and ecological transition. The teaching will allow the contributions from the various disciplines to be crossed and hybridised in order to adequately address complex, innovative, and multidisciplinary design issues. In the frame of the collaboration between Politecnico di Torino and Aosta Municipality, buildings and neighbourhoods in Aosta offer the effective opportunity to experiment in real cases the evaluation methodologies for the design of the built environment. The real case-projects deal with scales from architectural and building retrofit up to urban regeneration. This seminar is organized into lectures, numerical exercise, in-field and in-lab experimental activities, technical on-site visits and workshops from professionals and stakeholders. Demonstration of current research projects and activities on the seminar topics will be delivered. Lectures will deal with the following topics: - literature research methods and databases, handbooks and fundamentals, how to retrieve the information; - how to write a scientific manuscript; - international standards and methodology of experimental measurements; fundamentals of metrology; - methodologies and criteria to evaluate indoor and outdoor environmental quality; - mono and multi-criteria valuation approaches for the assessment of projects, plans and policies; - design and prototype innovative façade systems, with advanced BIM and CAM technologies, in collaboration with construction and manufacturing companies.

There will be 4 modules of 20 hours, each addressing design, theoretical, technical and applied topics. The final exam will be twofold. - Each student will be required a single in depth study in the form of a technical manuscript; and - Each group of students will develop a presentation on an interdisciplinary case study project.

Bouyssou D., Marchant M., Pirlot M., Perny P., Tsoukias A. Vincke P. (2000), Evaluation and Decision Models: A Critical Perspective, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Boston/London/Dortrech Department for Communities and Local Government, London (2009), Multicriteria Analysis: a manual [http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/12761/1/Multi-criteria_Analysis.pdf] European Commission (2014), Guide to Cost Benefit Analysis of Investment projects [https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/cba_guide.pdf] Pearce D.W., Atkinson G., Mourato S. (2006), Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Environment. Recent developments, OECD, Paris Watts, A. (2014), Modern construction envelopes, Birkhäuser, Basel. Bizley, G. (2010), Architecture in detail II, Routledge, London. Lovell, J. (2010), Building Envelopes: An Integrated Approach, Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Detail, Journal published by Institut für internationale Architektur-Dokumentation GmbH. https://www.detail.de/en/de_en/ Altomonte, S., Allen, J., Bluyssen, P. M., Brager, G., Heschong, L., Loder, A., ... and Wargocki, P. (2020), “Ten questions concerning well-being in the built environment”, Building and Environment, 180, 106949, ISSN 0360-1323, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106949. U.S. Green Building Council (2019), LEED v4.1 Building Design and Construction, USGBC, Washington (USA)

Modalità di esame: Prova orale obbligatoria;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam;

... The examination will get a unique 'passed' or 'failed' mark, jointly decided by the teachers of the three disciplines. Students will be required to demonstrate their ability to structure their Master's thesis by submitting an individual written paper in the form of an essay to be presented orally to the committee in which they will illustrate, with respect to a proposed thesis topic: a brief abstract, the state of the art and the bibliography, the research objectives, the methodological structure, the initial hypotheses for in-depth project or research development and the elements of originality and innovation.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilità o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unità Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione più idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.