In the Design Unit 2, the students will continue to enhance their skills in managing a complex architectural project autonomously, already trained during the design experience of Design Unit 1, especially for the constructive aspects. The topics of Design Unit 2 will be the elaboration of a complex urban design, in the urban and architectural components, and in any case integrating the architectural design of a building to demonstrate the possession of the techniques, the methodologies and the specific abilities of the European architect. Through the knowledge and in-depth analysis of the specific design theme, the students will acquire an understanding and interpretation of the complex phenomena that characterise the contemporary processes of urbanisation and urban regeneration, at both levels local and global. The overall educational goal of the “Architecture and Urban Space” Design Unit is elaborate a complex urban project from the knowledge and skills provided by two specific subjects, complementary between them: Architectural Design, and Urban Planning, the latter providing specialist knowledge about the urban dimension of architecture. To these two subjects are associated in the Design Unit the specific knowledge and skills provided by one or more related and integrative disciplines, selected in relation with the specific design topics of every Design Unit. Through the experience of the Design Unit, the student will acquire not only the general design skills, but also the specific knowledge and skills in Urban Planning, mandatory in the Master’s degree, as an alternative to the 2nd Year Course in “Town Planning”.

The Design Unit 2 deepens and develops the advanced knowledge and the design skills learned during the Design Unit 1: such a knowledge is acquired within the Design Unit and through a series of mono-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary lectures, and through studies and in-depth modules on theories, relevant to the design themes and issues. The advanced progresses in knowledge and understanding will be assessed through mid-term and final evaluations during the Design Unit, especially aimed at assessing the students’ capability to synthesise and to integrate the different disciplines contributing to the Unit. In the experience of the Design Unit “Architecture and Urban Space”, the understanding of the complex phenomena that govern urban and territorial transformations, both in its architectural and urban components, occurs through the knowledge and the in-depth analysis of the specific design theme. The instructors provide multi-disciplinary knowledge of all the aspects of the complex context within which the design has to be developed. The ability to understand and interpret the complex phenomena that characterize the practices of urbanisation and urban regeneration, at both local and global levels, also occurs in the ability to work in un international context, understanding cultures and traditions not only national, also through the choice of topics and design sites in international context, in the capacity of a design and narrative synthese, and in the ability to carry out individual research, aimed to connect architectural design, history, urban culture and decision processes. In the design experience during the Design Unit, the capability to apply knowledge and skills is primarily defined by the ability to independently manage a complex urban project in a given time, through the mastery of techniques, methods and skills specific to the job of the Architect. The capability to independently manage a project of urban and territorial transformation is expressed in the ability to analyse complex and non-univocal information, to interpret them into a shared decision-making process, but also in the ability to exert leadership in a necessarily multi-disciplinary design team, even toward languages and social and public practices. The experience of the Design Unit, characterized by an intense experimentation, is configured as a partial simulation of effective design practices in the real-world. As such, it ensures the acquisition of the ability of applying knowledge and understanding. This ability is assessed through intermediate and final evaluations within the Design Unit, with the contributions of guest experts from practice, with especial attention to the capability to integrate and synthesise the various disciplines involved in the Unit, as well as to meet the timetable of the activities, which requires the students to complete the project at the end of the semester. The ability to process a complex architectural project in a given time represents a specific ability of the work of the architect: this will be verified at the exam that will take place during the first week of exams, in the first examination session consecutive to the Design Unit.

The basic critical and design skills, along with the concepts and introductory tools in Urban Planning are assumed to have been acquired during the Disciplinary Courses and the Design Ateliers of the Bachelor Degree in “Sciences of Architecture”. It is necessary to possess the knowledge and skills trained during the Design Unit 1, especially the ability to process autonomously a complex architectural project in a given time. A last prerequisite is represented by the knowledge and skills learned in the Courses of First Semester “Building Information Modelling” and “Building physics and energy system in architecture”.

The Design Unit addresses the issue of quality in phenomena of large-scale urbanization in the Chinese city. The construction of hundreds of new cities is progressing rapidly all over the Country, without stratification or diversity. The grain that "makes the city" is no longer the house, as it was in traditional China, but large mono-functional blocks, not able to keep the human dimension at the center of the project. Our project site is related with new urbanizations for the Belt and Road Initiative, also known as the new Silk Road. Involving as Visiting Professors two experts on Chinese City and Architecture, Gong Dong from Vector Architects and Florence Graezer Bideau from the Ecole Poliytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Design Unit will analyse, on the one hand, the urban, landscape and architectural design of this kind of new space; on the other hand the dynamics of social integration, as well as the mechanisms of appropriation of urban space through the contributions of Urban Sociology. The aim of the project is to realize an urban space that focuses on community-building, social coherence and quality of places. Classes and lectures are articulated as follows: - The contribution of Architectural Design (8 credits) presents a series of public spaces and buildings for social activities that emerge in the Chinese urbanization in certain privileged contexts, but tend to fail in the "ordinary" urbanization. - The contribution of Urban Planning (6 credits) will focus on emerging transformations in territorial dynamics and on the way in which contemporary urban design aims to address them, both in the East as in Western countries. To do this, particular attention will be paid to: (i) the way in which analyze and represent complex metropolitan systems across multiple scales of intervention and development, (ii) the way in which design cultures involved in the reshaping of infrastructural and environmental systems emphasize their role in the organization of a collective landscape. - The contribution of Landscape Architecture (3 credits) will focus on “Built Environment tectonics”, investigating the relation between forms and techniques of the ecological and landscape design in the Chinese context. - The contribution of Urban Sociology (3 credits) will focus on the urban and social fabric of the Chinese city, and particularly the new cities along the Belt and Road.

The first part of the course works on 3 parallel levels: a mapping analysis at the large scale; some case-study of Chinese public and collective places to be analyzed and redrawn; lectures, movies and readings aimed to provide the theoretical and methodological tools for the definition of the project. Then, after about 3 weeks, the design area will be divided in smaller areas of urban design, and individual themes of architectural design.

Reading materials Bonino, Michele; Governa, Francesca; Repellino, Maria Paola; Sampieri Angelo (edited by). 2019. The City after Chinese New Towns. Besel: Birkhäuser. Bosker, Bianca. 2013. Original Copies: Architectural Mimicry in Contemporary China, University of Hawaii Press. Ren, Xuefei. 2013. Urban China. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sheppard, Wade. 2015. Ghost Cities of China, London: Zed Books. Wu, Fulong. 2015. Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China. New York and London: Routledge. Wakeman Rosemary. 2016. Practising utopia: an intellectual history of the new town movement, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Rowe Peter G..2016. China's Urban Communities, Basel: Birkhäuser. Williams, Austin. 2017. China’s Urban Revolution. Understanding Chinese Eco-Cities, London - New York: Bloomsbury. During the classes articles published in several international journals (Urban Studies, City, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research) will be recommended. More specific texts will be assigned in the classroom depending on the choice of the actual project area.

Modalità di esame: Prova orale obbligatoria; Elaborato progettuale individuale; Elaborato progettuale in gruppo;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam; Group graphic design project; Individual project; During the final oral exam the materials produced during the semester are discussed and evaluated, both in groups and individually. Students are interviewed individually, presenting the papers and critically discussing the results and the development path of the project. During the semester the teaching activities may include intermediate exercises, carried out individually or in groups, the delivery of which is considered a prerequisite for taking the final exam. The intermediate exercises consist in the drafting of texts and the production of targeted project actions, which receive an orientation evaluation from time to time. During the final interview, each student must be able to give a precise feedback of the work done during the semester and the project drawings presented. The evaluation will be the result of the assessments expressed by the entire teaching staff, for each disciplinary contribution, but defined as a single overall grade, based on the exercises carried out during the semester, the quality of the final tables and the ability to sustain the oral interview, the project, the lessons and the bibliography provided by the course.

Modalità di esame: Prova orale obbligatoria; Elaborato progettuale individuale; Elaborato progettuale in gruppo;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam; Group graphic design project; Individual project; During the final oral exam the materials produced during the semester are discussed and evaluated, both in groups and individually. Students are interviewed individually, presenting the papers and critically discussing the results and the development path of the project. During the semester the teaching activities may include intermediate exercises, carried out individually or in groups, the delivery of which is considered a prerequisite for taking the final exam. The intermediate exercises consist in the drafting of texts and the production of targeted project actions, which receive an orientation evaluation from time to time. During the final interview, each student must be able to give a precise feedback of the work done during the semester and the project drawings presented. The evaluation will be the result of the assessments expressed by the entire teaching staff, for each disciplinary contribution, but defined as a single overall grade, based on the exercises carried out during the semester, the quality of the final tables and the ability to sustain the oral interview, the project, the lessons and the bibliography provided by the course.