The objective of this course is to shed light on the economic and the organizational factors and characteristics that influence the making of architecture from the design phase to its construction.

On completion of the subject students should be able to:
- Identify and engage with the various types of environmental conditions that have an impact upon the role of the design professions
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the relationship between design practice, cultural values, spatial needs, industrial landscapes, and roles and responsibilities.

The students should develop the following competencies and capabilities:
- Comprehension of data to develop technical research on realized projects or under construction
- Prepare and conduct interview with developers, construction companies, architects
- Develop projects’ analysis
- Critically analyze economic and technical data
- Develop a paper connected to a case study, using different sources with an individual point of view

Students should have capabilities of reading architecture through technical data, such as shop drawings, cost estimate analysis, and management documents.

During the class, the following topics will be covered:

- What do we mean by buildings?
- The role of innovation as an economic trigger
- The role of design in triggering innovation
- The Brief
- The Building Production Process
- The Building Construction Process
- The relation between contracts and construction details
- The importance of projects organization
- The significance of the relation between design decisions and organization structure as cause-effect of project impacts
- A possible analytical method to assess the cause-effect relation between design decisions and project impacts


The theoretical concepts will be explained and discussed by presenting a number of relevant case studies, which will highlight the factors and characteristics that are crucial to the development of building projects.

The subject will be organized around a number of lectures, projects reviews, and students presentations.
In parallel with the lectures, students will be asked to work in groups (maximum 5 people for each group) to research and analyze a contemporary innovative and sustainable institutional building as case study, according to the parameters that will be given during the lectures. By the end of the semester - during which the students will have to undertake a number of project reviews - the students will have to collate such material into a final report, which will be worth the 70% of their final mark. The remaining percentage will be achieved by a written text (worth the 20%), and by an oral examination (worth 10%).

Main
1. Pearce D W (2003) The Social and Economic Value of Construction: The Construction Industry's Contribution to Sustainable
Development, London: CRISP
2. Slaughter S (1993) ‘Buildings as a source of construction innovation’, Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management, 119 (3), pp.532–549
3. Slaughter S (2000) ‘Implementation of construction innovation’, Building research and Information, 28 (1), p.2-17
4. Turin D A (1980) ‘What do we mean by building’, Habitat International, No.5, pp.271-286

Assessment type and characteristics:
• Final report on case study (70%), to be developed throughout the semester on the basis of individual research and under
the analytical instruction given by the lecturer during the course. The report has to be submitted the last day of class.
• Written test on the material presented in the lectures and in the suggested papers (20%), the test will be organized in two
parts: 1) a 9 questions multiple choice type and 2) an open question. The total test time will be 1 hour and 30 minutes.
• Oral exam (10%)

Evaluation will be based upon the following criteria:
• Final report on case study (70%)
• Written test on the material presented in the lectures and in the suggested papers (20%)
• Oral exam (10%) on the overall topics discussed and analyzed during the semester