General aim of the Urban Design Studio [BArch – level 3] is to develop individual awareness of the urban dimension of architecture, focusing on different topics, aspect and tools. The Studio experience reproduces – with some necessary simplifications and differences – the practices of a real urban regeneration process, and develops knowledge and understanding of the higher level of complexity typical of urban environments, in which sustainability is assumed as the cultural and operable scenario of the interplay of constrains and resources. The "project" is used as the means to investigate the difference between architecture at building dimension and neighbourhood dimension. Studio exercises will require students to engage and put in use their skills, knowledge, and interdisciplinary approach learnt in the previous years, in order to handle technical solutions in the simulation of a complex process such as an urban design project. Studio exercises will focus as well on the relationships between land use planning, transportation planning, and detailed design. Students are expected to gain the awareness of the potential of interdisciplinary integration in shaping the urban environment.

The Studio aims at: - investigating and recognizing characters and peculiarities of places, with a specific attention to constrains, resources, strength, and weaknesses as the background of transformation processes. - exploring the scope of urban transformation impacts at different spatial scales and in different dimensions, from built forms to human perception. - developing awareness of technical, ethical and cultural responsibilities connected with design in the decision process. - further developing knowledge of building typology, urban morphology, urban patterns, public space, local mobility, and capacities to link forms, functions and perceptions. - improving analytical capabilities and communication skills to approach urban design issues and present project proposals by means of drawings, models and appropriate language.

Since the Urban Design Studio marks the conclusion of the BArch programme, it is strongly recommended to students attending this Studio to have positively completed: all other Design Studios (Year 1 and 2); Urban Planning course (Year 2). In general, to successfully attend the Urban Design Studio students should: - handle analytical concepts that are functional to a general understanding of the built space; - operate technical tools of urban analysis and design; - know fundamentals of city history, urban economics, urban sociology and design culture; - posses capabilities to: illustrate problems and ideas, provide design solutions, write design briefs, elaborate design strategies.

The Urban Design Studio provides students with the opportunity to explore from different angles a site in Torino where a complex urban transformation is taking place. Considering how our cities and the role of urban design have changed in recent years, in the Urban Design Studio students will be exposed to the many ways in which project design interfaces with technical issues, strategic decision-making as well as consensus building. Lectures and preliminary exercises in the first 5 weeks revolve around three conceptual nodes that regard urban design history, urban planning practice, technical tools and professional design frontiers. 1. There was a time, until the 1970s, when the city was expanding due to the needs of a growing modern economy, backed by powerful industrial elites and ambitious visions for an urban future promoted by local administrations. The city of industries was the urban future, back then. Cities and citizens were confident that their present and future identity was bound to industry and the urban forms and organisations related to it. Urban Design and Planning at that time had no doubts about their legitimate role in supporting growth; the context in which urban design is practised at the moment has radically changed, since public decision-makers, commercial designers, professional consultants and local grass-root groups struggle to redefine their technical as well as social role. Urban design is instrumental to simulate and visualize governmental discourses, commodification and valorization of urban spaces, appropriation by and redefinition of urban communities. 2. Cities have experienced in recent years a number of crises that turned upside down the general optimism towards future that characterised Europe and the US in the period of the economic boom, after WW2 and until the early 1970s (this historical framework is considered particularly relevant since students have rather different backgrounds in terms of general knowledge of European cities). A time of industrial reorganization followed the first oil crisis in 1973, with relevant impact on cities and particularly on those former ‘new’ neighbourhoods built to house workers during the industrialisation phase. Population growth rate started to stagnate, particularly in major cities. Other productive models emerged that were not so connected with the ‘old’ traditional cities, and new regions of the world benefited from such redistribution. Technological innovation opened up new frontiers and contributed to redefine the notion of proximity. Entire pieces of cities became obsolete and were left idle. Critiques to the way cities were conceived, planned, designed, and built started to question urban paradigms and particularly the idea that growth can indefinitely continue and the socio-politics of technical professions. 3. Here is the premise for our urban design studio. Urban designers should be prepared to work in a context that redefines what is better for the future city. Willy nilly the underused and precarious spaces of the city provide an angle from which the urban future is made visible. Project design will be used as the means to explore the built fabric and its different interpretative paradigms, as well as the context of decision-making and different sorts of public controversies. Torino is selected as the testing ground to verify into the built space the above mentioned notions. Project-based learning provides an excellent opportunity to integrate and apply knowledge and skills to real situations. Modern Torino has been built to satisfy the urgent needs of massive industrialisation. Torino was known as the city of FIAT car manufacture. When the industrial productive processes reorganized, such model became a burden. The Urban Design Studio will explore the future of the former industrial city with a focus on a selected district in the North of Torino. Field research and study visits are integral to the Studio, as well as other skills, such as self-organisation, initiative and independence, team-working, creativity and graphic and verbal presentation. The opportunity to visit places and discuss with local stakeholders will enable students' to apply analytical tools to understand spatial issues and processes of transformation in the form of 4 individual exercises that are coordinated between the two characterising disciplines of the Urban Design Atelier (i.e. Architectural and Urban Design and Urban Planning). In the second part of the term, students will incrementally develop a design proposition as a result of team work (approximately 9 weeks).

The Urban Design Studio is organised in two complementary phases, which will be illustrated in detail to students in our first day of work and regularly updated via the course’s webpage (Portale). A range of teaching and learning methods are adopted, with a focus on project-based learning in the first part of the Design Studio (5 weeks) and teamwork with group tutorials in the second phase (9 weeks). Supervisors and tutors of the two integrated disciplines that characterize the Urban Design Atelier (i.e. Architectural and Urban Design and Urban Planning) coordinate the individual exercises, the site visit, the programme of guest lectures, and the assignments of the second phase in which students will work in teams of 3-4 students. In all individual exercises and teamwork, graphic representation is a fundamental part of the coursework. There is a strong emphasis on continuous assessment of coursework. Deliverables include short reports, posters, oral presentations and conceptual models. The studio will be scheduled in exercises of increasing complexity, each one evaluated as a percentage of the final mark. Students will produce in the first phase 4 individual exercises and a preliminary test that is immediately commented in public and will eventually be the subject of interactive and retrospective discussion during the final oral exam, also in relation to students’ readings and their design proposal. The individual exercises count for 30% of the final mark. Teamwork will start with the construction of a conceptual model and will continue with the elaboration of an urban design proposal that counts for the 60% of the final mark, with the remaining 10% defined by the student’s capacity, assessed individually, of discussing design issues with the supervisors during the various phases of the Studio and in the final public presentation of the work.

The following list includes fundamental texts, most of which translated in many languages. Further readings will be recommended during the course. Materials that regard the selected site are mostly published in Italian. The teaching staff will provide essential translations that will be available online in the Studio's repository. • Bianchetti, C., Cogato Lanza, E., Kercuku, A., Voghera, A. (eds) (2015). Territories in Crisis: Architecture and Urbanism Facing Changes in Europe. • Gehl, J. (2011). Life between buildings: Using public space. • Hall, P. (1988). Cities of Tomorrow. An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. • Hall, T. (2007). Turning a town around. A proactive approach to Urban Design. • Lynch, K. (1975). The Image of the City. • P. Lewis, M. Tsurumaki, D.J. Lewis (2016). Manual of Section. • Schiller, R. (2001). The Dynamics of Property Location. • Schon, D.A. (1984). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action. • Rowe, P.G. (1991). Design Thinking. • West, M. (2012). Effective Teamwork.

Modalità di esame: Prova orale obbligatoria; Elaborato grafico individuale; Progetto di gruppo;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam; Individual graphic design project; Group project;

... 1. Students will not be in the condition of positively completing the Design Studio without regular presence during lectures and seminars, complemented with their active participation to tutorials, exercises and teamwork. 2. Exercises (i.e. drawings, models, etc.) will be discussed and corrected individually and/or in public during classes by the supervisors. Students’ capacity to explain their ideas and proposals, even in verbal form, matters to the overall evaluation. 3. The final evaluation of the Design Studio is one mark to which both Architectural and Urban Design and Urban Planning contribute with 50% of the final mark. The evaluation will combine: individual exercises carried out in the first 5 weeks and gathered in a personal sketch-book (30% of the final evaluation); results of the team-work completed in the final 9 weeks (60% of the evaluation); and discussion of results with reference to disciplinary theories discussed during the Studio (10% of the evaluation). In case a student is not adequately prepared, the supervisors and evaluating committee may address them with supplementary questions regarding the disciplines and contents of the coursework. Students are individually assessed in their final evaluation, based on the individual exercises in the first 5 weeks, the teamwork in the following 9 weeks (teams must count 3 or 4 students), and individual questions at the final colloquium. 4. Students will be evaluated for their capacity to integrate technical design competence and understanding of urban issues consolidated thanks to the Design Studio; moreover, further elements for the evaluation will be: clarity of the deliverables (integration of drawings, texts, photos), correct representation and correct choice of technical solutions, general knowledge of urban policies and specific projects that were illustrated in the Studio. Such evaluating criteria are assessed both in the 14 weeks of the Design Studio (when exercises are discussed and reviewed, either individually or in public) and at the final colloquium, which has to be preferentially completed the first week of the Winter Exam Session, right after the end of the first term. In case deliverables are not ready on time, or are evaluated as insufficient or lacking some parts, students have a second chance to pass the exam in the next Exam Session.

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.