The teachers will provide multi-disciplinary knowledge of all the aspects of the context where the design has to be developed. The ability to interpret the complex practices of urbanisation and urban regeneration, also occurs in the ability to work in an international environment, in the capacity of a design and narrative synthesis. The experience of the Atelier, characterized by intense experimentation, is configured as a partial simulation of effective design practices in the real world. 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 examination session consecutive to the Design Unit.

The basic critical and design skills, along with the tools of urban planning and architectural design, are considered as already acquired in the disciplinary courses and in the design workshops of the Bachelor's Degree in "Architecture". The knowledge and skills acquired during Atelier 1 are also required, in particular the ability to independently manage and process a complex architectural project in a defined time.

With the rise of industrial delocalization and the venture of logistics, industrial parks are becoming increasingly oriented towards infrastructural and urban development. In many of these high-intensity production spaces, settlements establish spatial relationships with a whole series of facilities that are fundamental to support modern production. Such intertwined relations between production, logistics, research and facilities generate hybrid spaces that unveil the contemporary industrial enclaves not only as extractive spaces but as urban infrastructures which provide the whole collective equipment for living. However, despite the highly relevant role they have in shaping contemporary cities, industrial parks and infrastructural landscapes seem to be more ‘engineered’ rather than planned or designed. Indeed, even if some of these parks are sometimes fashioned with universal and generic labels such as “smart”, “eco”, and “innovative”, their development - both in terms of urban planning and architectural design - rarely addresses the intertwined relationships between global challenges and the development local places with respect of communities and the natural environments. The consequent development often occurs through land expropriation, colonization and capital accumulation without considering the potential interactions between new agents (human and non-human) and local neighbourhoods, and without foreseeing spaces for collective life. The Atelier will explore the diffusion of industrial parks in Italy, intending to develop hybrid settlement typologies where new infrastructural systems will act as catalysts for social life, collective well-being, nature protection, and energy production, thus redefining the logistics unit as a basis through which to promote new forms of urban development. To do this, students will produce a research booklet dedicated to a systematic urban design strategy for an industrial park, and provide their architectural intervention in coherence with the urban design strategy. Each solution will have to react to the existing overlapping and suburban fabric of the local community. Distribution, tectonics, and architectural tonality will be the focus of the architectural design for establishing a new relationship with the existing built environment. The contribution of Architectural Design (6 credits) will present a series of industrial park typologies focusing on the functional program and distribution of the buildings. The contribution of Urban Planning (6 credits) will focus on emerging transformations in logistics and infrastructures for production and how contemporary urban design addresses them. To do this, particular attention will be paid to: (i) how to analyze and represent complex urban systems across multiple scales of intervention and development, (ii) how projects involved in the reshaping of environmental systems emphasize their role in the organization of a collective landscape.

The first 4 weeks of the course will work at 3 parallel levels, to make students able to understand the context: a mapping analysis of the site at the large scale; some case-study of architectural projects; lectures and readings aimed to provide the theoretical and methodological tools for the project. Then, the urban design area will be assigned to 3-4 people groups and divided in individual themes of architectural design.

1. Bélanger, P. (2017). Landscape as infrastructure: A base primer. Routledge. 2. Easterling K., 2014, Extrastatecraft. The Power of Infrastructure Space, London and New York: Verso. 3. El m’hadi, H., & Cherkaoui, A. (2023). Urban planning of business parks (BPs): Ecological challenges and commitment to sustainable development, the case study of the technopole ‘CasaNearshore.’ Alexandria Engineering Journal, 67, 23–30. 4. LeCavalier J., 2016, The Rule of Logistics. Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. 5. Le Tellier, M., Berrah, L., Stutz, B., Audy, J.-F., & Barnabé, S. (2019). Towards sustainable business parks: A literature review and a systemic model. Journal of Cleaner Production, 216, 129–138. 6. Lejoux, P., & Charieau, C. (2021). Business parks: An overlooked urban object? (A. Morfee, Trans.). Territoire En Mouvement Revue de Géographie et Aménagement. Territory in Movement Journal of Geography and Planning, 51, Article 51. 7. Lyster C., 2016, Learning from Logistics. How Networks Change Our Cities, Basel: Birkhäuser. 8. Ruby, I., Ruby, A. (2017). Infrastructure Space. Ruby Press. 9. Scott, L. Mason, W. (2011). Infrastructure as Architecture: Designing Composite Networks. Jovis Publisher.

None;

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

During the final oral exam, the design materials produced during the semester are discussed and evaluated, both in groups and individually. Students are interviewed individually, critically discussing the project's results and development. 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 of drafting texts and producing targeted project actions, which receive an orientation evaluation from time to time. During the final interview, each student must be able to give precise feedback on 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.

In addition to the message sent by the online system, students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) are invited to directly inform the professor in charge of the course about the special arrangements for the exam that have been agreed with the Special Needs Unit. The professor has to be informed at least one week before the beginning of the examination session in order to provide students with the most suitable arrangements for each specific type of exam.