The Urban design Studio is aimed at students who, during their Master's degree course, intend to study in depth certain characteristics and critical issues of urban design and contemporary urban design. In particular, the relationships between space, living and neoliberal economies are considered key elements for the construction of an urban project capable of confronting the current conditions of ecological, social and living crisis, using the tools of urban and architectural design. The design studio reasons around strategies, techniques and integration between urban and architectural design seen as two distinct but complementary moments within design and planning practices. The objective is to develop a design vision of settlement phenomena that reconciles urban planning characters (and techniques) with architectural characters (and techniques), highlighting relations and integrations between the different scales and the possibility of defining transcalar forms of design. By the end of the Urban Design Studio, students are expected to have acquired adequate awareness of the political and social meaning and value of the notion of urban design, particularly around two main dimensions: The project as a device to configure better conditions of coexistence between different socio-spatial ecologies, imaginaries, economies and practices of spatial production. The project as an exploratory and prefigurative practice that is given within multiple fields of socio-spatial, economic, political and discursive interaction of character, often marked by conditions of opacity and conflictuality

. learning outcomes are related to: • Increase the understanding of design and planning as ontological practices and theories and practices of architectural and urban design, theories of ecological design, histories of projects and the social dynamics related to them. • Deal with uncertainties and complexities of the current crises examining the complexity of contemporary design paradigms, seen contextually with their historical, cultural, and spatial evolutions. • Engage with different traditions of urban design and planning discourse, methodologies and experiences. • Deal with design practices in an integrated and multidisciplinary way, by systematizing methodologies and tools of analysis and evaluation, and by developing a critical way of communicating the project options with respect to space and political ecology, at different scales. By successfully attending the design studio, students acquire the skills to: • Approach the project with a knowledge base regarding theories and techniques of design, including ecological design. • Apply previously acquired knowledge, methods and tools of numerical and physical modelling to support decision-making and design processes. • Become knowledgeable on the numerous cross-disciplinary intellectual foundations which influence research and practice in urban design, and their relation to wider spatial, social, economic, and political agendas. • Develop a clear understanding, including the ability to critically analyse and evaluate, recent debates in urban design research; and critically identify and reflect upon their interface with wider socio-economic, political, and environmental discourses. • Develop design hypotheses that are consistent with the characteristics of the places, the global challenges and the escalating relationships that derive from them, as well as the most innovative professional practices. • Consciously interpret and respond, by means of design, to the complexity of an interdisciplinary approach to the transformation of the natural and built environment.

The Studio builds upon knowledge and skills developed through Urban and Spatial planning classes attended in the previous years. Students are expected to have knowledges of the main forms and techniques of spatial and territorial analysis.

The overall educational goal of the Studio is to elaborate a complex urban project from the knowledge and skills provided by two specific subjects, complementary between them: Urban Planning and Design, and Critical Urban Design. The Urban design studio is grounded in the “research by design” tradition as well as the critical design one which allow to expand beyond the pragmatic solutionism of planning to the speculative realm of it, where the project is seen as method of spatial and urban research. The examinations will take place through an oral discussion in which the results of the work carried out during the semester by individuals and groups will be presented and discussed in the form of a project. The examination will also consider the inputs and readings explored during the lecture as well as the material provided. Each group will develop a design product in the form of a specific architectural and urban design project.

Urban Planning and Design course (ICAR/21) Antonio di Campli The course focuses on the Italian tradition of urban design taking a comparative, global perspective to urban planning and design, focusing on social justice and critical practice. It connects spatial and morphological studies with analysis of socioeconomic, spatial, and political conditions in order to inform planning practice toward social, spatial, knowledge, and climate justice. It involves conceptualization and visualization through consideration of contemporary urban design issues and includes documentation and analysis of spatial form and process, site planning, and urban design. Issues of urban morphology and materials, spatial and dwelling practices, ecological issues inform the approach of the course. Critical Urban Design (ICAR/14) Camillo Boano The focus of Critical Urban Design module concerns concepts that are fundamental to architectural design: use of architectural elements, place making, spatial composition, materials, human activities and needs, and relations between the architectural and the urban scale of design. The course takes a comparative, global perspective intersecting architectural knowledge and design and critical urban design, cantering on the political economy of production of space that focuses on the urban form and the socio-spatial organization of cities merging technical and aesthetic matters with urban design’s content and praxis influenced by public policy, relevant social sciences, and the arts and humanities. It adopts an architectural design approach in the creation of projects and design outcomes combined with the one of design thinking coming from other theoretical traditions within Urban design as visual/artistic, experiential urbanism, participatory and co-production, writing and performing.

· Boano C, Bianchetti C., (2023), Lifelines, Politics, Ethics and the Affective economy of Inhabiting, Jovis, Berlin · Bremner, L. et al. (2022) Monsoon as Method. Assembling Monsoonal Multiplicities, Actar Publishers · Escobar, A. (2018) Design for the Pluriverse, Radical Interdependency, Autonomy and the Making of Words, Duke University Press · Kamalipour, H., Aelbrecht, P., Peimani Z. (2024) The Routledge Handbook of Urban Design Research Methods, Routledge, London. · Carmona M., (2014) Explorations in Urban Design. An urban design reseach primer. Alshgate, Farnham. · Giseke, U., Low, M., Million, A, Misselwitz. P., Strollman, J. (2021) Urban design Methods. Integrated Urban tools. JOvis, Berlin. · Fitz, A., Krasny E., (2019) Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a broken planet. MIT Press., Cambridge. · Stoppani, T., (2019) Unorthodox ways to think the city. Representations, constructions, dynamics. Routledge, London. · Banerjee, T., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., (2019) The new companion to Urban design. Routledge, London. · Banerjee, T., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., (2011) Companion to Urban design. Routledge, London.

Slides;

Modalità di esame: Elaborato grafico prodotto in gruppo;

Exam: Group graphic design project;

... The examinations will take place through an oral discussion in which the results of the work carried out during the semester by individuals and groups will be presented and discussed in the form of a project. The examination will also consider the inputs and readings explored during the lecture as well as the material provided. Each group will develop a design product in the form of a specific architectural and urban design project.

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.