The Thesis Seminar is a multidisciplinary didactic experience, designated to study in depth the methodological aspects of the research activity, and notably aimed at developing the Master's Degree graduation Thesis. The seminar will specifically provide the students with some critical and methodological instruments, and with a collegial space for free discussion and debate, in order to allow them to systematize knowledge and skills learnt during their previous academic career and to define an individual and original research program positioned within the wider framework of the topics treated in the seminar. Once a common theme will be identified, the teachers of the various disciplines involved in the seminar will work together, exploring specific research or design topics, offering further opportunities of in-depth analysis and fostering collective debates about the outcomes of the individual research of the students. The continuous dialogue among the disciplines involved in the seminar will offer to the students an opportunity to test the application of a robust methodological structure to the manifold solicitations coming from the real world. Through ex-cathedra lectures and seminar meetings, specialised disciplinary insights will be provided. The originality of the contents and the proposed approach and the necessary topicality of the topics and issues proposed and addressed in the thesis seminar, will allow the student to start a first and important moment of in-depth knowledge; this work will be eventually completed in the subsequent graduation thesis, that will be developed under the tutorship of one o more of the tutors involved in the seminar.

At the end of the course the student will be able to interpret the state of the art, to analyze the basic scientific literature and to structure his or her own research work for the master's thesis on the proposed topics. The student will acquire: - the ability to broaden, update and apply the knowledge and technical skills learnt during the course of studies to the need to tackle complex and articulated design and research topics; - the ability to use an appropriate methodological approach when proposing and organising design or research work; - the ability to systematize, with respect to a research theme, the theoretical and applicative insights from the different disciplines that emerged during the seminar activities.

The student must be in possession of an adequate personal preparation, having acquired basic knowledge of the disciplines involved in the seminar activity and of the topics taught in the first and second level courses.

The Seminar is concerning theoretical concepts of adaptivity and its possible applications to architecture design. Spaces in-between offer extraordinary possibilities to define a new equilibrium between nature as a resource and architecture as a challenge to innovation and sustainability. Case studies will be used to understand the relevance of comparative research in architecture as a tool to select solutions and formal definitions of spatial transformation. The Seminar is structured into three main topics: - Research on Architecture, methodology, and topics related to sustainable and adaptive design; - Research on mitigation and adaptation strategies and environmental design tools at neighborhood scale; - Research on evaluation of economic sustainability, about the project’s financial feasibility, and adopting a life cycle perspective approach. Particular attention is paid to the analysis related to the integration between architectural projects technological project, and economic and financial feasibility, through the optimization and research of a balance between user requirements, morphological characteristics, energy efficiency, environmental protection, social needs, economic values and questions expressed by real estate markets. The consequences of architectural choices are considered without ever renouncing the quality of composition and always considering the economic and financial feasibility of the interventions, of which the main items of life cycle cost and management are fundamental components. In fact, the possible increases in the value of the goods determined by the architectural and technological solutions will be considered, which will be systematically compared with the feasibility, in all its forms (also normative) and with the questions emerging from the sub-segments of the market in which we operate. The economic evaluation focus on the reflexes that the architectural project, of which the innovative technological solutions are a prerequisite, can have not only in terms of saving the costs related to energy consumption, which constitutes the predominant approach, but also in terms of environmental externalities, and in terms of “durability”.

The Seminar is structured through theoretical lectures and case-study analysis. More precisely, it is articulated in three main components: - introduction to the “research methodology” declined in the different disciplines involved in the Seminar; - theoretical lectures and case-study analysis, with the support of international invited experts; - students’ presentation of their analysis of selected references; - discussions with students, professors, and invited discussants. A detailed schedule is provided with different steps of the Seminar, and specific dates to submit outputs of the work that are discussed and reviewed through public presentations. Furthermore, final student papers are discussed with invited experts.

General bibliography that will be completed during the seminar with further references: - BIG, (2015), Hot to Cold. An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation, Taschen - Baum, M., & Christiaanse, K. editors (2012), City as Loft, Adaptive Reuse as a Resource for Sustainable Urban Development, gta Verlag, Zurich. - Bunge, E., Hoang, M.(2019), Buildings and Almost Buildings - nARCHITECTS, Actar, Barcelone - Dahl, P.-J.; Pollo, R.; Thiebat F.; Micono, C.; Zanzottera, G. (2019), RE:WATERFRONT. A sustainable architectural approach / Un approccio sostenibile al progetto di architettura, FrancoAngeli. - Dijst M. et al. (2018), Exploring urban metabolism—Towards an interdisciplinary perspective, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, vol. 132, pp. 190-203 - Erell et al (2011), Urban Microclimate – Design the space between buildings, Routledge - Ferguson, F. (2019), Make City. A Compendium of Urban Alternatives Stadt anders machen, Jovis - Fregonara E., (2017), Valutation, sustainability, project. Life Cycle Thinking and international orientation, Milano, Franco Angeli. - Ingaramo, R. (2018). Rust Remix. Architecture: Pittsburg Versus Detroit, LetteraVentidue. - Ingaramo, Roberta (2016). Urban and Architectural forms, in: Ingaramo R. and Voghera A., Editors, Topics And Methods For Urban And Landscape Design. From the river to the project. Urban And Landscape Perspectives, vol. 19, p. 35-67, Cham: Springer International Publishing, - Shahrokni et al.(2015), “Smart urban metabolism: Towards a Real-Time understanding of the energy and material flows of a city and its citizens”, Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 22 (1). - Smith, P. F. (2006), Architecture in a Climate of Change, Routledge. - Szokolay S.V.(2014), Introduction to Architectural Science : The Basis of Sustainable Design, Routledge. During the course presentation and during the lessons further indications and papers are provided: these are objects of the analysis by the students.

Slides;

Modalità di esame: Prova orale obbligatoria;

Exam: Compulsory oral exam;

... The examination will get a unique 'passed' or 'failed' mark, jointly decided by the teachers of the three disciplines. Students will be required to demonstrate their ability to structure their Master's thesis by submitting an individual written paper in the form of an essay to be presented orally to the committee in which they will illustrate, with respect to a proposed thesis topic: a brief abstract, the state of the art and the bibliography, the research objectives, the methodological structure, the initial hypotheses for in-depth project or research development and the elements of originality and innovation.

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.