Monica Rossi
an exchange experience between UNICAM & Cal Poly
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Author: Monica Rossi Cover Design: Monica Rossi with Stefano Ortolani Book Design: Monica Rossi with Lucrezia Gasparini
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P R E S S Published by: AeD Press Architecture Department College of Architecture and Environmental Design California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, California 93407 United States www.arch.calpoly.edu Copyright © 2012, AeD Press / Cal Poly Architecture Department All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any All images in this book have been reproduced with the knowledgePrinted and bound in Italy
ISBN 978-0-9835817-3-4
Architecture Department One Grand Avenue San Luis Obispo, CA 93407-0282 www.arch.calpoly.edu
Index
5
7
35
_
Umberto Cao,
1. UNICAM vs. Cal Poly
- An exchange experience between UNICAM Italy and Cal Poly USA
2. Learning by doing
- Doing as pedagogic instrument
- Designing and building a booth with students
3. Learning by designing schools
- School projects in 4 Italian climates
Appendices: Learning architecture in Italy and USA
- Teaching 2nd year Design Studio in Italy _ Massimo Perriccioli, UNICAM
- Teaching 2nd year Design Studio in USA _ Howard Weisenthal, Cal Poly
- Teaching Environmental Control Systems in Italy _ Roberta Cocci Grifoni, UNICAM
Postscript
_
57
91
120
Photo credits
Raniero Carloni - archive: 6 top, 8, 16 top.
Roberta Cocci Grifoni - students’ works: 107, 108, 109, 110, 111. Gregg M Erickson: 36, 37.
43, 44 top, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 63, 65, 66, 67, 76, 77, 78, 79, 90, 92, 114, 115, 117, 119.
Sandra J. Stannard - archive: 24, 25, 26, 27.
Sandra J. Stannard - students’ works: 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. Howard Weisenthal - archive: 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105. Howard Weisenthal - students’ works: 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 100, 101.
93 92
Teaching 2
ndyear Design Studio in Italy
Massimo Perriccioli, UNICAM
the Workshop in Architectural centrality of lessons in The Design of Building Systems and the parallel teachings of Building Techniques and Technical Physics and Plant Systems, intends to provide students explore architectural space in its environmental dimensions. Students
will be instructed from the outset to understand the problems of between architecture and building, environmental systems, transforming component of the design process of a work of architecture.
The teaching of the fundamental principles and logics of modern
content of manuals or “suitable
problems, studying and transforming
of building, intended as the “art of
students will begin to acquire the capacity, even within the complexity that characterises contemporary design, to govern the system of materials, techniques and procedures
Systems Design course is thus focused
and materials must be approached the outset, confronted through through the technical control of the performance requirements that each element of a building and each material must contribute to the work of architecture to be realised.
The course also proposes to assist students in maturing an understanding of the necessity of governing and know-how and skills that converge within the process of designing, manufacturing and building a work
of contemporary architecture.
and methodological approach to
technique, architecture/building,
by the teaching of architecture as separate disciplines.
Lightweight Building Systems
The design methodology adopted in Workshops in Architectural systemic and performance-based primary point of reference for design related to Architectural Technologies. This methodological hypothesis establishes the needs and requirements of the user as
needs of dwelling and characterised and their levels of performance. the building sector that developed
between two opposing visions: one based on the use of heavy building systems, the other using in determining the geometric layout heavy systems are characterised by the mass, compactness and absolute impossibility to separate components realised according to this approach contrary, lightweight systems refute the strength of weight as the primary strategically focusing on involving internal structural tensions through opportune morphological choices, in and reduce the system of applied loads.
The design of lightweight building systems thus makes exclusive use of the form of the elements themselves design strategy, focused on reducing the weight of the structure can thus
This page: 2nd
95 94
be said to consist, on the one hand, of from those under compression and,
the system of applied loads to which in order to reduce their thickness. As such, the behaviour of a lightweight
structure does not depend
exclusively on the physical nature of primarily on the way that the parts
precisely by geometric parameters. Lightweight systems, what is more,
primarily using mono-dimensional elements such as columns and beams to create two-dimensional and roof, etc., realised using layered
two-modularity of their components and they are capable of guaranteeing required by their users.
The exercise, developed as part of the Workshops in Architectural of a low-cost, low-energy consuming single-family dwelling, constructed
using lightweight technologies.
privacy, propose new forms of requests made by a progressively foreign labourers, the elderly, out of town students, home-workers, characterised by the transformability and adaptability of space according to the needs of new users or temporary mobility and manoeuvrability of furnishings and complementary
with the dimensional and structural limits established by the general based on the use of lightweight components and technologies and
simple modular structures comprised of small sized elements;
technical-systems, focused on containing
an accumulator; the use of natural use of renewable energy resources; the capacity to modify the
physical-user requirements.
In methodological terms, students will proceed with the study of the
environmental, architectural aspects and technological and building 1. the needs of the client;
2. the framework of cultural,
environmental, technical and
3.
exterior space and between public/ private spaces;
4. design reference paradigms:
the dry assembly of components, to enlarge the original spaces;
5.
the building system;
6. based on the choice of materials
Students receive an award for their project, Urban Promo This and opposite pages: 2nd year Design
97
96 Massimo Perricioli is an architect and a Professor of
Architecture at the School of Architecture and Design
completed his Doctorate in Architectural Technology at Systems Design as part of the Architectural Building and industrial products selected from
a catalogue, and related techniques
small and large scale and vice versa, the progressive learning of technical aspects and details, beginning with dwelling. Expressive, technical and simultaneously based on a method of design that focuses on verifying both
thus focused on the comprehension
of the environmental, systemic,
architectural, technological and
importance on:
axonometric drawing of the
architectural organism, which
which it is composed;
technical element with respect
structure and the external envelope
that of providing students with a working method and approach to design that is simultaneously open for an understanding that it is possible, through the art of building and the science of architecture, to search for on the one hand to the most recent other, to the social, environmental
Teaching 2
ndyear Design Studio in USA
Howard Weisenthal, Cal Poly
Human development clinical
research
The confusion students experience is typical of their developmental age. Erik Erikson suggests that the Second year architecture students
are, in fact, adolescents in terms of
Supported by research from
developmental psychologists,
middle school faculty, methods are introduced for improving the general studio environment and for developing more valuable design The second year architecture student is not only in the formal age bracket
are both embarking upon a career their skills and their future role in the profession.
The second year student is no longer an early adolescent but an emerging adult.
adolescence as a period of crisis and “a or choices are being reexamined
