Chair: Prof. Benedetto Todaro

The PhD Program in Architecture and Construction - Space and Society, aims at educating researchers who will be able to inquire into the entire disciplinary and phenomenological breadth leading architectural design and theorization to be embodies in built space, binding the ars aedificandi with the emerging needs of society.
These researchers will need to be able to reconstruct the links between design and building, recovering and reformulating the theorical-operational paradigms which have today lost much of their strength, bound to the invention of figuration, typology and urban morphology. The recovery of this fundamental knowledge will be carried out within a problematic field of highly innovative character, where the issues of the environmental crisis, the role of media, the recent urban transformations for the spectacularization of the, and the new technological resources all play a fundamental role.

During the last two decades, urban and architectural design have on one side grown closer to the historical-critical areas, on the other to urban planning, with further outreaches towards anthropology and sociology. The central problematic area it once occupied was therefore abandoned. In seeking new and broader openings towards bordering disciplinary areas, and in the attempt at creating multiple connections with other aspects of architecture, the practice of urban and architectural design has broadened its horizon, thus losing its specific density, which considerably suffered from this process. A number of problems of great relevance today remain unsolved, such as the question on how architectural composition, with its intrinsic statute regarding the figuration, building typology and urban morphology, are translated, through specific processes, into buildings.
The PhD program is articulated in such a way as to focus the students’ experiences on the theoretical-practical aspects of research. The ignition of individual critical awareness is considered the primary value, together with the continuing critical confrontation with the faculty’s inputs, and with the state of knowledge as it emerges from recent publications and contributions. The entire range of issues included in the research program mirrors the research interests of the individual faculty members. It was deemed necessary to build the study and activity program on the basis of a single curriculum, with the intention of underscoring the natural disciplinary and operational extension of the scientific sector of urban and architectural design. The proposed curriculum thus responds to the double necessity of fundamental research and applied research, similar to what takes place in architecture, which given its double nature of practice and science requires skills extending to the entire cycle leading from the theoretical formulation to the dialectic confrontation with reality. In this sense the curriculum covers the field with modalities and intents which are otherwise not available in our University’s educational offer, aiming at the education of experts and cultural operators which are widely requested both in the field of research and of public administration. The interaction between architectural theory, realization techniques, and social studies are aimed at interpreting the mutations occurring in the contemporary cities, is likely to attract external subjects.

Articulation of studies
The PhD program is structured in order to provide, during the three years, a progression meant to promote and evaluate the scientific and cultural growth of the students, according to a gradient which, from archival research to the theoretical foundation of the problems confronted, will allow for the definition of reference frameworks, continuing with the close confrontation between the various hypotheses and thus the elaboration of the final individual dissertations.

The first year will therefore privilege seminar activities held by the program’s faculty, and by relevant external experts, according to the individual competences. Some preferential research lines will be set forth through articulated presentations. Further time will be spent on bibliographical research and seminar activities meant to collect, systematize and make available information on the research topics. During the first year, four distinct evaluation sessions will be carried out.

The second year will have a reduced number of lectures, and the organization of seminars for the orientation of the students’ work. Students will start working together with their tutors, and their work will have to continue with increased autonomy such as to conclude the second year of studies with well set-up research profiles. The end of the second year will thus see the establishment of the research topics to be carried out during the third year. Three intermediate reviews will be carried out during this period.

The third year will be dedicated to the individual work on dissertations under the guidance of the advisors. Periodic reviews will be carried out, in order to monitor the work’s advancement.

Research topics

1. Architecture at the intersection between social studies and natural sciences
1.1 The environment as the subject-object of physical transformation: towards a redefinition of the relationship between nature and artifice
1.2 The government of physical space and the social representation of the natural-artificial hybrid
1.3 The role of science and of scientific thought in the design method

2. Architecture, evolution and actualization of the discipline
2.1 The technical dimension of invention
2.2 The humanistic dimension of building technology
2.3 The “time” factor as a paradigm for the transformation of needs, of the availability of technologies, the relationship between permanence and new building
2.4 The actuality of “modern” as an inspiring principle in the fecund relationship between technological innovation and spatial invention

3. Architecture, evolution and actualization of the disciplinary instruments
3.1 Virtual space and physical space: interactions and modifications of figuration and design thinking induced by the development of information technologies

4. Architecture and multicultural city
4.1 Metropolitan spaces: invention and building techniques for the new needs emerging from the change in perception and image
4.2 Invention of new figuration models: between building typology and urban morphology

Program chair
Prof. Benedetto Todaro

Faculty

Scientific secretariat
Rossella Laliscia
Tel. +39 06 4991 9283
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