Studio MA1 (Piovene et Fabi)

Summary

The semester will focus on how architecture can become today a civic tool empowering the public city. We will look into the possibilities of a public architecture where openness and free appropriation can be explored and enhanced, where the experience of belonging opens up to the multitude.

Content

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Argue
• Compose
• Coordinate
• Design
• Negotiate
• Theorize
• Compare

Transversal skills

• Use a work methodology appropriate to the task.
• Make an oral presentation.
• Evaluate one's own performance in the team, receive and respond appropriately to feedback.
• Collect data.
• Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
• Communicate effectively, being understood, including across different languages and cultures.
• Resolve conflicts in ways that are productive for the task and the people concerned.
• Assess one's own level of skill acquisition, and plan their on-going learning goals.

Teaching methods

Teaching will progress throughout the semester, alternating between desk critiques, collective pin-ups, discussions with teachers and assistants, and periods of independent work. A field trip to Milan is planned for the first part of the semester. Over the course of four days, we will: take the time to visit the public and private archives of three architectural practices, allowing us to deepen our understanding of key reference projects; study other relevant projects contributing to the complexity of Milan's urban space; visit the ongoing Gae Aulenti exhibition at the Triennale di Milano; attend lectures by Milanese experts and practitioners; and search for project sites.

The estimated expenses are divided into the following items:

• Milano: Train + Metro 180 CHF

• Milano: Accommodation 120 CHF

• Milano: Visits 50 CHF

• Models and Prints 250 CHF

Assessment methods

The studio is organized as a space for collective research, where discussion and experimentation take the first place. The ability to engage with the group through unexpected means will be highly encouraged. Evaluation will be based on the quality of the individual and collective processes throughout the semester and the quality of the final results according to the following criteria: presence, curiosity, interest; capacity for dialogue, speaking out, taking a position; ability to take part in a collaborative project and to contribute to the wider topic; ability to develop a project from an idea and assimilate the themes acquired at various scales; evolution and progress of the work throughout the semester; quality of documents, production and display; oral ability to communicate about the project. The final evaluation will combine the work of the whole semester, following the proportion: Civic Figures 30%, Public Frames 70%

Resources

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/AR-401_ap