Today, the main issue of providing adequate and affordable housing is to go beyond the mere offer of basic shelters, intending to create sustainable and durable settlements. Due to the fragile and ...uncertain nature of its social, political and economic context, characterized by the lack of common shared legislative references and business strategies in the housing sector, Somalia is a challenging reality to be explored and improved. This paper describes the outcomes of the BECOMe project, intending to propose sustainable solutions for mass-housing design for new sustainable settlements in Mogadishu, involving local entrepreneurs, social organizations and renewable energy. In detail, social, environmental and economic key sustainability requirements (KSRs) for mass-housing are identified first. Then, the most appropriate climate-responsive design and construction technologies at the building level, tailored to the Mogadishu context, are selected; the outcomes are applied to a specific case-study building, assessing energy and cost performances to pave the way for implementation projects in Somalia.
«Vagliami ‘l lungo studio e ‘l grande amore …». Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy. Inferno, Book I, p. 83. A well-known aphorism of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, father of Steiner-Waldorf pedagogy, ...states that «teaching is not only a distantflow of information, but a warm relationship between two human beings, in which one is thirsty for knowledge and the other one is devoted to transmitting all his human and intellectualexperience». This statement summarizes the essence of “in-signare” as an act of imprinting a “signum” – a brand – on the learner. This process shall not be considered as a one-way practice, pushing learners to a passive attitude, but as a complex and articulated connection, requiring specific methodologies for leading to a new understanding of the reality. “In-signare” (teaching) means acquiringskills, experiences, habits, rules in relation to a trade, a profession, a job. At the same time, it implies a deep relation among human beings, generating a maieutic involvement of learners, improving their potentialities and developing a dual and empathic connection with teachers. One of the most universally recognized, poetic and allegorical images of Italian literature – traced by Dante in the Divine Comedy, meeting “l’onore e lume de li altripoeti”, Virgil – clearly expresses this dimension. From the first moment, the Latin poet reassures Dante’s tormented soul, not only by showing him a viable path, but also by accompanying him on the journey, setting in motion with him: «Allor simosse ed io li tenni dietro». For the learner, meeting those who know “in-signare” means opening up new horizons. That is the source of the motivation that initiate to knowledge. This is the basis for the University experience – as a community committed to stimulating thoughts and reasoning and as a place where to meet teachers able to lead others’ experience. John Henry Newman wrote: «an academic system without the personal influence of teachers on disciples is an Arctic winter» (Newman, 1872). Pietro Calamandrei, for his part, acknowledges that teaching requires «an exceptional temper of master», who knows how to «warm deaf matter with his fire, in the gray classrooms where professors teach» (Calamandrei, 1923). The master does not just convey knowledge, but intervenes with his personality, starting an existential and relational process with his disciples. The expression «heating with its fire the deaf matter» is an ideal starting point to reflect on the book edited by Emilio Faroldi and Maria Pilar Vettori: not a tedious anthology, but a collection of authorial essays by “magisters” of architecture. The volume includes the contribution of fifteen authors, who have been able to leave “signs” to those who approach the art of Vitruvius. They propose an active and constructive dialogue on methods and tools for teaching architecture – not only in theoretical, but also experiential and professional perspective. The articulated and rich reflection is presented in three different languages – Italian, English, Spanish – reflecting the cognitive process that leads the transmission of knowledge: hybridized and contaminated, revealing cultural assonances and divergences among the authors. The essays express the fundamentals of training paths, the topicality of teaching models and learning tools, starting from two contexts of excellence: the School of Urban Architecture Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano and the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. This allows an all-round comparison, free from sectarian and self-referential scientific-disciplinary visions, led through the continuous verification in practice of teaching techniques and tools: a critical view on different cultural and educational approaches – not always in unison – joining the desire to improve the debate from an international perspective. Milan and Madrid represent two schools, different in some respects, aiming at creating privileged placesfor training: architects, men and citizens. The contamination between culture and research, science and knowledgereflects the purpose of providing not only qualified tools to future professionals, but also cultural, social and relational values to future individuals. Behind this approach, there is the common consideration of the architectas a professional with a strong social and ethical responsibility, requiringanindependent, rational, and responsibleperson. In this perspective, the teaching activities develop in between the individual and the society –in between conscience and discipline, in between common goods and individual needs, in between what is useful and what is superfluous. We are not dealing with an easy task, indeed, requiring commitment, patience, research, experimentation, passion, as well as the ability to watch over «‘l lungo studio e ‘l grande amore» of learner towards architecture. Those who truly teach architecture canmake their knowledge and experience available to the students, giving precious advice and – precisely – leaving their “signum”. As Alberto Campo Baeza recalls, in the prologue of this book, «teaching is a fortune. Teaching is a gift because you learn more than you teach». Teaching defines a two-way, exchangeable, osmotic relationship, which Don Milani clearly expressed: «friends often ask me how I do school and how I get it full. They insist that I write a methodfor them, that I define programs, subjects, techniques. They miss the question, they should not worry about what to do to do school, but how to be to do school» (Milani Comparetti, 1967). In conclusion, the book by Faroldi and Vettori represents an important contribution for fostering and putting together the intellectual, emotional and personal identity of the teacher, defining a new perspective in the fascinating and difficult mission of “Teaching architecture”.
The concept of resilience can be applied to postwar buildings, which are increasingly exposed to seismic events. Today this threat can be dealt with through preventive practices, based on the use of ...adaptive exoskeletons: prosthetic systems that identify a field of experimentation marked by an undoubted social, environmental and economic value. This technique is based on a design that simultaneously allows seismic upgrade, energy retrofit, plant-engineering adjustment and the remodelage of those structurally, aesthetically and functionally obsolete and highly vulnerable residential buildings, on which resilience can activate targeted policies aimed at the preservation of human life, environmental sustainability and the rational use of the scarce economic resources available.
The need to create eco-friendly architecture is increasingly pushing designers to uncritically integrate greenery into shared living without considering the importance of bottom-up user involvement. ...The combination of Internet of Things systems and digitalisation with the benefits naturally generated by greenery could, on the contrary, promote conscious and proactive participation, including in terms of its maintenance and management. The present study recalls the advantages of the hybridization between shared living and nature and proposes an articulated taxonomy of the reversed spatial environments that can be managed through an innovative Internet of Nature system, arguing how vegetation and sensors can support the ‘ecological challenge for change’, promote the construction of a renewed social identity and strengthen a sense of belonging.
The research for new forms of shared housing, able to face the multiple environmental and social criticalities of the planet, is driving to rethink the conventional ways of living together. In this ...context, the Megaform appears as a contingent intervention device that, as an alternative to other solutions, such as the individual houses, the cluster housing, and the tall buildings, can integrate and/or replace the traditional city layout. The contribution traces the genealogy and prerogatives of this unusual morphotype, not attributable to any conventional typological classification, assuming its rediscovery and re-proposition also in an empirical key, starting from the indispensable rethinking of the principles of our living with others, in the belief that to survive in the cities that we have irreversibly transformed, we must learn to think in a new way.
In a competitive university system, student residences represent an essential infrastructure to support not only hospitality needs but also educational and training activities, promoting concepts of ...independence, and fostering reciprocal relational exchanges and supports. In order to respond immediately to the current shortage of accommodation places, it is possible to use prefabricated modular housing systems. Thanks to the study of literature and case studies, this paper describes the evolution of this construction system, highlighting limits and potentials. It also provides an overview that defines the reasons and opportunities that could suggest its greater use in the university housing sector, at a time when the speed of execution, product quality and respect for costs are increasingly important factors. Article info Received: 15/09/2023; Revised: 08/10/2023; Accepted: 20/10/2023
In University residences, the categories of stability and durability, which are usually attributed to architecture, do not necessarily have to be applied. The temporariness of these structures, which ...may seem a contradiction – if not an oxymoron – has become one of the design paradigms that define the essential element of this form of living. In student housing, the temporary character can take on a plurality of meanings: constructive, functional, of use, etc. The contribution illustrates how University residences have now freed themselves from a monotonous and standardized image and have reached interesting levels of quality, succeeding in giving credible answers on the technological and figurative level that could also be assumed in our country.
Balconies, lodges, green roofs, solariums, etc. represent one of the fundamentals (according to the definition by Rem Koolhaas at Biennale di Venezia 2014) of contemporary architecture, that is ...triggering a new debate on the contemporary city and its landscape. The link between these solutions and nature is one of the most influential factors for their success. On the one hand this could be considered as a positive aspect for the sustainability of the human action on the planet - in strictly environ mental terms. On the other hand, it poses urgent questions about the simplification of the aesthetic and cultural categories that are governing the evolution of the city.
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