ARCH 310, 410 or 510: Architecture Design Studio
Discipline(s): Architecture & Historic Preservation
Credits: 5
Instructor: Franco Pisani, M.Arch., Licensed Architect, Stefano Corazzini, M.A.
Taught in: English
Description
The Summer Studio is exclusive to the F6 program and provides aspiring architects with an innovative and interdisciplinary experience, which surveys Florence’s extraordinary architectural infrastructure in its design, history, art, and development. The Design Studio curriculum is open to 3rd- and 4th-year architect students. Students will be placed in the appropriate studio level based on their proficiency, academic needs and prerequisites. Studio courses consist of urban studio classes and meetings in design-charrette style, with interactive urban projects, daily briefs, and progress presentations. Students will develop a unique design project for real urban sites in the city. Special attention will be given to each student to design an experience that meets their special curricular needs and interests.
Course Highlights
- Dedicated studio and workspace for each participant
- Experiential on-site learning
- Work individually and on teams to create local urban design projects
- Field trips to Veneto (Palladio and Carlo Scarpa), Pienza and the Val d’Orcia, San Gimignano, and Montalcino.
Objectives
CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT. The main opportunity offered by a design studio in Firenze is the opportunity of working in a strongly characterized historical context, with its multiple layers and its continuous in progress status. Firenze and its built environment will be the textbooks for studio, and the studio will develop methods to learn from it. Students will be asked to go beyond appearances, and to look at the city from different points of view and not as tourists. Architecture is strategy and communication. The main goal of the studio is to provide students with an insight into the nature of the public domain and the ways in which architecture and urban space are weaved to create the physical setting for the activities and rituals of public urban life.
STYLE IS NOT AN ADDED QUALITY. The studio will not focus only on a merely functional program; instead, it will operate on the premise that public spaces are important to the livability of a city. Students will cultivate design not to explore style, but to explore what they consider to be fundamental to architecture: namely, issues of space, urbanism and meanings, searching a way to hide thoughts inside shapes.
ORDINARY vs EXTRAORDINARY. Unorthodox programs using contemporary complexity of urban phenomena will be of main importance in developing design proposals.
Textbooks
During orientation at the Institute, students will receive a list of textbooks and/or course readers they are required to purchase. Students should not purchase any texts before orientation. Course descriptions may be subject to occasional minor modifications at the discretion of the instructor.