Project BSc2-I: Housing - Atlier Angonese

As usual, each academic year is dedicated to a theme, which frame the teaching experience. This practice allows the project to be inscribed in a broader reflection on contemporary architecture, tracing a trajectory for the development of the students' work. This year's theme will be "Inside/Outside", understood as the relationship between interior and exterior space, or between architecture and landscape. We will work on all those topics ranging from the relationship between domestic space and climate to how passive systems can be integrated into the construction and their relationship with the different climate zones of the house and the territory in which it is located.

The timeless way of building teaches us to always consider materials, orientation, openings dimensions and position, height of ceiling and so on, in a direct relations with the climate needed to perform human activities. Long before the invention of insulation and air conditioning, humans has always been able to design perfectly functioning houses and buildings, by means of carefully decipher and manipulate the relation between inside and outside.

During the first semester we will work in Andalusia in the south of Spain.

The project programme of the first semester will be a small refuge in a landscape of great character with which to establish a relationship and in which we will explore the interstitial dimension straddling topography and typology.

The atelier's research invests the notions of type and typology, the question of settlement in a given place, the theme of inhabited space and the relationships that the building undergoes over time, constructing its history and defining those aspects through which it acquires an eloquent and appropriate form.

The study trip will bring us to Spain, in between the cities of Granada, Cordoba and Seville. During the trip we will try to grasp the characters of the architectural tradition, visiting works with refined constructive, spatial and cultural solutions and getting to know great authors and their works.

To get closer to the theme, we will begin the semester with the usual Redesign and Reconstruction exercise, which will be dedicated to 10 houses by Italian masters. In addition, during the first part of the semester, as is customary, we will also make a one-day visit to one or more excellent houses of modern architecture located in Northern Italy or in Ticino, in order to introduce a discourse on space in architecture.

The semester will be accompanied by lectures related to the theme of the semester.

The objective of the course is to broaden and consolidate architectural knowledge related to the theme of  space, with a focus on domesticity, and to provide the necessary design tools to prepare the student to continue in his or her studies and future professional practice, proposing the methodology of "idea construction" and the tools of "curiosity, passion and self-criticism".

• Sustainable cities and communities
• Responsible consumption and production

The working method of the atelier is based on the "construction of the idea", which means to formulate an idea after a careful process that starts from one's own personal "intuition" and then goes through various moments of cultural, tectonic and interdisciplinary reflection until reaching what can to all intents and purposes be called a true "architectural idea".

From a methodological point of view, the construction of an idea cannot be defined precisely and pragmatically, as it is strongly influenced by subjectivity and by processes that make a systematic or dogmatic approach almost impossible to apply.

Starting from the intuition and through a process of research into the origin and motives of the idea, cultural values must be transmitted, values that are also the object of our teaching.

The tools needed to approach this methodology and that the atelier seeks to transmit to students are 'curiosity, passion and a certain degree of self-criticism'.

Intermediate and final critic with guests.

• Andalusia (Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla), 29.09.22 - 02.10.22 (Compulsory)
• Andalusia (Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla), 29.09.22 - 02.10.22 (Compulsory)