Architecture and Materials

Lectures and seminars will give an overview of the principal materials used in architecture, today and in the past, in particular by focusing on the relation between materials and design choices. An understanding of the production processes, methods of fabrication, properties and performances of different materials is essential to identifying and getting a clear focus on the criteria to be adopted during design, from a viewpoint that considers the complex relations between architecture, its setting and the environment.

The course aims to provide basic knowledge regarding materials and the main construction techniques of the past and present, and to provide the tools to carry out a constructive analysis of existing buildings. At the end of the course, the student will be able to recognise the main materials and the ways in which they are used, to describe them and to report their characteristics at a macroscopic level in texts and sketches, carrying out simple construction analyses.

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Written during exam session