Università Roma Tre

GOALS
Course goal is to initiate students into a first complete design experience focusing on individual dwelling in an isolated context. The theme of the house, next to the direct experience of each individual, is considered the most suitable to enable the student of the first year to get closer to the world as an actor, managing to capture the essence and deeper meanings that substantiate the 'act of building a space of life and interpersonal relationships. A theme apparently simple, if only for the size and the articulation of the spaces, in which, however, manifests itself, without any type of reduction, the entire conceptual complexity, typical technical and methodological of any architectural project. Familiarity with the theme will help the development of a proper sensitivity to the central and foundational issues of the discipline: the size of the rooms in relation to man and his needs, the relationship that develops between the parts and the whole, the relationship between form and structure of form and material, space and light, the dialectic between inside and outside and the body's dialogue with the natural and cultural environment in which it is dropped.
PREREQUISITES
The placement in the first year requires no special requirements.
CONTENTS
The Laboratory of Architectural Design I is the first step of a long and complex training needs of the times and the right gradually righteous; this is ensured by the annual development of the course and its distinction in two distinct parts. The first half, through targeted exercises and theoretical lessons, will be aimed, on the one hand, the acquisition by the student part of the critical tools to understand the complexity of the product architecture and articulation of the thought behind any artifact, from ' other, the development of operational methodologies needed to address the theme of the year and to translate the architectural idea into a completed product and communicable. The second semester will be devoted to the conduct of the project and, of course, to the enrichment of the reference cultural background on the issues consistent with the exercise required.
TEACHING METHOD
In the belief that there is no single path towards the architectural project, it will attempt to provide more points of view, urging the students to experiment with different approaches. The teaching method is "Socratic", pointing through doing and thinking, to bring out the student's own identity as an architect.

The texts will be provided during the course

It is an annual architectural design workshop, with 14 credits, 12 architectural and urban design and 2 structures.

In the first half of the year, the commitment is 50 hours, dedicated to frontal lessons, architectural visits and practical exercises for modeling and design.
In the second semester, the engagement is 100 hours and addresses the design theme of a residence for five artists, which proposes a specific dwelling for this small temporary community, the period in the residence is six months. The project area is an agricultural land in the upper Lazio, near the small village of Chia in the province of Viterbo, near some important historic and natural presences. The aim is to create a storytelling and references around the project theme so that the student can elaborate a specific proposal as a result of his suggestions rather than a neutral and impersonal solution. This is in the belief that learning is greater if accompanied by a personal and interpretative working idea.

The contents of the course are proposed and verified through frontal lessons, exercises, educational visits, individual and collective reviews. The final exam evaluation takes into account all the activities of the student during the year, the quality of the final project is obviously crucial in the award of the vote itself. All work is done by hand, it is not allowed to use C.a.d.

Exercises

1-Topography (Individual)
Exercise with level curves to be played by model, is assigned a building volume of date size that must be housed on the ground by creating a digging, or a podium by land reconditioning and making an access path. Scale 1: 250
Area of ​​intervention 75m x 50m, altitude 10m, making curves with cardboard from 1mm (4 curves per 1 meter of altitude) serve 40 curves to absorb the difference in height.
The volume to be inserted is a generic residential volume of 5 m for 10 m, which can be inserted as shown in the examples shown, inserting it into the ground, creating a podium, lifting it on a pilot,
or by adopting hybrid solutions.

2-Redesign and reconstruction of an architecture (group 3 people)
Analysis, technical drawing and realization of a scale model 1: 100 or 1:50 of the following residences:

Utzon, Can Lis Majorca
The corbusier, villa Sarabhai,
Umberto Riva, house De Palma 1, Stintino, 1960
Mario Botta, White House, Riva San Vitale
Louis Kahn, Fisher House
Louis Kahn, house Esherick
Adolf Loos, house Muller
Man Van der rohe, home Tugendhat
Tadao Ando, ​​Koshino House, Ashiya-shi, Japan, 1984
Alberto Ponis, house on the plain of Costa Paradiso, Sardinia, 1972
Alison and Peter Smithson, Upper Lawn Cottage, England, 1962
Alvar Aalto, home-studio in Muuratsalo, Finland, 1953
Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Casa Mendes da Rocha, Butantã, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1966
João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Casa Vilanova Artigas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1949
Glenn Murcutt, House at Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, 1994
Gordon Bunshaft, Travertine House, East Hampton, New York, USA, 1963

3-Building System (Individual)
Project of a small hut, up to 20 sqm, everywhere students want, in a place well known to the designer, using a single constructive system between:
reinforced concrete, brick, stone, wood, steel. Scale model 1:50, plants and sections in scale 1:50

4-Sketches and relief from true anthropometric (individual during visits)
Draw on a drawing book A5 sketches of travel, prospects, plants, sections, portraits, and assonometries, paying particular attention to the proportions of the spaces and architectural elements represented. Booklet to be delivered.

General bibliography

G. Fanelli, R. Gargiani, Il principio del rivestimento, Bari, 1994
L. Mies Van Der Rohe, Gli scritti e le parole, Milano 2010
F. Venezia, Che cos’è l’architettura, Milano, 2011
J. Utzon, Idee di architettura. Scritti e conversazioni, Milano 2011
P. Zumthor, Pensare Architettura, Milano 2003
P. Zumthor, Atmosfere. Ambienti architettonici. Le cose che ci circondano, Milano, 2007
K. Frampton, Tettonica e architettura. Milano, 2000
B. Rudofsky, Architecture without architects, a short introduction to non-pedigreed architecture, New York, 1964,
H. Hertzberger, Lessons for students in architecture, Rotterdam, 1991
L. Quaroni, Progettare un edificio, otto lezioni di architettura, Roma 1977
Le Corbusier, Verso un architettura, Milano 1973

Handbooks

A. Desplazes, Constructing architecture, materials processes structures, a handbook, Basel, 2005
E. Neufert, Enciclopedia pratica per progettare e costruire,
F. Cellini, Manualetto, Norme tecniche, costruttive e grafiche per lo svolgimento di una esercitazione progettuale sul tema della casa unifamiliare, Palermo, 1991
A.Zimmermann, Constructing landscape : materials, techniques, structural components Basel, 2011

The first semester program is divided into a series of theoretical lessons and individual exercises aimed at acquiring the essential tools for addressing the architectural project in its complexity, starting from the design exercise of the second semester.
The lessons will deal with the fundamental architectural topics: the relation between constructive systems and architectural figures; the relationship between constructive systems and spatial forms; The compositional principles leading the relationship between figures and objects; the dimensions and proportions that give character to figures and spaces; the relations with places and the settlement models. The lessons will illustrate these themes also through a critical analysis of some works from the history of architecture, representing some archetypes and their evolution and hybridization.
Particular attention will be paid to the formation of the figurative culture needed to guide the design choices, so as to develop in the students the ability to manage the complexity of the project according to a conscious aesthetic and spatial thought. In order to develop such sensitibility, some composition exercises will be proposed, with figures and objects to be linked to form an accomplished and meaningful set.
The exercises proposed during the semester will stimulate the student to immediately translate into design practice the theoretical notions acquired during the lessons.

Leonardo Benevolo, Benno Albrecht, Le origini dell'architettura, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2001
Ludovico Quaroni, Progettare un edificio, otto lezioni di architettura (1977), Kappa, Roma 2001

i. Introduction to basic aspects of the structural concept.
ii. A sketch of the fundamentals of Statics.
iii. Main features of the mechanical behaviour of the structural elements and their assemblage, and consequently of the global structural response.
iv. Some examples of both structural and architectural design choices, with a particular focus on common building materials.

Daniel L. Schodek, Strutture, Pàtron Editore, 2008.
Lecture notes.

The subject of this course is to show in a simple and intuitive manner, without loosing the rigor of a university course, which are the goals of structural design within the framework of the design of civil realizations.
Design is a multifold activity. In the case of structural design the fundamental task is to transfer loads to the foundations. Loads can be due to gravity but also to other natural actions in many cases external ones. This is the case of seismic action, wind and others.
The course intends to clarify the difference between the real problem to be solved: build the structure, and the instruments with whom we tackle and solve the design procedure.
Structural design is intended essentially as the solution to two main aspects: safety and functionality of the construction. However these former should be attained while respecting many other conditions imposed to the structures due to social functional aesthetic economic and others which contribute to the sustainability evaluation of the realization.
With reference to existing constructions taken as examples, the structure and its behavior is discussed. The physical interpretation of the behavior from the mechanical point of view is illustrated with reference to simple models. Alternative solutions are therefore discussed. First simple indications are given concerning definitions of structural elements in which a structure can usually be decomposed to simplify their structural conception. The whole structure as well as beams columns shear walls and stairs are therefore dealt with as well as of the different construction materials..
Finally the concept of the scale is discussed to present the representativeness of scaled models.

Reference texts and tutorial materials are given by the teacher during lessons.

Introduction to the fundamentals of mechanics of the point particle. Concept of force. Rigid body. Concept of moment of forces. Introduction to mechanics of structural materials (steel, concrete, wood, glass): stress, strain, elastic moduli. History of scientific thought in relation to beam models. Deformable beams: normal force and bending moment. 2D Framed structures. Spatial organization of a framed building. Trusses. Plane and spatial curved structures. Structural examples of constructions of relevant architectural interest.

Course handouts

i. Introduction to basic aspects of the structural concept.
ii. A sketch of the fundamentals of Statics.
iii. Main features of the mechanical behaviour of the structural elements and their assemblage, and consequently of the global structural response.
iv. Some examples of both structural and architectural design choices, with a particular focus on common building materials.

Daniel L. Schodek, Strutture, Pàtron Editore, 2008.
Lecture notes.

The subject of this course is to show in a simple and intuitive manner, without loosing the rigor of a university course, which are the goals of structural design within the framework of the design of civil realizations.
Design is a multifold activity. In the case of structural design the fundamental task is to transfer loads to the foundations. Loads can be due to gravity but also to other natural actions in many cases external ones. This is the case of seismic action, wind and others.
The course intends to clarify the difference between the real problem to be solved: build the structure, and the instruments with whom we tackle and solve the design procedure.
Structural design is intended essentially as the solution to two main aspects: safety and functionality of the construction. However these former should be attained while respecting many other conditions imposed to the structures due to social functional aesthetic economic and others which contribute to the sustainability evaluation of the realization.
With reference to existing constructions taken as examples, the structure and its behavior is discussed. The physical interpretation of the behavior from the mechanical point of view is illustrated with reference to simple models. Alternative solutions are therefore discussed. First simple indications are given concerning definitions of structural elements in which a structure can usually be decomposed to simplify their structural conception. The whole structure as well as beams columns shear walls and stairs are therefore dealt with as well as of the different construction materials..
Finally the concept of the scale is discussed to present the representativeness of scaled models.

Reference texts and tutorial materials are given by the teacher during lessons.

Introduction to the fundamentals of mechanics of the point particle. Concept of force. Rigid body. Concept of moment of forces. Introduction to mechanics of structural materials (steel, concrete, wood, glass): stress, strain, elastic moduli. History of scientific thought in relation to beam models. Deformable beams: normal force and bending moment. 2D Framed structures. Spatial organization of a framed building. Trusses. Plane and spatial curved structures. Structural examples of constructions of relevant architectural interest.

Course handouts