Programme

The laboratory develops the idea of ​​C.I.R.C.O. (Casa Indispensable for Civic Recreation and Hospitality) proposing a rethinking of the welcoming spaces for migrants, transients and mobile populations, starting from the reuse of the abandoned or underused Roman real estate assets. The goal is to facilitate access to these spaces for all the inhabitants of the city, opening them up to the collective construction of living, spaces for exchange and sociability. The project involves the development of indications for a welcoming policy, in a more mutual sense of hospitality, aimed at generating new forms of reciprocity and coexistence. The work is in direct contact with the local area and its communities.

The course intervene at the core of the city in a creative, interdisciplinary and participatory way. It offers lessons about the relationship between arts, architecture and the city, and direct experiences such as urban explorations, realization of micro-structures at the 1:1 scale, events and performative actions of a high civic and symbolic content, in complex social contexts, with special attention to the intercultural city and the migrant's hospitality.
We can explain the teaching approach goes in three main words: Arts Architecture City.
By Arts we mean the tools of knowledge that guide us towards the comprehension of the dynamics of contemporary urban transformations; poetic glances that are able to reveal those aspects of the city that are often invisible, and to provoke their potentialities.
We understand Architecture as a practice of reading and processing space, both in a physical and symbolic way. The course offers to the students an occasion to experiment the construction of an artifact in the city that is able to provoke social transformations.
We view the City as a contested space, not just in terms of the formal regulations that aim to rule its development but in terms of those new dwelling practices that seek to transform housing and neighborhoods, to change the use and meaning of public space, and to claim people’s right to the city.

https://laboratoriocirco.wordpress.com/

Core Documentation

for an overview of the course topics and results of the last years see the course blog: https://laboratoriocirco.wordpress.com/

basic Bibliography:
- FRANCESCO CARERI, LORENZO ROMITO, CAMPUS ROM, ALTRIMEDIA EDIZIONI, MATERA 2017
- FRANCESCO CARERI, WALKSCAPES. EL ANDAR COMO PRÀCTICA ESTÉTICA / WALKING AS AN AESTHETIC PRACTICE, EDITORIAL GUSTAVO GILI, BARCELLONA 2002, TRAD IT. WALKSCAPES. IL CAMMINARE COME PRATICA ESTETICA, EINAUDI, TORIMO 2006.
-ANNA DETHERIDGE, SCULTORI DELLA SPERANZA. L'ARTE NEL CONTESTO DELLA GLOBALIZZAZIONE, EINAUDI 2012
- AA.VV., INTERNAZIONALE SITUAZIONISTA 1958-69, NAUTILUS/STAMPATRE, TORINO, 1994
- FRANCESCO CARERI, CONSTANT / NEW BABYLON, UNA CITTÀ NOMADE, TESTO & IMMAGINE, TORINO, 2001
- BRUCE CHATWIN, THE SONGLINES (1987), TRAD. IT. LE VIE DEI CANTI, ADELPHI, MILANO, 1988
- FRANCO LA CECLA., PERDERSI, L'UOMO SENZA AMBIENTE, LATERZA, BARI, 1988
- PETER LANG, A CURA DI., SUBURBAN DISCIPLINE, PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS, NEW YORK, 1997
- ROSALIND KRAUSS, PASSAGES IN MODERN SCULPTURE, MIT PRESS, 1981, TR. IT. PASSAGGI, BRUNO MONDADORI, MILANO, 1998

Type of delivery of the course

During the last three years, the course was divided in two parts. The first consists in lessons, explorations, fieldwork, conferences, seminars and workshops. The second is the elaboration of a project where the students elaborate a mapping of the abandoned Roman real estate heritage and begin to build collaborative relationships with the neighborhood and the civil society. They then choose a place to develop the project taking into account the identification of actors, users, possible funding, triggers of circular economy dynamics, impact on the neighborhood and urban scale, and elaborate architectural projects for the reuse of buildings, identifying the different phases of the project. The project can be a traditional architectural project, that simulate with drawings and models some possible transformations, a "design and build" project at the one to one scale; other kinds of urban transformation's tactics, depending of the context. In the case of an extension of the health emergency by COVID-19 all the provisions that regulate the way in which teaching activities and student evaluation are carried out will be implemented. In particular, the following modalities will be applied: theoretical lessons and group reviews through the team platform, inspections and field work in small groups, maintaining the physical distance and the use of masks.

Attendance

The course takes place on two days a week, with a full day of laboratory of 8 hours and a day of 4 hours of frontal lessons. Students are required to follow the entire course and lectures and will only develop the planning phase remotely. Graphical deliveries are scheduled every week. In the case of an extension of the health emergency by COVID-19 all the provisions that regulate the way in which teaching activities and student evaluation are carried out will be implemented. As far as attendance is concerned, it will be considered essential that students in the other groups also follow the revisions and corrections of their peers' projects.

Type of evaluation

In the last three years the student's assessment consisted of a series of assessments of the project in itinere and an assessment at the final exam in presence through an artistic installation of materials at the project site. In the case of an extension of the health emergency by COVID-19 all the provisions that regulate the way in which the didactic activities and the students' evaluation will be carried out will be implemented. In particular, the following procedures will be applied: revisions, corrections and deliveries by telematic means; evaluations in itinere both remotely and in presence in the form of a survey in the places to be examined, and, depending on the level of emergency and the provisions of the University, final examination in groups spaced out in the places where the project has been designed for.