Programme

This course deals with the disciplinary horizon of landscape architecture: the art and technique to shape open spaces, with materials, methods and approaches proper of landscaping. It focuses on relationships rather than artifacts, processes rather than outcomes; because it prefers the use of natural and living materials, in evolutionary and cyclical time dimensions; Because it proceeds through strategies and programs rather than forms; Because it requires the contamination of various professional skills (botany, geology, natural science engineering, environmental sciences, economics and sociology ...); Because it crosses scale and does not proceed mechanically from general to detail; Because it requires the study and interpretation of behavioral and social topics.
The main objective of the course is to understand this complexity within the framework of the urban open space design, to provide the students with the ability to govern and value this complexity on a cultural, ethical, figurative and environmental level through a receptive and attentive sensitivity (listening and viewing skills) and a specific technical skill (ability to intervene and transform).
The project of open space can be declined in a multitude of species of spaces: gardens, parks, shores, residual areas, gardens, squares, streets, streets, parks, and so on, subject to further specific articulations Than reciprocal hybridisations. Some of these categories are the legacy of a long and valuable historical legacy, others talk about contemporaryity and the continuous transformation of urban spaces. On the last we focus our attention.

The course has a theoretical and design character and is divided into three modules - module 1, "Plants Ecology"; module 2, "Landscape Representation"; module 3, "Landscape Architecture" - which work in a synergic way to offer a framework of methodological, theoretical and operational knowledge aimed at designing open spaces in urban areas.

Core Documentation

E. Belfiore, Il verde e la città. Idee e progetti dal Settecento ad oggi, Gangemi Editore 2005.
M. Corrado e A. Lambertini, Atlante delle nature urbane. Centouno voci per i paesaggi quotidiani, Editrice Compositori, 2011.
G. Cullen, Il paesaggio urbano, Calderini 1976.
K. Lynch, L’immagine della città, Marsilio 1964.
C. W. Moore, W. J. Mitchel, W. Turnbull, The poetics of gardens, MIT Press, Cambridge-London 1988, trad. it. La poetica dei giardini, Muzzio Editore 1991.
D. Pandakovic, Dal Sasso A., Saper vedere il paesaggio, Ed. CittàStudi, 2009.
F. Panzini, Progettare la natura – Architettura del paesaggio e dei giardini dalle origini all’epoca contemporanea, Zanichelli 2005.
F. Zagari, Questo è paesaggio – 48 definizioni, Gruppo Mancosu editore 2006.
F. Zagari, Sul paesaggio. Lettera aperta, Libria 2013.

Type of delivery of the course

The course attendance is mandatory and student will need to have attended at least 75% of the activities in the classroom in order to take the exam. The course is divided into theoretical seminars (LESSONS) and application activities (LABORATORY). ¬ Theoretical seminars Module 1 - The lessons of Plant Ecology teaching will aim to provide basic knowledge of Botany and Plant Ecology in relation to patterns, processes and paradigms of Landscape Ecology and Urban Ecology. In particular, botanical elements of plant systematics and physiology will be proposed, focused from an ecological point of view of complexity, relationship, succession and resilience and contextualized in a highly heterogeneous and fragmented anthropic landscape such as that of Rome. Module 2 - Landscape Representation lessons will aim to provide the cognitive and practical basis for the analogue and digital management of the landscape project. Some lessons will be dedicated to photographic techniques, image management, post-production and project rendering through photo editing software. New trends in the representation of landscape will be proposed to the students, so that they can reproduce the techniques also in the projects of the year's theme. Module 3 - The lessons of Landscape Architecture teaching will be aimed at learning the basics of the design of open spaces in urban areas, in both syntactic/compositional and historical/critical key. Specific communications will be dedicated to the most significant theories, methods and practices of contemporary landscape design, verifying how they find their most innovative features in the crossing of stairs, in functional, spatial and aesthetic hybridization. ¬ Laboratory The workshop is articulated in two moments: knowledge (Knowledge Framework) and knowledge to do (Transformative Proposals), intimately connected to each other and will be conducted jointly by the three modules of which the course is composed. The workshop begins on the first day of the course. Students are expected to work in the classroom, supported by teachers, for the duration of the course. 1_ Knowledge framework The knowledge of the places is expressed through the ability to decode the signs and make them active matter of the project. It derives from the understanding of the actions -material and immaterial, autopoietic and anthropic- that produced them. It also concerns not only the signs already present, but also the latent ones, which announce themselves because of the processes - environmental, social, economic, urban planning, etc. - already underway. The framework of knowledge, therefore, in its different declinations, is aimed at highlighting the relations between signs and actions and cannot ignore the temporal dimension of the observed phenomena. In this way it will be possible to find the matrices and structural permanences of the observed landscape, highlighting the still active, tendential and interrupted cycles. Maps, cartographies, photographs and other types of representations will make it possible to restore the dynamic character of the main territorial systems: plants; hydrology; the building fabric; infrastructures, mobility; activities and functions, with the aim of highlighting for each of them the character of what is "invariant" and what is more markedly evolving. The knowledge will be the result of the sedimentation of different exploratory experiences, to be carried out on real territories and documents, therefore through visits, inspections, photographic, geometric and material surveys. 2_ Proposals The project will be divided into two phases: the frame and the areas. 2a_ The frame The preliminary objective of the project is to acquire intervention strategies referring to the urban scale, with the specific aim of identifying binding strategies between different open spaces. For this reason we call this first phase of the project "frame", precisely because it constitutes a warp, a framework of spatial and environmental connections. The frame is expressed through masterplan schemes, from which design proposals useful for the connection and qualified relationship between the neighbouring urban spaces emerge, and it assumes an intermediate tenor between strategy and configuration, settling on a scale of 1:5,000. The delivery of the works will take place in paper and digital form, on the occasion of an exhibition-debate in which the proposals will be illustrated and discussed. The delivery will be evaluated according to the following criteria: - congruence between diagnosis and project addresses; - relevance and clarity of the guidelines that will guide subsequent actions. 2b_ The site The in-depth study will cover a number of specific sites and will aim to define their overall spatial layout, in line with what was defined in the frame proposal. The minimum drawings will have to include: - Planivolumetry of the project in scale 1:500; - Diagrams of the main project systems, material and not, including activities, movement direction, plant plots; - Sections of the chosen project scope on a scale of 1:200; - Three-dimensional, free-technique representations; - Abacus of botanical choices; - Phenology; - Patterns, planting and/or density sesties; - Variations of habitus, cyclical and evolutionary. The delivery of all papers will be in paper and digital form, coinciding with the date of examination. 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 procedures will be applied: the lessons will be held at a distance on a special online platform (MSTeams), as will the intermediate reviews.

Attendance

The course attendance is mandatory and student will need to have attended at least 75% of the activities in the classroom in order to be admitted to the exam.

Type of evaluation

The exam will take place through a presentation of the work done and an interview on the main topics dealt with during the lessons. The object of evaluation will be the acquisition of the cultural, theoretical and methodological references specific to the discipline, as emerging from: - active attendance at all the didactic activities of the course; - results achieved in the intermediate assignments; - final project, whose evaluation criteria will be related to the spatial and environmental quality of the proposed configurations and the quality of the representation; - the final interview, based on the ability to critically re-elaborate the contents of the lessons and texts indicated and/or provided during the course. Minimum drawings shall include: -Project plan at a 1:1000 scale; -Diagrams of the main project systems, including activities, movement direction, vegetation plots; -Sections of the selected project area at a scale of 1:500; -Three-dimensional representations,free technique; -Abstract of botanical choices; -Phenology and habitus variations of plants, cyclical and evolutionary; -Patterns, planting distances and/or densities. 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 procedures will be applied: the exams will take place in remote telematic mode, on the institutional web platform (MSTeams), through the discussion of the graphic works developed during the semester, related to the project proposal for the reconfiguration of a system of urban open spaces. The works will not be on paper, but only in digital form and may include drawings and multimedia works (such as video, audio files and animated gifs). The proposals are elaborated by groups of 4-5 students. During the interview the individual contribution of each student within the group will be verified.