European Design Institute, Rome (Giovanni Amici), TA

The studio built on the Italian tradition of building preservation. The theme was the retrofitting of a residential unit in a historical building. Students applied technologies and techniques of intervention in old (bricks walls and mixed metal/brick slabs) or modern (concrete and metal) structures. They learned to design by integrating circulation, structure, and space and study viable technologies to realize their projects.

The first part of the course introduced the characteristics of the fundamental materials to transform an idea into reality. Both the physical/morphological characteristics of the materials and technological/industrial processes were analyzed. Before focusing on the refurbishment of one residential unit, students investigated the building’s history, structure and its components.

Encouraged to remain away from digital means of representation, they worked with various representation methods—model form, freehand and hard-line drawings.