AGATHÓN

2-5

Authors: Giuseppe De Giovanni

AGATHÓN issue 6, titled ‘Resilience between Mitigation and Adaptation’ collects reflections on environmental, climatic and anthropic changes that characterize the beginning of this millennium and that are an increasingly major subject in the international debate since they influence, on the one hand, the protection of territories, landscapes and fragile urban areas, on the other the uses, performance and efficiency of architectural artefacts and everyday objects. Moreover, the shortage of natural resources, the global economic crisis, mass migratory flows, and the unpredictability of seismic events, are a source of continuous instability which can be dealt only with ‘resilient thoughts’ capable of answering continuous or sudden changes. Within a positive dynamic process, aimed at managing events and rebuilding a new balance (landscape, urban, architectural, economic, social, etc.), Resilience does not imply the restoration of an initial state, but the acquisition of a new balance and maintenance of functionality through two approach strategies. The first strategy is Adaptive, focused on the dynamic nature of operational methods – from ideational, compositional/design, to productive, realization, operational and management methods – in which all the elements of the built environment, from the territorial, urban and building scale, to the material and object scale, effectively adapt to new balances with higher performance levels; The second strategy is Mitigative, where research is directed to innovative technologies (process, project and products) aimed at risk prevention and minimizing any impact – concerning disturbing events due to environmental, seismic, anthropic and social change – and aiming at the realization of territorial urban systems, buildings, components, objects, and sensitive materials, with variable behaviour and in energetic-dynamic equilibrium with climatic and environmental changes. In the published articles is widely highlighted, under various disciplinary and scientific facets, the pressing action of climate, environmental and anthropic changes on the environment in general, and in particular to the urban one. This issue of AGATHÓN contains varied methods, research, considerations and projects, all aiming both at adaptive Architecture and Resilience Design, focused on achieving a sustainable symbiotic relation between man and the Planet in which we live.https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/612019

14-25

Authors: Manuel Gausa

The holistic approach to the contemporary city recalls the use of new complex and integrated techno-environmental tools and qualitative urban development policies, in positive synergy. Advanced, proactive and reactive responses, which move in a hybrid field: on the one hand prevention and mitigation of conflicts and urban-territorial stress situations, through the interconnection of systematized data; on the other the programming of strategic interventions, articulated in intertwined systems. The term Resili(g)ence combines ‘intelligent values’ (information, knowledge, projection and adaptation) with ‘resilient values’ (resistance and recycling, recovery, renewal or adaptation) in a new responsive, sensory, and sensitive condition. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/622019

36-45

Authors: Marina Fumo

Over fourteen thousand and up to twelve thousand years ago, due to a serious food supply crisis, homo sapiens implemented a new model of survival based on agriculture, starting to sow, man became more sedentary. Nowadays, we rely on a new adaptation process to bring us closer to farm and craft activities, reviving small scale settlement systems. Knowing the peculiar features of a natural or urban artificial landscape and identifying in it with a feeling of belonging, as a place bearing culture and traditions, has always linked the human beings to their territory, to a geographical context. In the current global environmental crisis, the rural landscape is once again considered an asset for man, especially for its cultural and spiritual values, as a fundamental scenario to build individual and collective life. Therefore, for every human community, the whole landscape becomes a place where to reside, live, build, produce, sell, pass on, it participates in the whole cycle. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/642019

58-65

Authors: Zeila Tesoriere

Architecture has been built for millennia to stay the same – according to the Vitruvian firmitas. Instead, today it is oriented toward a dynamic adaptation to the changes in its context. The climate change is the most evident epiphenomenon among those that have imposed the new paradigms of resilience, the programmatic indeterminacy, the morphological flexibility, the open systemic approaches. Far from being a simple technical adaptation to new needs, the resilient architecture progressively clarifies its theoretical assumptions and its cultural derivations. A genealogical approach concerning the reformulation of some themes firstly introduced by Japanese Metabolism, helps to reframe its evolution and aims to contribute to the understanding of the formal definition of these new architectures. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/662019

80-93

Authors: Tiziano Aglieri Rinella

In the 21st century, the processes linked to globalization bring significant changes to the way humans inhabit places influencing architectural design. The following essay presents the city of Buenos Aires as an example of Resilience towards cultural diversity and the demand for modernity proper to a global city. Three particular architectural phenomena can be identified – the rascacielo, the villa miseria and the chorizo house – architectures and spaces of the city capable of responding, more or less positively, to the changes brought by the new condition of global culture. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/672019

104-113

Authors: Carmela Mariano, Marsia Marino

The IPCC 2018 report represents the current state of knowledge on climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. One of the most direct consequences of these changes is represented by the raising of the sea-level, the topic on which the contribution lingers, highlighting how, to date, there is no declination, at the local planning level, of the content addresses in the sectoral tools responsible for managing the phenomenon. The contribution, starting from the results of a recent ENEA research, explores the territorial context of the Mediterranean, specifically the Italian area, to bring out some methodological and operational suggestions for the elaboration of some possible strategies for transforming urban contexts affected by flooding. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6102019

126-137

Authors: Matteo Aimini

Cities and their surroundings are excellent case studies and inexhaustible testing grounds as they require constant adaptations and revisions; mutable environments where it is possible to experiment new approaches and paradigm changes, in order to demonstrate that it is possible to turn the direction towards less disturbing and more profitable scenarios from the environmental and socio-economic standpoints. In this sense, the research task of the Trento Urban Transformation Research Unit (TUT) is to review the perspectives of the Trento Urban Plan according to public and private stakeholder, to record and propose alternative scenarios towards a more Resilient direction. Among the challenges that the Strategic Plan need to address there is a specific category devoted to the performative outlook of the city concerning the ecological imprinting. This category includes strategies for landscape design approaches capable of tackling the challenges posed by our contemporary era. Cities and their surroundings are excellent case studies and inexhaustible testing grounds as they require constant adaptations and revisions; mutable environments where it is possible to experiment new approaches and paradigm changes, in order to demonstrate that it is possible to turn the direction towards less disturbing and more profitable scenarios from the environmental and socio-economic standpoints. In this sense, the research task of the Trento Urban Transformation Research Unit (TUT) is to review the perspectives of the Trento Urban Plan according to public and private stakeholder, to record and propose alternative scenarios towards a more Resilient direction. Among the challenges that the Strategic Plan need to address there is a specific category devoted to the performative outlook of the city concerning the ecological imprinting. This category includes strategies for landscape design approaches capable of tackling the challenges posed by our contemporary era. Cities and their surroundings are excellent case studies and inexhaustible testing grounds as they require constant adaptations and revisions; mutable environments where it is possible to experiment new approaches and paradigm changes, in order to demonstrate that it is possible to turn the direction towards less disturbing and more profitable scenarios from the environmental and socio-economic standpoints. In this sense, the research task of the Trento Urban Transformation Research Unit (TUT) is to review the perspectives of the Trento Urban Plan according to public and private stakeholder, to record and propose alternative scenarios towards a more Resilient direction. Among the challenges that the Strategic Plan need to address there is a specific category devoted to the performative outlook of the city concerning the ecological imprinting. This category includes strategies for landscape design approaches capable of tackling the challenges posed by our contemporary era. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6122019

148-161

Authors: Alberto De Capua, Lidia Errante

The emphasis placed on urban living issues concerning public space seems well-founded based on the many spatial, environmental, social and psychological effects connected the processes of urban transformation. The liveability of the contemporary cities cannot ignore the features of quality and diversity of the system of public spaces, intended here as an infrastructure capable of connecting places and people, goods and services in continuous flow. This contribution highlights the need for tools able to interpreting the ever-changing physical and social demands of contemporary public space and propose an interpretative cognitive model to support to Public Administrations order to better orient urban transformation and regeneration strategies and goals. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6142019

170-181

Authors: Ilaria Montella

The exposure to many risk factors related to climate change, scarcity of resources, migration and a critical economic situation place cities under constant stress and instability. Therefore, increasing their resilience is required. Arup developed the City Resilience Framework for the 100 Resilient Cities project. This framework places housing among the action sectors to enhance resilience. This analysis borrows best practices for resiliency from case study analyses while investigating how architecture can contribute to the Framework. It then proposes a meta-design tool in the form of Design Technical Data Sheets. These are meant to support the actors involved in design processes with resilience-oriented design and procedural guidelines. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6162019

192-199

Authors: Giulio Davino, Eduardo Bassolino

The urban temperature raising related to climate change on-going phenomenons as a consequence of greenhouse gas concentration’s increasing, the performance flaws of Italian construction, particularly of the one built between ‘70s and ‘90s, the technological progress of technical solutions and research in the field of architecture-related digital technology, have stimulated the development of a methodology based on computational design and data exchange IT tools for buildings’ energy simulation and the definition of interventions of energy and technology retrofit aimed towards adaption and mitigation according to climatic scenarios. This contribution is focused on the experimentation of a simulative approach, based on the use of parametric software for outlining interventions of energy and technology retrofit for buildings, through a methodology replicable for urban and building regeneration actions for mitigation and climate adaption. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6182019

210-217

Authors: Kai Reaver

The paper documents three case studies researching the techniques of Virtual Preservation upon various Cultural Heritage sites in order to preserve material aspects that, in the near future, can be irreparably damaged by the impact of climate change. Through the use of 3D scanners, photogrammetry, virtual and reality, and rendering software, the study documents how emerging technologies may be used together to digitally recreate full-scale Cultural Assets, for digital exhibition and archival. Although Virtual Preservation demands a substantial change of established working methods and tools, the paper argues that the realism obtained can compensate for the loss of the material of the Asset and still allow future generations to experience Cultural Heritage sites. The article concludes on illustrating the limitations and strengths of the study and foreseeing that Virtual Preservation can help experts to establish guidelines integrating virtual reality into traditional practice. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/6202019

228-239

Authors: Cyntia Malaguti de Sousa

As cities grow, urban afforestation becomes more important both for aesthetics and environmental reasons. Nevertheless, pruning and removal of fallen trees, demand a waste management system, not easy to deal with, especially in big tropical cities, such as São Paulo, in Brazil. On the other hand, part of this waste could be employed in wooden artefacts production, reducing the pressure on the forests, in a circular economy and systemic design approach – the main hypothesis of ongoing research at the University of São Paulo. This paper presents the existing problem, the theoretical foundations upon which the study was built, the findings of an international scientific literature review that looked for successful experiences and how the design was involved; and suggests further researches.

3-4

Authors: Giuseppe De Giovanni

The beginning of the third millennium has marked a period of unprecedented change for cities, architecture and product/visual design. Over the last two decades, economic, social and environmental causes have stimulated and conditioned research and production, directing them towards substantial paradigm changes, proposing new challenges to create more smart, more resilient, more responsive and adaptive, more efficient and more sustainable urban systems, buildings and objects – from nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) to Positive Energy Architecture (PEA) – designed and built faster, with lower costs and with a positive effect on the environment, society, health and productivity: more innovative, in a nutshell. It is a common knowledge that innovation is, now more than ever, the tool needed to recover from the global economic crisis, to aim for economic prosperity and quality of life improvement, to increase productivity, to foster competitiveness, to support the challenge of globalization and environmental sustainability, both at an ‘incremental’ level (improvement of an already existing production process) and ‘radical’ (to create a new unmatched method or production system). In this regard, AGATHÓN deals with the subject of ‘Pro-Innovation | Process Production Product’ with the aim of collecting essays and critical reflections, researches and experiments, projects and creations (of new architectures, recovery and restoration interventions, art and product/visual design) that might be case studies for innovation, sustainability and social inclusion, describing the subject: 1) Process Innovation as sequence and organization models, management and control of the process stages, operating methodologies (ideational, design, productive, operational, management and of disposal of the work/product) of the whole life cycle of the artifact; regulations; new professional experts and technical skills; ways to involve professionals and users in the several decision-making stages, etc.; 2) Production Innovation, i.e. tools suitable for the optimization of the different stages of the production process including machines and robots for digital manufacturing (CNC milling, laser cutting, 3D printing, etc.), for prototyping and for prefabrication, relating to analysis and design/simulation software (also with virtual reality) CAD and CAM, BIM, digital, parametric, algorithmic and generative, environmental, structural, energetic and thermal; installation and assembly techniques and technologies, etc.; 3) Product Innovation, i.e. smart, advanced, composite, recyclable, sustainable, nanostructured, shape-memory, phase-change, self-repairing, responsive, adaptive, low-cost and high-performance materials/components/objects with a low environmental impact; automation, detection, management and control equipment for performance optimization; ‘passive’ technologies for efficient casings, including natural ventilation and cooling systems, water collection, storage and recycling, and off-grid renewable energy production. Many proposals and new visions of the process, its management and building production, showing new paths for innovation and professionals. But, at the same time, they also make us think on the (possible) loss of a cultural and technological knowledge that considered the designer as the one holding a global knowledge that nowadays seems to be increasingly fragmented.

11-20

Authors: Francesco Zurlo

In recent years, the Design has expanded its ‘design objects’ to include organization. Specifically, it is within the debate on Design Thinking that this interest emerges, in one of the typologies that characterize it: Creative Confidence. The creative dimension is functional with regard to involving the members of an organization; it allows to overcome the resistance to change and it enables the risk that every creative process entails. The aim is to innovate products and services through greater availability and acceptance, enabled by careful leadership, towards creativity. Design is a creative expression, yet, like creativity itself, it requires the creation and absorption of cultural codes and models; the assumption, in summary, of a ‘design culture’. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/522019

31-40

Authors: Giuseppe Ridolfi, Arman Saberi

The article addresses the environmental question by critiquing the anthropocentric vision, still alive in the design debate and practice, as a remnant of the underlying dualism humanity/environment. It opposes the co-evolutionist and New Realism theses re-elaborated in the light of a new metalanguage (Digital Mathema) capable of ‘giving voice’ to the multitude of agents and to activate forms of collaborative intelligence (Computational Intelligences), enabling design explorations beyond established norms and the already known. Following is a description of Parametric and Generative Design and the Mailab research laboratory’s experiences. The conclusion is an invitation to reflect on the possible side effects that could arise from digital marking and from an excessive emphasis on the ‘know-how’. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/542019

51-58

Authors: Maria Antonietta Esposito, Alessandra Donato, Filippo Bosi

The digital management of the construction process is required for sustainability. It imposes the definition of new roles and responsibilities and – consequently – makes it necessary to introduce new professional figures that are able to perform specific organizational and management tasks and functions in the scope of BIM process management. The contribution offers food for thought on the transversal and digital skills (soft skills) required by these professional figures on the basis of a critical analysis of examples reported in the literature, experiences and changes triggered by the adoption of the BIM methodology with respect to new activities, knowledge, skills, roles and responsibilities related to the professional figure. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/562019

73-82

Authors: Daniela Besana, Claudia Ferrari

The research concerns a possible way for recycling plastic bottles as construction material, as an additional reuse circuit. Following a preliminary critical analysis of case studies to highlight the possible design variables, an innovative method which uses plastic bottles for the construction of load-bearing walls is proposed. Models of different constructive solutions have been designed and built, up to the proposal of a module of four bottles, filled with sand and tied together. Laboratory compression tests have shown the strength of the basic module and a f.e.m. analysis has demonstrated the stability of the structure. These first results encourage to other more accurate analysis and testify its potential versatility as building material and exportability of use even in different contexts, at a social, economic and environmental level. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/582019

93-100

Authors: Sergio Russo Ermolli, Giuliano Galluccio

This paper aims to investigate the possibilities offered by the design and production paradigms of Industry 4.0 in the Architecture, Engineering & Construction industry, through the coordination between systems for the integrated management of the design process (Building Information Modeling) and rapid prototyping tools (Computer-Aided Manufacturing). Is hereby proposed an interpretation of the meaning that an industrial transformation of the AEC industry takes over for the Architectural design, simulating a methodology in a BIM environment for the design of residential buildings in Cold-Formed Steel with drywall envelopes, exploiting the potential of digital manufacturing and computational design advanced tools. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5102019

109-116

Authors: Antonio Magarò, Adolfo F. L. Baratta

The contribution presents the first results of a research conducted in the Department of Architecture, Roma Tre University, aimed at testing Machine Learning algorithms for train Neural Networks in learning data from BIM, with the purpose of generating Augmented Reality contents. The objective is to improve the living space's fruition by fragile users. Machine Learning algorithms, in computer-aided design, constitute an innovation in production, as well as an innovation in product, meaning architectural spaces as such. After describing the current research lines, this paper proposes a shared glossary about the terms borrowed from other investigation fields. Finally, it describes the applications in Augmented Reality experimented in the research and the theoretical mechanisms of interaction between these and the Machine Learning algorithms. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5122019

127-136

Authors: Cabirio Cautela, Lucia Rampino

In the literature, many types of product innovation are described. In this article, we analyze the three design-related innovation typologies that seem most discussed and agreed upon: i) aesthetic innovation; ii) innovation of use; iii) meaning innovation. While allowing overlaps and complementarities, each typology focuses on a specific aspect of a product’s innovation. Over time, such specificities prevented the formulation of an integrated theoretical model able to connect them together and express logical and functional relations among them. In this article – through a systematic analysis of the literature of the last 30 years – we aim to identify a theoretical model that underlines the specific drivers of any innovation typology, at the same time composing them in a coherent framework in which some are considered logical and instrumental antecedents with respect to higher level of innovation. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5142019

145-152

Authors: Raffaella Fagnoni, Chiara Olivastri

Our thought on innovation starts from the dichotomy between the strong and the light design’s components: on the one hand opposed, on the other complementary. Hard is the process based on the consumerist model, Soft is more sustainable. Hard is the dimension of possession, Soft is that of access and sharing. Hard is the top-down process and Soft is the bottom-up process that values social innovation. The project tools are not records to be applied. They must adapt, be customized to the needs expressed by the people who are activating themselves in the structuring of answers. The role of designers today is to face our time challenges, to which the models used in the last century are unable to respond. It is to answer to the world’s change by performing the change in the project. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5162019

161-166

Authors: Xue Pei, Francesco Zurlo

This paper is based on research conducted by Creative Industries Lab of Politecnico di Milano for creating the new brand image and communication strategy for Fondazione Cariplo. A Co-Design approach has involved both internal and external stakeholders in visually defining a shared future identity for rebranding this significant foundation to the public. The research results have revealed that the co-creation process has not only generated the expected objectives, but also raised a cultural change towards innovation inside the organization itself. Therefore, this experience has opened a new research realm for applying design methods and tools in organizations. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5182019

175-182

Authors: Mario Bisson, Shanti Andreana Alberti di Catenajo, Stefania Palmieri

This research investigates studies on multi-sensory environments (MSEs) and, comparing existing solutions on the market, offers an integrated product-service, designed to contain costs, from an industrial manufacturing perspective, with a high level of flexibility, aimed at children with intellectual and motor disabilities. Based on the studies developed by the LudoMi team, a project awarded at Polisocial Award 2017, as acknowledgment on research with a high social impact relevant for the scientific community. We report the case study of Merlino: research project, in progress, with the Design Department of the Polytechnic of Milan, which aims to increase the development of cognitive faculties and motor skills, promoting learning and improvement of communication and relational skills. https://doi.org/10.19229/2464-9309/5202019