Environmental design as a tool for architects

Environmental design as a tool for architects Luca Maria Francesco FABRIS architect post-phd assistant professor Abitalab - Department BEST - Politecnico di Milano - Italy e-mail: lucamariafrancesco.fabris@polimi.it Abstract Which is the right scale of the project for an architect? The building scale as suggested by Aldo Rossi or the territorial scale as proposed by Vittorio Gregotti. After 40 years this Italian riddle seems to come to a solution. A new concept of architect is taking place in the Italian Schools of Architecture. Not only an operator specialized in building or urban design, but an interpolator between the two. The new figure is opening new scenarios related his projects to the open environment. This fusion, that in some Schools of Architecture is now called Landurbanism, transported in our country maybe translated as Environmental Design, a multidisciplinary subject that explains to the students how to relate their studio project with the realty of the settlements, the open spaces and the wide territory. Environmental Design is linked to the subject area of Technology of Architecture and is a powerful tool to stimulate student s projects friendly solutions with sustainable matters, materials and low-impact use of territory. The paper presents the results of some student s projects realized during a semester long studio design course. They present how the environmental design theory declined in simple facts and showed with several examples can be used. 1. Questions of scale Which is the right scale that fits architect s work? 40 years ago two young Italian professors described two different theories about the relation between architects and their projects scale. Aldo Rossi suggests the building scale as the logical one in the well known essay L architettura della città ( The architecture of the city, 1966). Reading the history of architecture from this point of view, Rossi explains how the growing up of towns is a consequence of a collection of more or less complex buildings that altogether form urban settlements. Rossi s interest in architectural typology and politics dynamics brings him to a dramatic relation with the environment. Nature has only a geographical influence, mediated by local culture. The city is really the image of human intelligence. Techniques are the tools to build the human environment. Architects build the world up starting from little scale actions. On the other hand Vittorio Gregotti proposes the territorial scale as a paradigm for architects in his fortunate text Il territorio dell architettura ( The territory of architecture, 1966). Gregotti tells about the surroundings of built architecture starting from the essay s title. His interest in environment is high, but this natural element is something else to be included into the human world. Gregotti indicates strategies to expand the control of territory starting from the urban fabric. Planning becomes the way to create new borders for human activities and define new environment page 1/1

models. Techniques are tools to role the natural environment. Architects transform the world operating through wide scale actions. These theories are determinant to understand why in Italy, for such a long time, environment and environmental factors were only invisible elements in teaching programs. Banished from project design courses and often proposed in planning courses in a tabula rasa perspective, environmental concepts were introduced in our Schools during the early 80s by Environmental Design courses, but the question of which was the right scale for architects intervention was still without solution. create several very different programs for these separate professional careers implemented the environmental question. May architects design without taking care of environment? Should they approach to energy saving technologies? May planners image towns without evaluate their impact on local and global environment? It is possible to restore buildings forgetting about materials and their life cycle? May a landscaper idealize his project cutting away the human settlements components? The point of connection between all these questions (and more) is the necessity to prepare our students to connect their projects with reality finding solutions where sustainable factors are always satisfied. That means change the perspective. Not just an architect o a technician but an enabler who manages to comprehend and activate this multitasking kind of projects. Actually we are requested to form managers dealing with the normal complexity of living at the beginning of 3 rd millennium. fig. 1: planimetry of the new park and its relation with the urban fabric. 2. A new approach Finally, after 40 years this Italian riddle seems to come to a solution. In my opinion, two different factors are involved in this evolving situation. First the ministerial decision to open different careers for architects, planners, restoring operators and landscapers, second the big request of environmental notions from the students under the pressure of increasing ecological, social and political debates. It could sound strange, but be fact Schools were required to fig. 2: Study of building projected sun shadows (photographs at real sunlight on Jan. 26, 2006) and park details. So, a new kind of architect is now growing in the Italian Schools of Architecture. Not only an operator specialized in building or urban design, but an interpolator between the two. And the architectural technology page 2/2

teachers take part of this change. As in their subjects area is collected not only the technological aspects of how to build, but also the physical and the environmental issues related to the world of constructions, teachers in Technology have to guide the students to disguise through new scenarios. relation with the environmental question. On this way are also the Italian new programs for architectural studies. Project design teachers feel the necessity to face the relation with urban planning and with landscape, such as planning teachers require new ideas to contrast urban involution. The only noun and concept that could bring altogether is environment. Men, architecture, country and landscape are just different elements of a whole. All aspects of design change if we take count of this. fig. 3: Neighborhood centre façades: light structures and innovative materials. 3. Teaching environment values One of the most important purposes of this learning exercise is related to introduce in the studio-projects the open environment (not only the urban, but also the landscape) as interface for built architecture. Time has come to comprehend architecture doesn t exist without environment. And environment can last as we know it or bettering itself only if we act responsibly, as predicted by German philosopher Hans Jonas in his last studies ( Das Prinzip Verantwortung, 1984). Some English Schools of Architecture have called this kind of approach landurbanism. It s a fusion between the landscape architecture and urbanism fields, where students are asked to re-think solutions to solve problems such as new settlements planning, strategies against sprawl or invent new scenarios to react at post-industrial shrinking towns. All these kinds of answers ask for a direct fig. 4: Neighborhood centre: sketches of ventilation and hothouse envelop system study. 4. Environment and society Environmental Design (in Italian sounds Progettazione Ambientale ) is a multidisciplinary subject explaining to architectural students how to relate their project with the realty of the settlements, the open spaces, and the wide territory. Environmental Design is linked to the subject area of Technology of Architecture and is a powerful tool to stimulate student s projects friendly solutions with sustainable matters, materials and low-impact use of territory. The peculiarity of the subject consists in its actually real connection to the world-we-live-in, even if it counts on a wide source in theory and analysis. In Italy several scientists and researchers, between page 3/3

them I want to remind Tomás Maldonado and Maria Bottero pioneers of this discipline at Milan Polytechnic, in the last 30 years have created an interesting literature on this subject that, as Maldonado writes in its La speranza progettuale (1970), talks about environment and society. This makes Environmental Design a subject very flexible and modern. It talks the scientific language of facts and data, but could also be disseminated through simple and clean concepts without putting students curiosity out, but also reveling them as sometime common sense and attention could be allied to good project design. first time they were asked to find and fix solutions to all this matters realizing an ecocompatible building on a real location to be newly landscaped. Having no disposal of computer software modeling the environmental design theory has been declined in simple facts. In the first part of course students had to define, at the same time, the new landscape aspect of the area and its connection with the new building (a neighborhood centre for elderly people with a library) in connection with the Milanese urban fabric surroundings. In this phase was asked them to transform the area in a park, where greenery, rural land, playgrounds, water, and rainwater work together to maximize the building efficiency. Several study cases were showed to the students, who could refer to practical examples. fig. 5: Neighborhood centre: vertical section and plain detailed section of the façade. 5. Applied experiences Here is presented a selection of the results of student s projects realized during a semester long studio project course held at the second and conclusive year of the post-grade degree (180 frontal teaching hours divided by Architectural Technology and Structures Calculation courses 1 ). Students participating to this course experienced and attended to Technical Physic and Architectural Technology subjects during the previous academic years. So, they had basic knowledge of bioclimatic, construction materials, technologies, and physics. But this was the fig. 6: Neighborhood centre: simple scheme of natural ventilation through the hothouse façade; green roof and solar gain by PV panels. In the second course part, the students focused on the building. Attending to interpret the bioclimatic and bioecological matters, for the most part of the edifices a wooden structure was chosen. For the same reasons, the building envelope was studied as a mosaic of complementary materials in standard dimensions to be dry assembled. One of the simple things asked was to always take care of North and its relation with the structures. With this method, students faced the natural lighting and page 4/4

passive ventilation questions, providing good solutions to increase the possibility to gain from sun, wind and rain and economy in maintenance costs. The better solutions were indicated not by technical and abstract calculations based on models, but with project examples and the analysis of plants, to be translated into the students projects. In the third and last phase, students were asked to redefine their park project, evaluating if it needed a review after the completion of the building project. Detailed drawings focused on innovative materials, as polycarbonates, and technologies, as PV panels, and ecological standards as green roof. from its simplicity easier brings you to understand and solve complex problems. So architects could fit every scale. fig. 8: Neighborhood centre: structure and chosen materials for the external walls. fig. 7: Landscape park:greenery systems, walking paths and the relation with the neighborhood centre. 6. Going forward Environmental design can teach to students how to approach a complex project staring with simple and logical solutions, based on everyday experience. Light, shadow, sun, land, wind, north, south, natural and artificial materials, transparent and matt materials, light structures are all components students know and may use to realize their studio-project. Starting from these primary elements teachers should promote their curiosity to be prepared as project enablers ready to face professional architectural world. Because reading the world starting 1 Course of Laboratorio di Costruzioni dell Architettura 2 (Architectural Contruction 2 Laboratory), Landscape Design section, professors arch. Luca Maria Francesco Fabris and eng. Sara Cattaneo, 1 st semester, academic year 2005-06, Postgrade in architecture, Facolty of Architettura e Società, Politecnico di Milano. In the text are presented selected works by the following students: Annalisa Romani, Paola Sturla, Valentina Zanoni; Laura Elli, Carlo Omini, Piazzalunga Ilario; Andrea Grippo, Marco Lampugnani, Rossella Locatelli; Marta Paletti; Juan M. Pitta; Gianpietro Venturini; Anna Bacchetta, Valentina Cocco, Olair Costa; Domenica Fiorini, Tiziana Gaiani; Francesca Grassi; Paolo Aranci, Veronica Bianchi, Mario Paris; Paola Casaretti, Freedom Pomini, Lorenza Rebucini. page 5/5