DOCTORATE ISSUES AND GOALS
1. Preliminary considerations
The PhD in PLANNING, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE TECHNOLOGY / PIANIFICAZIONE, DESIGN E TECNOLOGIA DELL’ARCHITETTURA was activated in 2013/14 with the 29th cycle, and it originates from the unification of two PhD programs of the former DATA Department, today PDTA Department, active during the 28th cycle: namely the PhD in Territorial and Urban Planning and the PhD in Environmental Design. The unification proposal was the result of a long debate and of a relevant exchange between the two Teaching Bodies. Such a merger was required proved necessary to implement the will of moving towards a single scientific and cultural project, collecting the identity of two high level courses dating back to almost three decades. The proposal identifies the key strengths of two widely tested methods and the fruitfulness of the comparison between them. Furthermore, it compounds and reprocesses them in light of the establishment of a new “dwelling issue”, which identifies within the territory, the city, architecture and design, strong criticalities and vulnerability, but also potential privileged location for development, as long as the driving forces are recognized, the settlement patterns are radically re-designed and new dwelling ways are identified, which should be based on new forms of coexistence between men and the ever decreasing resources of the planet.
This paradigm shift imposes on the world of research and education the need for a change of perspective, for a renewal of strategies and methods for the individuation of priorities. Furthermore, it calls for a creative and constructive approach to research, which should lead to the:
- Questioning of consolidated design and governance issues, strategies and methods;
- Rethinking of tools, technologies and knowledge concerning the whole life cycle of urban systems, built heritage artefacts and products, advantaging environment;
- building elaboration platforms which “hold together” different disciplinary fields involved in the transformation of urban space and governance of complex processes, including the productive ones.
To this end, the new proposal implemented an integrated approach, combining different scientific competences, distinguishing itself for a strong multidisciplinary attitude, which can be recognized as a sign of completeness.
Hence, the structuring of the PhD in three Curricula is an integral part of the will to experiment new teaching methods of specialized training, aimed at a multidisciplinary research:
Curriculum 1. Territorial, urban and Landscape Planning;
Curriculum 2. Product Design
Curriculum 3. Environmental Technological Design;
among which the main theme characters and scientific positioning and training will be illustrated in paragraph 2.
2. Framework remarks
The PhD Program, whose foundation is being proposed, under the name of PhD in PLANNING, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE TECHNOLOGY, originates from the unification of two Doctorates, currently active in the DATA Department at the 28th cycle, A.A. 2013/14, namely the PhD Program in Territorial and Urban Planning and the PhD in Environmental Design.
This proposal of unification is the result of a long debate and of a relevant exchange between the two Teaching Bodies, which has proved necessary to implement the will of moving towards a single scientific and cultural project, collecting the identity of two high level courses dating back to almost three decades. The proposal identifies the key strengths of two widely tested methods and the fruitfulness of the comparison between them. Furthermore, it compounds and reprocesses them in the light of the acknowledgement of a new “urban issue”, which considers both the city and the territory as crisis factors, elements of fragility which, at the same time, represent the potentially privileged location for development, as long as the driving forces are recognized, the settlement patterns are radically re-designed and new dwelling ways are identified, which should be based on a renewed coexistence between man and the increasingly scarce planet’s resources.
This paradigm shift imposes on the world of research and education the need for a change of perspective, for a renewal of strategies and methods for the individuation of priorities. Furthermore, it calls for a creative and constructive approach to research, which should lead to the:
- Questioning of consolidated design and governance issues, strategies and methods;
- Rethinking of tools, technologies and knowledge concerning the whole life cycle of urban systems, built heritage artefacts and products, advantaging environment;
- Building of elaboration places that "keep together" the various disciplines involved in the transformation of urban space and in the governance of complex processes including production.
To this end, the new proposal takes on an integrated approach, combining different scientific competences, characterizing itself for a strong multidisciplinary attitude, which can be recognized as a sign of completeness.
3. PhD scientific Program and Goals
The Doctorate in URBAN PLANNING, DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE TECHNOLOGY pursues communal scientific and training goals, aiming at the integration of different disciplinary contributions; it identifies cross research areas and offers a training plan articulated in educational activities, cultural initiatives, the supervision of doctoral scholars and highly integrated assessment procedures, while recognizing, from time to time, the prevalence of a single disciplinary field which might be necessary for carrying out high quality research activities for public and private entities and in professional activities.
The PhD Program aims to train researchers with a strong critical capability in theoretical and applied research, both at national and international level, with expertise in:
- multidimensional reading, interpretation and evaluation of the dynamics of physical and functional transformations of the city, territory, landscape and architecture;
- the definition, based on interdisciplinary cooperation, of design methods appropriate to the different variations and the various scales of the project, as well as their assessment criteria,
- techniques for delineating urban, territorial, landscape and strategic planning, regulatory institutions, pathways for the activation of effective practices, transformation/conservation qualities of the city, territory, landscape and environment,
- the definition of new design approaches leading to eco-efficient layouts, physical-spatial-material configurations and products, with the awareness that the process of evolution of the inhabited space should be based on the combination of technological innovation and environmental quality,
- criteria for the new concepts of the urban environment, the architecture space, the design product and the technological characters, as open systems supporting exchanges of matter, energy and information, which holds the concept of eco-efficiency as the basis of a systemic approach to the design and development of products with low environmental impacts, high energy efficiency and better bioclimatic quality.
In this context, research on design, by investigating the complex relationship between artifice and nature, establishes new ways of keeping the environmental balance between identifying and defining methods and tools for the direction and control of the design process of human settlement, for the definition and shaping of landscape, for the control of environmental architecture design and his technological systems, for the evolution of concept dynamics of the design products.
In essence, the PhD Program aims at a research training focused on the idea of an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable transformation of the territory, the city, the architecture and the design, which should be more and more aware of their complex reality, as well as of the complexity of construction and industrial production processes, and able to critically understand the multidimensional connections of government processes.
A research training, therefore, which will prevent the risk of an excessive subdivision of disciplinary sectors and will offer not only specific skills, but also the ability to keep them updated and to build new ones, always opening itself to international exchange. A research training which can be applied not only in universities but also in public and private research institutions or in high-level professional profiles for public administration and in the private sector.
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