Commentary / Innovation as Loss?

Accepting the challenge launched by this issue of Ardeth, this commentary is conceived as a short interview with three innovative architectural practices involved in the last Shenzhen Bienniale, namely: Sara Dean (VUCA), Seiche and Nicholas Korody (Adjustments Agency). By means of four questions, the three practices quickly portray how the wider issue of loss influences their way they work and the way in which a contemporary architectural practice is supposed to work nowadays. At stake are reasons behind their approach to architecture proving the deliberately overcoming of disciplinary borders as well as more general remarks about their acknowledgement of loss as an event involved in the process of legitimation of their practices

Lo schema nei dizionari e nei manuali di architettura

Nei dizionari di architettura la voce “Schema” oscilla tra l’inesistenza, l’ultragenericità e il significato prosaico con cui la si potrebbe trovare anche in dizionari di uso comune, come lo Zingarelli o il Garzanti dove la troviamo definita così: «1. figura che costituisce una rappresentazione semplificata e funzionale di un oggetto, di un meccanismo, di un processo: lo schema di un impianto elettrico, di un motore a scoppio [...] 2. piano preliminare di un lavoro [...] 3. modello rigido e astratto a cui ci si attiene: schemi mentali [...] 4. nella filosofia di Kant (1724- 1804), rappresentazione intermedia tra il fenomeno percepito dai sensi e il concetto puro» (Schema 2019)..

La costruzione di un dialogo tra architettura e filosofia. Strumenti e prospettive

Il volume che presentiamo raccoglie i contributi del Corso di Eccellenza Schema. Towards a philosophical-architectural dictionary che si è svolto presso il Dipartimento di Architettura e Design del Politecnico di Torino nell’estate del 2018. Il corso di eccellenza è stato l’occasione di intraprendere un lavoro organizzativo condiviso tra esponenti di due discipline: architettura e filosofia. Sul lato della filosofia, ha contribuito il gruppo di ricerca che fa capo alla Redazione di Philosophy Kitchen. Rivista di filosofia contemporanea, sotto il coordinamento scientifico di..

From historical railways to cycleways. Re-functioning the heritage of linear monuments

This paper proposes a reflection on the relationship between historical infrastructures and cycleways. In Italy, with the Law 2/2018, rules have been provided for the development of bicycle mobility and the creation of a national cycleway network. The recovery of historical infrastructures is particularly promoted. Among these, disused railway lines reveal a specific vocation for cycling reuse. Unlike highway infrastructures, whose design is bound to parameters that imply a substantial autonomy from the landform, historical railways show how the project of territorial infrastructures can stage the architectural geography of anthropic and natural landscapes. Moreover, recovered in view of slow mobility usage, they appear as linear monuments capable of restoring the identity and stratified memories of the territory. With particular reference to the international cycleways longitudinally crossing the peninsula, along the Apennines, this paper focuses on the description of the architectural characteristics of several historical railway infrastructures, selected according to different geomorphological contexts. Aim of these slow mobility infrastructures is also to contribute to the revitalization of ‘inner areas’ of the peninsula. The knowledge of historical infrastructure is, in fact, assumed as a prerequisite for the design of cycleways that are able to relate to the territories and the multiplicity of their settlement forms

Studi per il Piano Generale della Mobilità Ciclistica

This paper presents the early outcomes of the studies carried out in the domain of the institutional collaboration between the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport, the University of Cagliari and the Politecnico di Torino, in view of the Piano Generale della Mobilità Ciclistica established by the law no. 2/2018. The study proposes a systemic approach to the strategic planning of the national cycleways network, integrated with the territory and with other forms of soft mobility. The increasing diffusion of cycling tourism and the need for new mobility models, also highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic, poses the challenge of activating a physical, "soft", "inclusive", and widespread national infrastructure aimed at triggering new opportunities for economic growth as well as the relaunch of internal areas and the promotion of a sustainable bike-oriented tourism