The project of informal education. A design trajectory of university architectures in postwar Latin America and Italy

The 21st century has witnessed a growing debate around learning places. A new educational paradigm that favored the spreading of the concept of informality in the renewed pedagogical models has long promised a radical evolution in the design of educational spaces, with the ideal figure of the university campus called to rethink its founding principles to stimulate new alliances between the design of its architectures and the new pedagogical agenda. In contemporary architectural discourse, we are witnessing a paradox: on the one hand, the euphoric rediscovery of the so-called radical pedagogies that in the Seventies had challenged the authoritarianism of the university institution guided by the principle of emancipation from the productive logic of the bureaucratic state; on the other hand, the often artificial revival of an informal use of space instrumentally adapted to the new production logics of a flexible and ever-changing reality. The thesis explores the precedents of this phenomenon in the aftermath of the Second World War in a specific region of Latin America which, despite its peripheral position, has functioned as a laboratory of design experiences on the project of educational space, in dialogue with some Italian architects directly involved in the design of those spaces in which they themselves worked as educators. The research is therefore structured on the critical-design analysis of six university campus projects conceived between Chile and Argentina in the 1950s. The selected episodes are presented as interconnected nodes of an educational project instigated by the same university institutions that intended to favor the relational component in their programs, to transform their internal organization into a flexible structure and to realize the highest level of integration with the outside world, identified both in the immediate context (urban) and in the larger one (regional). What emerges from the trajectory of selected episodes is a complex of architectural and urban solutions that are anything but neutral and univocal with respect to an alleged pedagogical mandate. On the contrary, these are multiple, ambitious and even divergent solutions, identified by specific design themes through which to explore the new educational paradigm within their own specific context. Therefore, the limits of the peripheral condition are turned into the advantages of a privileged territory for architecturally exploring the relationship between university and city around the theme of the monument, the ground, the megastructure, the envelope or the internal atrium. In parallel, the thesis identifies the architect-educator in charge of these experiments as a prototypical figure. In particular, they always participate in the post-war architectural discourse by operating an internal critique mostly supported by design contributions. As part of the institutional apparatus of the university, all the protagonists of the selected episodes interpret and adapt this figure to a specific condition with their contribution that are not only original proposals for educational spaces, but all these proposals are always reinvested in the environment in which each of them already work as teacher or consultant. In conclusion, the selected episodes and the work of the South American and Italian architects operating in this particular context become the pretext for discussing a design trajectory enriched by other experiences and theoretical contributions that are previous, contemporary or subsequent to the selected cases, rather instrumental for repositioning the architectural and urban themes analysed in this thesis at the center of a critical reflection on the design of contemporary educational spaces, especially on the gradual shift from the extended dimension of the campus to the inner content of its architectures

Multiple field-of-view MCAO for a Large Solar Telescope: LOST simulations

In the framework of a 4m class Solar Telescope we studied the performance of the MCAO using the LOST simulation package. In particular, in this work we focus on two different methods to reduce the time delay error which is particularly critical in solar adaptive optics: a) the optimization of the wavefront reconstruction by reordering the modal base on the basis of the Mutual Information and b) the possibility of forecasting the wavefront correction through different approaches. We evaluate these techniques underlining pros and cons of their usage in different control conditions by analyzing the results of the simulations and make some preliminary tests on real data.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures to be published in Adaptive Optics Systems II (Proceedings Volume) Proceedings of SPI

Indirect Evaporative Cooling Combined with Dehumidification in a MVHR System for Radiant Cooling

Abstract This work investigates a possible application of an integrated heat recovery system with an indirect evaporative cooling section (IEC) into the air extraction and a dehumidification device into air delivery. System operation is then simulated in different climatic conditions and the energy consumptions are compared with the energy required by the same system without the IEC section

DETRÁS DEL MOMENTO DE SEDUCCIÓN. La pedagogía como proyecto no teórico en E.N. Rogers y Enrico Tedeschi

Las intrincadas tramas que conforman la teoría, especialmente dentro del contexto italiano, constituyen en gran parte su encanto, el cuál es evidente dentro del entorno revolucionario o elitista en el que la teoría se ha discutido, así como en su fuerte compromiso político y social. La ponencia elige investigar un paso intermedio, aunque distante, de este momento de seducción: la teoría como una práctica pedagógica y la educación como un espacio privilegiado para la reflexión crítica. E.N. Rogers (1909-1969) y Enrico Tedeschi (1911-1978), cuyas influencias recíprocas no han sido todavía exploradas, serán presentados como figuras paradigmáticas de este enfoque. En su obra de ‘humanization’, los dos educadores italianos utilizan deliberadamente su actitud pedagógica, abierta a la imprevisibilidad de la realidad más que un aparato teórico formalizado, para cuestionar las ambiciones modernistas y producir cambios radicales en un contexto de incertidumbre al comienzo de los años 50, tanto en América del Sur como en Italia

DESIGN WITH INTENT. Ejercicios compositivos como forma de investigación crítica

El momento en que se concibe la arquitectura como una disciplina basada en el ‘diseño’, el medio principal que anticipa la construcción, esto requiere una actitud precisa hacia el proyecto como campo de investigación crítica. A lo largo del tiempo, el ámbito en el que se desarrolla este ejercicio de investigación pasa de la esfera personal del autor a ser una verdadera práctica pedagógica que va permeando la disciplina arquitectónica y su enseñanza. Sin embargo, debido a la complejidad de la realidad contemporánea en la que la arquitectura y las categorías culturales emergentes se encuentran desvinculadas, las implicaciones formales derivadas del diseño suelen pasarse por alto y dejan de ser el objeto principal de este ejercicio de investigación. Por lo tanto, cuestionando el paradigma de la decolonización como una de las categorías más desafiantes dentro del discurso arquitectónico contemporáneo, este artículo presenta dos iteraciones de un ciclo de talleres que han explorado el ejercicio compositivo como medio de crítica manteniendo el objetivo de investigar las implicaciones formales del proyecto a escala tanto territorial como arquitectónica

Through the looking-glass. La narrativa applicata alla contro-storia del progetto territoriale

What is the difference between the Broadacre City model and popular drone views simulations used to promote future sustainable cities? Between an interior space designed by Tessenow and a look through 3D glasses? Perhaps not so much, all they tell the same story: the wonderland. The essay aims to investigate the ideo-logical contribution of story-telling to architectural and territorial design projects, rather than its techno-logical. If it is true that media evolve and adapt their narrative, but the story they use to tell is always the same of the wonderland, questions arise from a different point of view. Which design project deserves a story with a narrative contribution? Only the project in which all the contradictions are positively solved as in the wonderland, or is there room for counter-stories too?Quale differenza c’è tra il plastico di Broadacre City e le simulazioni vista drone usate per promuovere le città sostenibili del futuro? Tra un interno di Tessenow e uno sguardo attraverso gli occhiali 3D? Forse non tanta, tutti raccontano la stessa storia: il wonderland. La questione alla base del saggio non è quella di investigare il contributo tecno-logico dello story-telling al progetto di architettura, ma il suo contributo ideo-logico. Se è vero che il mezzo della narrazione si evolve e si adatta ma la storia che racconta è una, l’interrogativo sorge da un punto di vista differente. Quale progetto di architettura merita un racconto o una narrazione? Solo il progetto in cui tutte le contraddizioni sono risolte positivamente come in un wonderland, o c’è spazio per le contro-storie?

News or social media? Socioeconomic divide of mobile service consumption

Reliable and timely information on socio-economic status and divides is critical to social and economic research and policing. Novel data sources from mobile communication platforms have enabled new cost-effective approaches and models to investigate social disparity, but their lack of interpretability, accuracy or scale has limited their relevance to date. We investigate the divide in digital mobile service usage with a large dataset of 3.7 billion time-stamped and geo-referenced mobile traffic records in a major European country, and find profound geographical unevenness in mobile service usage -especially on news, e-mail, social media consumption and audio/video streaming. We relate such diversity with income, educational attainment and inequality, and reveal how low-income or low-education areas are more likely to engage in video streaming or social media and less in news consumption, information searching, e-mail or audio streaming. The digital usage gap is so large that we can accurately infer the socio-economic status of a small area or even its Gini coefficient only from aggregated data traffic. Our results make the case for an inexpensive, privacy-preserving, real-time and scalable way to understand the digital usage divide and, in turn, poverty, unemployment or economic growth in our societies through mobile phone data.This work has been supported by the research project CANCAN (Content and Context based Adaptation in Mobile Networks), grant no. ANR-18-CE25-0011, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). The work of M.F. was partially supported by the Atracción de Talento Investigador grant no. 2019-T1/TIC-16037 NetSense, funded by Comunidad de Madrid. E.M. and I.U. acknowledge partial support by Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España, grant nos. FIS2016-78904-C3-3-P and PID2019-106811GB-C32

Sensitization and Clinically Relevant Allergy to Hair Dyes and Clothes from Black Henna Tattoos: Do People Know the Risk? An Uncommon Serious Case and a Review of the Literature

Henna (Lawsonia inermis L.) tattooing has been used in Egypt and India since ancient times. Today this temporary body art is becoming increasingly popular among young people. Various chemicals are added to henna to darken and enhance the definition of tattoos, especially para-phenylenediamine (PPD), which is a strong sensitizer known to cause cross sensitive reactions to azoic dyes and other para-amino compounds. We present the case of an 18-year-old girl who became clinically sensitive to textile dyes after having showed a serious reaction both to her first hair dying when she was 16 years old and following the application of a temporary henna tattoo when she was a kid. The evidence from our literature review showed 33 cases of manifest sensitization to hair dye and only one of observable contact allergy to both hair and textile dyes from henna tattoos. The sensitization of children may have long-life lasting consequences, because of cross-reaction to dyes and other chemicals contained in hair colourants, clothes and drugs. Since tattoos are very popular and globalization has increased the circulation of unauthorized products we point out the need for informative campaigns about the risk of sensitization caused by temporary tattoos

Prefrontal cortex activation upon a demanding virtual hand-controlled task: A new frontier for neuroergonomics

open9noFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive vascular-based functional neuroimaging technology that can assess, simultaneously from multiple cortical areas, concentration changes in oxygenated-deoxygenated hemoglobin at the level of the cortical microcirculation blood vessels. fNIRS, with its high degree of ecological validity and its very limited requirement of physical constraints to subjects, could represent a valid tool for monitoring cortical responses in the research field of neuroergonomics. In virtual reality (VR) real situations can be replicated with greater control than those obtainable in the real world. Therefore, VR is the ideal setting where studies about neuroergonomics applications can be performed. The aim of the present study was to investigate, by a 20-channel fNIRS system, the dorsolateral/ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC/VLPFC) in subjects while performing a demanding VR hand-controlled task (HCT). Considering the complexity of the HCT, its execution should require the attentional resources allocation and the integration of different executive functions. The HCT simulates the interaction with a real, remotely-driven, system operating in a critical environment. The hand movements were captured by a high spatial and temporal resolution 3-dimensional (3D) hand-sensing device, the LEAP motion controller, a gesture-based control interface that could be used in VR for tele-operated applications. Fifteen University students were asked to guide, with their right hand/forearm, a virtual ball (VB) over a virtual route (VROU) reproducing a 42 m narrow road including some critical points. The subjects tried to travel as long as possible without making VB fall. The distance traveled by the guided VB was 70.2 ± 37.2 m. The less skilled subjects failed several times in guiding the VB over the VROU. Nevertheless, a bilateral VLPFC activation, in response to the HCT execution, was observed in all the subjects. No correlation was found between the distance traveled by the guided VB and the corresponding cortical activation. These results confirm the suitability of fNIRS technology to objectively evaluate cortical hemodynamic changes occurring in VR environments. Future studies could give a contribution to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying human performance either in expert or non-expert operators during the simulation of different demanding/fatiguing activities.openCarrieri, Marika; Petracca, Andrea; Lancia, Stefania; Basso Moro, Sara; Brigadoi, Sabrina; Spezialetti, Matteo; Ferrari, Marco; Placidi, Giuseppe; Quaresima, ValentinaCarrieri, Marika; Petracca, Andrea; Lancia, Stefania; BASSO MORO, Sara; Brigadoi, Sabrina; Spezialetti, Matteo; Ferrari, Marco; Placidi, Giuseppe; Quaresima, Valentin

Implementing BDI Continual Temporal Planning for Robotic Agents

Making autonomous agents effective in real-life applications requires the ability to decide at run-time and a high degree of adaptability to unpredictable and uncontrollable events. Reacting to events is still a fundamental ability for an agent, but it has to be boosted up with proactive behaviors that allow the agent to explore alternatives and decide at run-time for optimal solutions. This calls for a continuous planning as part of the deliberation process that makes an agent able to reconsider plans on the base of temporal constraints and changes of the environment. Online planning literature offers several approaches used to select the next action on the base of a partial exploration of the solution space. In this paper, we propose a BDI continuous temporal planning framework, where interleave planning and execution loop is used to integrate online planning with the BDI control-loop. The framework has been implemented with the ROS2 robotic framework and planning algorithms offered by JavaFF