Utopia e distopia nel progetto digitale

Sono passati più di venti anni dalla pubblicazione di Being Digital, il celebre libro di Nicholas Negroponte, all’interno del quale il fondatore del MIT Media Lab affermava che “il passaggio dagli atomi ai bit è irreversibile e inarrestabile”. Tale preannunciata rivoluzione, sembra oggi giunta a una fase più matura coinvolgendo sia la sfera pubblica che quella privata, le professioni, la politica e l’economia. Il digitale, facilitando e razionalizzando di giorno in giorno processi precedentemente analogici, è diventato ubiquo. Se da un lato gli aspetti positivi di queste trasformazioni sono evidenti, altrettanto palesi appaiono le aporie: dalla dipendenza tecnologica al rapporto con i social media, fino alla diffusione di una superficiale cultura dell’immagine che mette a rischio gli aspetti più complessi della disciplina architettonica. Il digitale maturo è caratterizzato inoltre dal fenomeno dei Big Data e dalla conseguente diffusione dei metodi di Machine Learning, che mettono ulteriormente in discussione i fondamenti ermeneutici del metodo scientifico, indicando l’inizio di una nuova era in cui non sarebbe più necessario costruire regole e formule per descrivere e comprendere i fenomeni naturali, ma sarebbe sufficiente trovare delle “correlazioni” computazionali (The end of theory, Anderson 2008). In questo numero abbiamo l’opportunità di tornare su un tema sicuramente dibattuto, ma sempre attuale per il frastagliato mondo dell’architettura, che come altri settori ha subito e adottato il digitale e i suoi metodi.It is been over twenty years since the well-known book by Nicholas Negroponte Being Digital has been published. In this book the founder of the MIT Media Lab stated that “change from atoms to bits is irrevocable and unstoppable”. It seems today that this announced revolution is in an advanced stage, investing the public and the private sphere, the professions, the politics, the economics. The digital, by simplifying and rationalizing analogic processes, is today a ubiquitous phenomenon. On one hand positive aspects may appear evident, on the other aporias are undeniable. Technological dependency, pathological relations with social medias, the diffusion of a superficial culture of the image that compromises the most complex aspects of architectural practice are just few of the problems that the digital may provoke. The contemporary phase of the digital is also characterized by the Big Data phenomenon and by the resulting Machine Learning methods. They challenge the hermeneutics principles of the scientific methods showing the beginning of a new era in which it will be possible just to find computational “correlations” (The end of theory - Anderson 2008) instead of rules and formulas. In this issue of IN FOLIO entitled “Utopia and dystopia in the digital project”, we have the opportunity to go back to a topic that has been long discussed. Nevertheless, it remains an actual theme for architecture. Digital techniques affected the way a project is produced, displayed, measured and communicated. Just as in our life, in our cities and in our offices, data become more and more important. Just think about how the BIM and its growing diffusion enrich architectural projects with digital information. Therefore, we invite you to send us original articles on the impact of the digital on architectural and urban design, on construction, on urban studies the history of art and architecture

Thoureau, Wright e il guscio della tartaruga. La questione della mimesi nell’organicismo digitale e le sue implicazioni teoriche

This paper deals with the complex relationship between the observation of nature and the development of digital- design processes. This relationship reveals itself aporetic particularly if the concept of mimesis has been clarified. This contribution focuses on some projects that may be ascribed in digital organicism. Challenged by the observation of “The Elephant house” by Markus Schietsch Architekten in Zurich, the paper refers to some fundamental texts that show how an explicit and structured theory may help to avoid a new sublimation of the technique through miming natural forms

Latina e Valdelacalzada: sviluppi recenti e trasformazioni necessarie per un rinnovato rapporto tra paesaggio urbano e rurale

This article gathers some reflections and suggestions that have been carried out throughout the workshop “Arquitectura construida y espacio habitado en los poblados de colonizatión de Italia y España” held in Palermo between the 21st and 22nd January 2020. The case studies that are here analysed and compared are Latina (ancient Littoria), in the Lazio region, Italy, and Valdelacalzada, in the Extremadura region, Spain. The two cities have in common the fundamental cross-shape relationship that characterises their primary urban foundation. Furthermore, both have been conceived and built under totalitarian regimes: Franco’s in Spain and Mussolini’s in Italy. Also, the reasons for their foundation had been in some degree similar: the Plan Badajoz in the Extremadura region and the marshland remediation of the Agro Pontino had in common the creation of rural centres for agricultural and economic development, with an increase in population and somehow better life conditions. The case studies comparison highlighted some major differences between the two settlements. First of all, the dimensions and the scale for which the two cities had been conceived: Latina (Littoria) had an extension of 276,55 squared kilometres and a population of more than 20 thousand inhabitants in 1932, whilst Valdelacalzada was about ten times smaller. There is also a fundamental difference regarding the epoch in which Latina and Valdelacalzada were designed and built: the first was inaugurated in 1932, while the latter was conceived in the late 1940s and built over the years 1948–1950. The analysis and diagnosis of these two cities led to unveil contradictions in their evolution and in the dynamics of urban development as well as in their relationship with the landscapes around them. The description of the two case studies are presented in chronological order: the Italian city Latina (Littoria) first, built in the 1930s, then the Spanish urban centre of Valdelacalzada, built in the late 1940s. Each text follows the same structure: a brief introduction with a short description of the territorial framework in which the city is located; a historical background presenting the peculiar reasons and aims of the project; a description of the urban settlement, its features, and the choices taken by the designers (analysis); notes about the development and evolution of the urban form and its public spaces (diagnosis); a project-proposal to rebuild a harmonious relationship between urban and agricultural landscape

ATLAS : how I learned to stop worrying and love the tradition

Interviews with 17 Contemporary Architects about their Architecture practice and their relation with personal and common Tradition