Matteo Matteo Cavagliá, Lorenzo Ceccon, Luigi Cocchiarella, Thomas Guido Comunian, Veronica Fazzina, Giulia Lazzaretto, Alessandro Martinelli, Caterina Morganti, Giulia Piccinin, Simone Porro, Lorenzo Tarquini, Nicolas Turchi “DIGI SKILLS BSC – REVISING GRAPHIC LITERACY IN BSC ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN EDUCATION THROUGH A SOFTWARE-BASED PEDAGOGIC APPROACH. A SHARED PILOT EXPERIENCE AT THE POLITECNICO DI MILANO”
Inspired by the «UNESCO/UIA Charter for Architectural Education» (Tokyo 2011), since 2020 the digital literacy programme Digi Skills BSc (4 ECTS) is offered to the 2nd year of the Bachelor in Architectural Design at the Politecnico di Milano. Addressed to students who already have a background in classic graphic representation, it aims at experimenting with a paradigm shift from analog to digital, in line with both traditional disciplinary fundamentals and the operational routines characterizing architectural design processes and workflows nowadays. Given the relevance of space in architectural education, 3D geometry-based modeling is the essential chapter in the syllabus. However, an introduction to the parametric and BIM workspaces, as well as some basics of data input (by device, from geoportals and point clouds) and output (visual editing, graphic and physical prototyping) are included as well. Dealing with a variety of software programs and file formats responds to the most challenging UNESCO/UIA expectation that «digital fluency» is encouraged in architectural education. It also led to excellent feedbacks by the about 1.000 students involved. Engaging young generations of scholars from various Universities in the tutorship of the classes (M Sc graduates, PhD students and graduates, young researchers), recruited through a national annual call, also published on the UID webpage, wAs a bet. After two years, it seems to have coagulated into a novel promising research group, which, among other things, also suggested writing this paper.
Cavagliá Matteo, Fazzina Veronica, Porro Simone (2021) SEARCHING FOR HUMAN VARIABLES IN THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRTUALLY ENHANCED SPACES
When trying to observe the possible future developments of different forms of communication and socialization, today traditionally linked to physical environments, it often seems inevitable that one day they may change through the increasing integration of technological solutions capable of superimposing alternative virtual universes to our physical world. Virtual spaces, once generated through rigid rules and representations derived from drastic geometric reductions of reality, are becoming more and more advanced, obeying increasingly more dynamic systems, and sometimes giving the appearance of being able to imitate life itself. Can this guess match the reality?
In one of our studies in progress, we talked about how technology is encroaching on “dystopian” aspects and that, in a more or less evident way, this happens in many aspects of reality including that of the generation of geometric shapes. In particular, the latest trends on which the modelling principles develop towards a procedural logic that has its core purpose in solving functional problems, first of all, and also in reaching out to the market logic, developing styles suitable to attracts attention from specific target audiences. The current discussion wants to bring the topic back to the human being and to nature seen as: “Man is the measure of all things” phrase expressed by Protagora, generally interpreted as the non-existence of an objective truth, that is, the existence of a truth not the same for everyone. The phase of translating into algorithms the generative processes of geometric shapes often leads to the creation of results detached from this kind of logics and which in the past, since the Renaissance age, are based on modulus and on the proportional relationships among the parts and of each part with the whole, moving from “measurability” to “commensurability”. The aim is to use in a modern language the same codes and principles on which nature is based and communicates, starting for example from the growth laws of living organisms (Fibonacci series, golden section, etc.), from the principle of similitude and from the law of least effort.
Cocchiarella Luigi, Fazzina Veronica, Cavagliá Matteo, Porro Simone (2021) TRACKING FUTURE GRAPHICS EDUCATION THROUGH VIRTUAL DYSTOPIAN SPACES. ( FRANCO ANGELI Open Press )
This paper aims at envisioning prospective fragments of future scenarios in the field of graphics education in architecture. The inspiration comes from the recent rapid evolution affecting the approach to digital representation in the Schools of Architecture. After a long «dormant» phase, the digital and the internet have shown a tremendous rise, not only on the academic channels but also in our everyday life. In addition, the appearance of Covid-19 worldwide has made them necessary supports for and virtual surrogates of plenty of actions traditionally happening face to face. Consequently, for about a year now, technology has been at the core of the massive communication strategies activated to mitigate the effects of social distancing. Showing in addition an interesting contrast: while on the one hand the real world seems to have been widely flanked by, or, sublimated into dystopic «virtual bubbles», on the other hand, just that virtual bubbles seem to tend to acquire a status of real places» in a large part of our lives. Which in our opinion deserves our disciplinary attention, since that new pretentious real places are made of the same matter of representations in fact. Here languages become relevant. Then our research question is: may the mentioned dystopian visionary worlds ge- nerated by the digital be also of help, apart from their instant fascination, in envisioning fragments of the future operational scenarios waiting for us in architectural graphics education?
Cocchiarella Luigi, Fazzina Veronica, Cavagliá Matteo, Porro Simone. ARCHITECTURAL GEOMETRY AND GRAPHICS EDUCATION SOME RETROSPECTIVE REFLECTIONS FROM ITALY ACROSS THREE GENERATIONS. In: Cheng LY. (eds) ICGG 2020 – Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Geometry and Graphics. ICGG 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1296. Springer, Cham.
This work aims to focus on the changes in Geometry & Graphics education addressed to the architects occurred in the Italian university in the last two decades, mainly involving three generations of academics, researchers, young prospective scholars, in this occasion represented by the authors listed within the work title. Reason for the choice is to stimulate a discussion among these generations, especially in the desirable light of the opportunity – despite the Covid-19 restrictions – to share issues with educators operating in other universities worldwide during the conference days, looking for ideas and hypotheses for updating our academic curricula and researches. In this story, it is to be mentioned the relevant role played in our country by the Unione Italiana Disegno (UID), founded in 1980, and since 2014 an institutional member of the International Society for Geometry and Graphics (ISGG), also thanks to the convinced determination of its former president, professor Vito Cardone, unforgotten member and leader of our Italian academic community. Several loved colleagues and friends are no longer with us today, without whose passion, teachings and wisdom we could not have been here to tell this story, as well as, maybe, we would not have had the lucky chance to spend our academic life enjoying Geometry and Graphics.
Porro Simone. MUSIC AS AN INSPIRATION SOURCE FOR ARCHITECTURAL FORMS THROUGH UNREAL ENGINE. 42th International Conference of Representation Disciplines Teachers Congress of Unione Italiana per il Disegno. (2020)
Game Engines are evolving by providing tools that allow real-time simulations which can be applied outside of their original context. Through Unreal Engine [UE4] and an integrated plugin called Sound Visualization, a system has been programmed capable of visually representing the music starting from a bidimensional matrix pattern composed of cubes that are geometrically controlled and transfor¬med in real-time exploiting the frequency spectrum analysis of an audio source. Music has been used as an element from which dynamic forms of architectural interest are created, transforming a form of sound information into a form of visual representation that develops itself in real time as the music flows.
Porro Simone, Cocchiarella Luigi. USE OF A GAME ENGINE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO REPRESENT PEOPLE FLOWS IN ARCHITECTURAL SPACES VIA GEOMETRY AND GRAPHICS, Kog, Scientific- Professional Journal of Croatian Society for Geometry and Graphics. ISSN: 1331-1611. (2019)
The digital and the related technological evolution in recent years have shifted to words such as Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. The wider use of these and other technologies in architecture has been far limited by a lack of IT tools with which architects could interface since they have been made available in the last few years only. The evolution of the tools used by the architect can be condensed and simpli_ed into a sequence of three stages: Drawing Board, CAD systems, Game Engines. The frames of this sequence, in addition to indicating instruments, are representative of the historical context in which they have been or are still being used. This study, based on a Master thesis recently discussed at the Politecnico di Milano, examines the role that Game Engines can play in the graphic representation and design processes. More specifically, it takes a closer look at the Unreal Engine as a tool for creating a real-time design environment and using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to represent user flows in the space as valuable support and a relevant part of the design strategies aiming at implementing and evaluating design options. For this purpose, various simulations have been carried out both considering users’ ows based on assigned spaces, and generating spaces based on the users’ flows.