Design Studio Required Elective at semester(s) 6, 8, ECTS: 12
Generic Competences: Ability to search for, process and analyse information from a variety of sources using the necessary technologies, Ability to adapt to and act in new situations and cope under pressure, Ability to make reasoned decisions, Ability to work autonomously, Ability to work in a team, Ability to work in an international context, Ability to work in an interdisciplinary environment, Capacity to generate new ideas (creativity), Ability to interact constructively with others regardless of background and culture and respecting diversity, Commitment to conservation of the environment, Ability to demonstrate social, professional and ethical responsibility and sensitivity to gender issues, Ability to be critical and self-critical , Ability to promote free, creative and inductive thinking.
Etymology
From dys- + -topia, as if from Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad”) + τόπος (tópos, “place, region”) + -ία (-ía), based on utopia, with the privative prefix u- thought of as representing εὖ (eû, “good”)
Noun
dystopia (countable and uncountable, plural dystopia or dystopias)
1. A vision of a future that is a corrupted (usually beyond recognition) utopian society.
2. A miserable, dysfunctional state or society that has a very poor standard of living.
3. (pathology) Anatomical tissue that is not found in its usual place.
Synonyms
1. (vision): cacotopia, kakotopia, anti-utopia
2. (medical condition): ectopia, ectopy, heterotopia, malposition
Antonyms
Utopia
From Wiktionary
Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation
The Dystopia reloaded:The new normality 2.0 design studio focuses on the future days where the human, cultural and ecological crisis will be evident and unquestionable. The High Tides scenario is the starting point for exploring the relationship of old city structures in new environmental conditions. Increased concern about rising see levels on the planet and especially in coastal areas is already present and beyond a science fiction scenario it should be treated as a necessity for most European and Mediterranean cities. The Dystopia reloaded studio explores questions regarding the space, the place and any possible solutions that architectural practices can offer in the post-anthropogenic era. The context of utopia / dystopia, that is the context of the modern historical condition, offers the opportunity to understand architectural works beyond form and structure.
The course aims to design buildings and structures that will deal with the environmental, climate change, in multiple scales. To understand the urban conflicts or cultural differences, is to create and adapt architectural structures to these changes. Particular interest will been given to the adaptation of the coastal cities as the see levels rise. This condition redefines the importance of the existing structures (buildings, bridges, urban, human or animal life). In the urban environment, nature and architecture renegotiate their relationship and their remnants, sometimes leaving meaningful traces and sometimes empty spaces and inert spaces.
New resilient cities RC, temporary cities TC, inclusive cities IC, emerge as responses to the environmental changes. The cities of Uchronia are those that can coexist, resist and recover from crisis, not only social, cultural, economical but also ecological. The nature is already embedded in their urban structure as open encyclopedias of history, in a continuous process of creating historical layers in a palimpsest. At the same time they are temporary cities, with interruptions, modifications, changes, adjustments, disasters, extensions in a reassembly process. The Uchronia cities are imperfect and ambiguous.
Structure
The concepts of elongation, adaptation typologies and architectural survival will be explored, through designing the new structures (bridges, paths, platforms or floating structures) that connect and transform the existing urban landscape. The building or planning program will emerge through each dystopian scenario and the environmental elements corresponding to each case.
At the same time with references to the international architectural projects and similar imagery of the immediate future, students will have to cope with the new needs of environmental adaptation and new forms of habitation through exploration of the spatial transformations and the use of morphogenetic, or parametric designs for better simulation and interaction.
Digital design tools will be an important part of the studio as students integrate their use in new utopian or dystopian environments as design and experimental tools.
AQUALTA, Studio Lindfors – Ostap Rudakevych, NewYork / Tokio, The near future (2010)
Organization
The course is articulated in small exercises throughout the semester, where the whole project is decomposed into stages in order to properly address the architectural issues (such as scale exercises, visualizations, etc.).
Students will work in small groups. The evaluation will result from the exercises and in final project of a fully formulated and documented design proposal for the city of Volos.
Hensel, M., Menges, A (2007) Morpho-Ecologies: Towards Heterogeneous Space In Architecture Design, AA Publications.
Klanten R. (2011) Utopia Forever: Visions of Architecture and Urbanism. Gestalten, New York
Koolhaas. Rem, (1988). Generic City. En S,M,L,XL, New York, The Monacelli Press.. Ungers,
Lynn, G. (2013), Archaeology of the Digital, Ram Publications
Oswald Mathias, (2013) The City in the City. Berlin: a Green Archipielago, Zurich
Lars Müller (2016) Habitat III. The New Urban Agenda.
Sakamoto, T. (2008), From control to design, Actar