Housing (the) Plenitude
Students were asked to design a housing complex in the “Scalo Vanchiglia” district of Torino: an area characterized by a dishomogeneous urban fabric featuring a mix of residential, industrial, productive and tertiary activities, by several empty plots, and by the proximity of the Monumental Cemetery. The design of the housing complex was based on a thorough study of a series of examples of residential buildings from the 20th and 21st century. Each student was asked to analyse one architecture, extrapolating and redrawing in 3D its two main elements: the housing units (private spaces) and the system of distribution (common spaces). Starting from there, the students were divided in groups and invited to act like "digital bricoleurs", using only the redrawn units in order to design their own buildings. The exercise was meant to question the traditional understanding of individual authorship and original work, radicalizing the idea that all architecture comes from previous architecture. At the same time, applying the idea of "post-production" to architectural design, the students' focus was shifted from the creation of new forms to the montage of found ones.