Architettura e Natura. Prime indagini sul progetto tra geografie, spazi e materie

Abstract

The book collects the results of the teaching experience carried out during the second semester of the 2024-25 academic year within the four Architectural and Urban Composition and Design Theory Studio of the first year of Master’s Degree in Architecture 5UE at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples “Federico II”. The theoretical and applied experience focused on the relationship between architecture and nature and on the design of small architectural structures located, in some cases, along the Lakes of the Campi Flegrei (Averno and Fusaro) and, in another case, near the Tago River in Lisbon. The Design Studios offered students different, comparable and complementary possibilities for constructing “elementary architectures”, both in their autonomy and in their ability to connect with each other, to define more complex systems. These architectures have focused the attention on the topics of the relationship between land and water, soil and subsoil, construction and form, facing, even if in a simplified manner, with the pre-existing features, archaeologies and geographies of these multifaceted landscapes. The volume collects the texts of the professors involved in the teaching experience and some of the outcomes of the design experiments carried out. The final section also includes contributions from designers and scholars, both internal and external to the Department of Architecture at “Federico II”, who were invited to discuss their theoretical and methodological contributions as part of a series of seminars, organized over the course of the semester, on the relationship between architecture and nature and the design of small architectures and pavilions. The goal was to offer students a variety of readings, examples and suggestions from which to draw inspiration for their own design path, to convey, right away, the need to base the project on a conscious, broad and multiple reflection on the architecture and its meanings.