SPACE Experimental process for architecture and life cycle of building products

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Excellent

The Research Unit develops studies and research into architectural design and building management processes, from building construction to the ‘built environment’. It assumes the study of technology and techniques as the core activity for experimentation on architecture and construction. Its main studies deal with the entire life cycle of building products, intended in a complete and coherent way in terms of shape, function and techniques that can’t exist regardless from a long term range, unique condition for a global vision of construction and management transformations. Only an integrated vision of these processes can establish design as a continuous and ongoing activity that uses technology as a means of transforming the environment. This approach opens up a wide scenario of techniques, divided into production, assembly and usage technologies, all contributing equally to a unique definition of a project. These requirements underline the Research Unit’s activity as the synthesis of a “design culture” merged with a “management culture”. A “design culture” that innovates itself in a purely trans-disciplinary way, providing the focus for improvements necessary to define and solve any problem. In other words, it is intended: - to enhance the “dialogue” between knowledge coming from different areas and production sectors; - to construct a method with which to control the setting and solving of each problem; - to enhance the “technological transfer” of products and processes from other industrial sectors to architecture. A “management culture” - not opposite to but, on the contrary, integrated into a product and production culture - that rests upon two principles to which the Research Unit refers. The first principle involves the central role played by “time”, this having the following effect on design activity: - support for each process requiring a skill of long-duration, - simulation of long term decisions, - forecasting the effects on a product’s life cycle, - assessing what is necessary for a project’s development - in terms of information, procedures and technical equipment - and for a correct product management. The second principle involves the various use of different products in an operational way. This “learning by doing” in fact allows a backwards transfer of technology to the production and design phases. This is the starting point from which the Research Unit sets its main research lines: - Systems and components, - Life Cycle Assessment, - Process Management, - Building Management. 126 Each research line is carried out in specific fields which can be implemented by other disciplines, either ‘external’ but within the Department, or present in other Departments and Faculties. The objectives of the Research Unit are: - innovation analysis and research into a project culture and building quality improvement; - process and product evaluation – with the merging of knowledge, decisionmaking and efficiency; - experimentation as a means of knowledge based on theoretical assumptions and practice.

Dipartimento di afferenza

Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Ambiente Costruito (BEST)

Docenti afferenti

Full Professors
Claudio Molinari
Anna Mangiarotti
Andrea Campioli
Associate Professors
Cinzia Talamo
Assistant Professors
Marisa Bertoldini
Mario Dejaco
Giancarlo Paganin
Alessandra Zanelli