Governance, design and exploitation for the built environment

Research focus

The Peer review has evaluated this group as Good

The Research Unit brings together professors, researchers and technicians with a wide range of skills within the area of project management and quality control of complex interventions at the building and territorial level. The broad range of members making up the Research Unit and their combined knowledge reflect the highly interdisciplinary nature of the research conducted. The growing relevance and complexity of the topics covered in building and urban design, including the regeneration and exploitation of environmental and landscape resources as well as the central role of “quality” and “environmental” factors, have led towards a different configuration of projects in relation to factors of technological innovation and the new demand for performance control of interventions and the effects that they produce. On account of this, there is a need to coordinate the skills and contributions of the integrated specialists for a new project proposition in order to support complex decisional and social processes. In this scenario the Research Unit identifies as the focus of its activity, the notion of “design for construction”, an approach characterised by managerial and multidisciplinary logics to control the processes of transformation of the environment and to achieve the construction/production of the architecture. Areas of activity: - Design and exploitation of the built environment The research activity concerns the planning and management of environmental and building systems, the design of public works, as well as the organization and management of the processes of transformation and renovation at the building and urban level. Activity is structured along the lines of managerial approaches towards feasibility and quality control of interventions, with particular attention to the evaluation of environmental compatibility, of socio-economic sustainability and of the strategies for the promotion and exploitation of the cultural, environmental and landscape resources, including reference to the newly emerging national and European normative and procedural framework. Practical experimentation is carried out with regard to studying the technical, environmental and economic-financial feasibility of notable interventions of urban transformation and strategic urban development; plans of territorial and urban marketing; programs and plans of action for the exploitation of the environmental and productive resources in the context of local developments; projects of urban and building renovation - Building design and construction Research activity here is carried out at the level of analytical and technicalinstrumental content of projects, with particular attention to the aspects of managerial, production and construction innovation. 188 Activity concerns particularly: the predisposition of meta-design and operational tools for the evaluation and the procedural and construction control of interventions of new buildings and building renovations; the definition of criteria for planning, design and verification of the normative and performance requisites of building interventions; the construction design of buildings and urban interventions; the study of construction systems, of components, of technical elements and of the building materials related to contemporary production, taking note of the characters of morphological, integrated and experimental expression in accordance with the main needs and performance requirements of the project and construction, and with particular reference to the requirements for flexibility and usability. - Ergonomic design and sustainability of products The research activities include a study of the interactions within the world of objects, the built environment and the natural environment, in relationship to the behaviours and the needs of man; particular importance is attributed to User- Centered Design approaches and to the relationship between the product system and the demands/expectations of the consumer-user, as well as to the ways of interaction between human beings and their environment. The subject of product "sustainability" is, furthermore, the object of close examination with particular attention paid to the environmental impact of technological choices in terms of the consumption of resources, pollution and production of refuse, in the various phases of the life cycle of the products themselves. - Hygiene for the built environment and public health The research activity analyzes the topics connected to the interactions among the built environment, natural environment and public health at different levels in reference to the analysis, evaluation and research of the tools for the environmental sustainability of the architectural project. A specific practical experimentation is being carried out with regard to studies and plans related to health and social buildings, looking at the typological, environmental, structural, technological, organizational and managerial requirements during all the phases of the building process (programming, planning, construction, maintenance, renovation/transformation, closing). - Transportation networks and mobility design The research is focused on innovative technologies for the assisted planning, control and forecasting of commodity and people movements. It overcomes the conventional approaches to planning of integrated disciplinary forms that can be found inside the concept of strategic planning. The aim is to go beyond the traditional methodology to a strategic and participated planning in which new and broad-based concepts, net organization of resources, sharing and construction, are sought through the sharing of information with new standards and qualitative/quantitative levels. The methodological impact of this formulation on transport systems imposes the redefinition of control and management concepts and the formulation of a theoretical and applicable framework of measurement for transport systems. After all, the actual impact of the mobility of people and the transport of commodities (as well as of the relative apparatus of logistic support) is - in a 189 general sense - sufficiently important in a territory’s use to justify the need for a new way of organising the process of planning and management.

Dipartimento di afferenza

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

Docenti afferenti

Full Professors
Baglioni Adriana
Baldi Corrado
Schiaffonati Fabrizio
Associate Professors
Capolongo Stefano
Faroldi Emilio
Marescotti Luca
Mussinelli Elena
Assistant Professors
Bellini Oscar
Bolici Roberto
Daglio Laura
Fanzini Daniele
Ginelli Elisabetta
Mussone Lorenzo
Nastri Massimiliano
Oberti Ilaria