Teaching of Technologies for the Sustainable Management of the Built Environment (12 ECTS ICAR/12)
Prof. Filippo Angelucci

Teaching languages
ITALIAN (Lessons and revisione)
ENGLISH (Revisions)

We are in a historical time in which technological pressure pervades the lives of all individuals and in which the access to natural, technical, and economic resources no longer seems to be guaranteed for all. One of the main challenges to be faced in the design of the urban built environment is to be found not in the project's competence to constitute itself as the outcome of a closed and exclusive decision-making process. It is instead necessary to get an effective responsivity to activate a shared, open, and inclusive path aimed at configuring an enabling living space. The definition of the enabling space refers both to the new paradigms of urban design (e.g., healthy city, livable city, resilient city, smart city, etc.) and to the World Health Organization documents that highlight the responsibilities of urban design actions on natural, socio-organizational, and psychological-individual dynamics.
In the degree course in Sustainable Habitat Science (class L21), the teaching of Technologies for the Sustainable Management of the Built Environment is placed in this debate as a disciplinary contribution of the Architectural Technology (12 CFU ICAR/12). The main goal of this teaching is providing students with knowledge regarding the responsibilities, technical skills and reasonable levels of the design governance and management of interventions; these abilities are specifical for all graduates in Habitat Science course and necessary to operate in the real urban environment and to configure the city as a fourth regulatory-enabling environment.
During the lectures and exercises, this challenge will be addressed by focusing on the aspects of the technological-environmental meta-design of urban spatial-environmental systems, understood as complex interface systems between buildings, nature, and the city.
The skills to be developed in students are aimed at: the study of the physical-environmental, social, economic-productive and ecological elements that interact with the urban habitat; the use of approaches, methods, tools and procedures to verify and control the outcome of possible design choices; the development of skills to model and govern urban space in view of the use of appropriate construction solutions aimed to improve the natural and human habitat.

Objectives and outcomes

The teaching of Technologies for the Sustainable Management of the Built Environment is aimed at tackling the technological-environmental problems and implications inherent in the transformation processes of the urban environment. This aspect is also aimed to provide students with the necessary knowledge for the development of a sustainable and responsible technical-designing consciousness towards the management of the context's material and immaterial resources.
This objective will be achieved by dwelling on the inalienable aspects of the process of modification of the urban built environment that make possible the scenarios, visions, and conceptualizations even before the project development of the interventions, and with which to then proceed in the management, control, and verification of the transformative actions. The meta-design approach implying these ethical and technical assumptions will follow a circular logic of management, forecasting and programming of interventions, specifically technological, systemic, and performance-based.
It is therefore intended to develop in students a culture of 'technologically and environmentally sustainable' management capable of anticipating and governing the implications of urban design choices during their life cycle, to foresee and not chase the changing and evolving demand for quality living space in the city.

The training path will be aimed at understanding of:
- the levels of coherence and congruence between the availability of resources, the conscious use of technologies and the definition of the environmental system of interventions;
- the economic, ecological, and social impacts of intervention options on the functional, ethical, expressive, and symbolic values of the project at an urban scale;
- the approaches, methods, tools, and procedures for the sustainable management and environmental technological meta-design of the urban habitat;
- the environmental technological management of the urban habitat transformation processes, also in view of subsequent evaluation and certification processes of interventions.

At the end of the course, students will have to demonstrate:
- to be able to recognize factors and actors interacting in the urban context (those operating in the technological-environmental system, user categories and the main environmental pressure factors);
- to be able to distinguish the processes and functions of the urban technological-environmental system (what happens in the technological-environmental system, the system of uses and user behaviors);
- to know how to read and frame technological-environmental phenomena on a spatial and temporal scale (where and when the processes of use and transformation of the technological-environmental system take place, the demand system);
- to know how to decode the ways in which urban living space is used and transformed (how the processes of the technological-environmental system take place and evolve);
- to know how to interpret the reasons and problems of the transformation of the urban technological-environmental system by foreseeing its requirements and qualitative conditions, possible construction choices in view of their design resolution (why the modifications of the technological-environmental system are implemented, the system of requirements and performance);
- to know how to manage the urban living space as a technological-environmental system, in which relationships and connections are woven between design, space, and quality in a continuous co-evolution between nature, technology and people.

Essential bibliographical references
- Angelucci, F., a cura di, (2011). La costruzione del paesaggio energetico, Collana Ricerche di tecnologia dell’architettura, FrancoAngeli, Milano.
- Brophy. V., Lewis. J.O. (2012). A Green Vitruvius: Principles and Practice of Sustainable Architectural Design, EarthScan, Second Edition, London, UK
- Angelucci, F. (2023). Il sistema Spazio-Ambientale urbano. La metaprogettazione tecnologica ambientale degli spazi intermedi urbani, AltrAlinea Editrice, Firenze.

Considering the complexity of teaching issues, other recommended readings for specific topics will be showed during the exercise activities.

Pre-requirements
No specific pre-requirements are requested.
However, it is advisable to have at least attended the lessons of the first year of the degree course.

Educational methods
The teaching methods and support activities include:
- ex cathedra lessons;
- theoretical / practical training activities (by groups and/or individuals);
- checking meeting of exercise activities (by groups and/or individuals).

Other informations
Period of teaching activities: First semester
Registration for the course is necessary.
It is suggested the frequency of lessons.

Teacher's reception: Wednsday 10.00-12.00
Contact, after precontact by mail at filippo.angelucci@unich.it

Exam calendar: to be specified following communication from the Degree Course Secretariat.
Activity start date: to be specified according to the timetable and classroom indications of the Degree Course Secretariat.

During the exercises, the topics addressed in the lessons will be studied in depth, through individual activities and in working groups on real case studies. The exercises will be carried out through the creation of models, script-graphic elaborations and computer simulations.

The exam for the acquisition of the 12 ECTS ICAR/12 is individual and will focus on the theoretical and applicative contents addressed in the training course and on the results of the exercise activities carried out individually and collectively.

Agenda 2023 Sustainability
The course will focus these Agenda 2030 Sustainable goals:
- Goal 4: Quality education.
- Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy.
- Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
- Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
- Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.