AGATHÓN | International Journal of Architecture, Art and Design

Simulation-based learning and digital tools. A trial for Pharmacy Services

Fabrizio Bracco — 2022-12-31

This paper focuses, amidst a collective desire to re-appropriate sociality and a focus on the use of digital and ‘phygital’ practices to promote inclusion and diminish the human impact on the planet, on the choice of hybrid, physical or virtual modes of interaction as a function of punctual rather than generalised needs to foster a conscious and sustained digital transition in university education. The essay deals with the simulation method as an established tool in learning medical disciplines, declining it in an unprecedented scenario such as pharmaceuticals and experimenting with its digitisation. With a view to the development of integrated didactics between analogue and digital, the case study Pharmacy of Services provides the basis for an extended reflection on the future potential of university education.

Perception and sustainable plastics. A digital tool to manage aesthetics and sustainability

Barbara Del Curto — 2022-12-31

Today, designers find expression through project design but also assume an active role in the application of new materials, becoming both researchers and experts in the management of aesthetics and sensoriality. Sustainable plastics are relatively new on the market, but, despite considerable application interest, they do not yet have a clear aesthetic-sensory identity. This study explores the aesthetic-expressive properties of sustainable plastics according to the principles of CMF design and aims to investigate user perception. The data, collected through two surveys, has enabled the development of a digital tool to create greater awareness in designers wishing to approach design with sustainable plastics and enhance their perceptual effects.

Maker: the return of the builders. A possible digital transition for Architecture

Sergio Pone — 2022-12-31

This contribution attempts to answer the following question: how will the digital revolution affect architecture in the near future? To try to formulate a convincing answer, only very faint signals that come from courageous experiments are available, a result mainly of research work rather than market-proposed stimuli. A handful of researchers in a select number of Universities, armed with extraordinary digital skills and maker-type instrumentation, are creating new experimental constructions in which highly complex design is combined with extremely simple construction, which do not require the manufacturing skills and expensive equipment that populate traditional construction sites. By establishing these lines of development, it would be possible to bring architecture close to the people and restore a central role for the designer in the making of buildings.

Past and future of the connection between project, technology and neocybernetics

Theo Zaffagnini — 2022-12-31

The paper compares design sciences and the philosophy of technology to contribute to the understanding of the concept of innovation in the digital era. Firstly, this work retraces an encounter between these two dimensions that took place in Italy in the late 1960s in order to compare it with some contemporary research perspectives. This operation investigates the evolution of the connection between humans and machines in design, particularly focusing on the systemic approach. Cybernetic thinking and its developments are the links between the two moments (investigated in the text both from a theoretical point of view and through examples). Secondly, it will be shown that a different interpretation of cybernetics can open up the possibility of a new understanding of the relationship between technology and design. A perspective capable of merging a holistic approach and attention to differences and aimed at providing a contribution to the reflection on theoretical paradigms through which technological innovation can be deployed.

Governance dashboards. Monitoring of key performance and aggregate indicators

Adriano Magliocco — 2022-12-31

The recent increase of smart city policies around the world has meant that digital infrastructures play increasingly central roles for data collection and processing in contemporary city governance. The ‘dashboards’, as tools to communicate the state and development of the city through the display of data, can play an interesting role in supporting the implementation of initiatives by public administrations, as well as in making citizens more aware of them. Updating, transparency and meaning of the data, are critical points in the creation of effective dashboards, referring to shared key performance indicators. The aggregation and weighting of data and the use of data driven storytelling can transform the mere display of raw data into more understandable and easier to read concepts, however, not without some risk.

Knowledge and smart sensing for an accessible city. Experimenting on the territory of Friuli Venezia Giulia

Mickeal Milocco Borlini — 2022-12-31

The contribution presents state-of-the-art critically through the results of some applied research financed with public funds in areas related to the concept of innovability understood as an ‘innovative’ approach to the environmental accessibility of urban places. This condition is functional to planning, implementing, and managing urban contexts from an environmental and economically ‘sustainable’ point of view. Through these experiences, it is possible to give a sufficiently an in-depth picture of the ICT tools adopted, and the potential of the tools and experiences created. Focusing on users’ needs and evaluating urban/environmental performance leads to evaluating the current situation in medium-sized urban centres. The reported case studies show the high potential of computerisation of the urban management processes, which does not correspond to a convincing social, economic, political and cultural context due to its partial and inefficient application of ICT. These results present some possible actions on the interface and governance of the human-built environment to design a future ‘smart’, ‘innovative’ and ‘sustainable’ city.

Spatial interactivity. Sensoriality and design of digital data in the space

Giorgio Dall’Osso — 2022-12-31

This paper explores the thesis according to which the relationship between urban space, digital data and the user is biunivocal in nature and plays a strategic role in defining a new trajectory of development of the way users inhabit and transform the city. As digital is now invisibly integrated into the activities we perform daily, networks are extending into the real space, demonstrating how technology does not eliminate the human need for physical presence. Architecture must grapple with a non-tectonic reality, and ask itself not how to use the digital to manage data apparatuses to generate dynamic architectural forms, but rather how to turn information into an engine for spaces that can dynamically respond to the needs of the inhabitants.

Adaptive public spaces. Exploring digital transition for social and environmental benefit

Bianca Andaloro — 2022-12-31

The present social and environmental challenges, the impact of climate change and the pandemic, revealed the urgency and the opportunity to rethink urban design through its renewed spaces and temporalities. The pandemic offered a ‘natural experiment’ to explore and develop new perspectives, making public spaces more resilient. Contributing towards a rethink of these spaces, the present paper explores adaptive architecture with responsive technologies and their capability of shaping public spaces to constitute a conversation piece with the surrounding environment. This approach combines and reflects different disciplinary fields: architecture, civic interaction and urban design. The exploration works around a speculative design case – produced as part of broader research at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science in collaboration with the Master in Digital Design.

From numbers to forms. The digital turn in morphogenic processes

Michela Barosio — 2022-12-31

The digital turn, or specifically the second Digital Turn, was at disposal of the architectural and urban project sophisticated morphogenic tools. These tools have been used mainly to create new forms with non-Euclidean geometries and their integration with building systems, also dynamic. This paper investigates the possibility of using parametric tools to handle urban transformations based on formal parameters and not merely quantitative ones, coming from the morphological analysis of the existent city. To this purpose, three tools have been identified and analysed (type, diagram and model), to translate the morphologic urban characteristics in elements embeddable into parametric processes, investigating their potential and possible limits also with two practical experimentations.

Serious gaming for digital growth. Reducing waste through the Lean mindset

Maria Antonietta Esposito — 2022-12-31

The Italian context’s push towards BIM should be considered an opportunity to implement a digital transition towards the use of IT tools, through a culturally innovative approach to construction provided by Lean thinking and its gamification. The Lean approach leverages proven strategies to increase the quality of the production process. However, its application is still difficult: hence the need to convey effective proposals that use the structure of games to present actual ‘simulations’ of the production process. This paper aims to highlight how the gamified application of Lean processes constitutes a transformative formula enabling digitalisation, to achieve sustainability goals in the AECO Industry through original training approaches.

Data-driven LCA for green industrial innovation of custom curtain walls

Theo Zaffagnini — 2022-12-31

The optimization and advanced management of design, engineering, and building construction, aimed at the maximization of environmental performance, are among the innovations facilitated by the tools of the digital transition. In this context, this study focuses on and proposes the integration of peculiar IT data in the life cycle assessment of industrial products. The present paper also outlines the current limitations of Life Cycle Assessment practices concerning the prefabrication of custom modules for curtain walls and how these limitations can be overcome through a data-driven approach, integrated with specific platforms and software used by companies. The aim is to foster sustainable and resilient innovation, bridging the gap between information research, and industrial production and its organizational processes.

Technology as an enabler of a new ecosystem responsive urbanism. Interview with Carlo Ratti (CRA Studio)

Giorgia Tucci — 2023-01-02

In recent decades, the growing awareness of the exhaustibility of our planet’s resources has placed sustainability at the centre of current global policies that, to cope with the complex international situation, have set goals for sustainable development, promoting actions that provide ecological, digital and social innovation. The increasing contamination of digital technology in the urban context has led to reflections on urban reformulation processes and innovative actions promoting the global transition process. The new urban and territorial approach is moving towards a new paradigm of integration between artificial and natural, technology and sustainability, digital and ecology. Testimony to this transition is the transdisciplinary approach in the design and experimentation of the international practice of Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA).

Reflections and trajectories for interdisciplinary research on the digital transition

Cesare Sposito — 2022-12-31

Simulation and modelling for climate adaptation and mitigation. Experiences of environmental renovation in Rome

Fabrizio Tucci — 2022-12-31

This paper defines an original methodological and applicative approach in support of the experimental/planning phase in the area of the regeneration of urban districts, in order to offer responses to the challenges of adapting to and mitigating climate change. Applied in two case studies in Rome, the methodology incorporates and verifies strategies and passive bioclimatic solutions through activities of ex-ante/ex-post modelling/simulation, constructing multicriteria and multiscalar planning models based on fluid dynamics, and measuring their effectiveness through the quantification of the reduction of CO2 emissions. The expected results are improved environmental comfort in outdoor, in-between, and indoor spaces, lower energy demand and CO2 emissions mitigation, through a set of actions and solutions that are comparable, replicable, and measurable in terms of energy-climate performance and environmental well-being.

Resilience and circularity in sustainable building design. Integrated tools for pre-intervention assessment

Paola De Joanna — 2022-12-31

The new demands on environmental protection and the energy efficiency of architectural assets open new frontiers to studies for the development of technologies for the control of the building process. The study presented here aims to identify criteria and tools for the control of resilience and circularity factors in construction as moderators of obsolescence processes, capable of stabilizing the construction product in ecosystem growth. The work integrates the results of two ongoing doctoral types of research that address the issue of controlling resilience and circularity in construction as a strategy for reducing environmental impact by identifying specific methodologies for interventions on the built heritage and the digital design process of new buildings.

Monitoring tools as energy saving enablers in social housing context

Jacopo Gaspari — 2022-12-31

The improvement of the digital infrastructure envisaged by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) promises new opportunities for reducing energy consumption based on user behaviour for the residential sector. Smart tools for energy monitoring would make it possible to improve indoor comfort, limit household expenses and reduce their environmental impact, with particularly appreciable effects in social housing. However, the diffusion of these technologies, which are already available on the market, largely depends on the ability of users to actively interact with them and on the understanding of their advantages. The study investigates the interaction of users with the typical system and equipment of social housing, comparing the opinion of the inhabitants with instrumental monitoring on a pilot case in Bologna, in order to define the characteristics of an integrative tool to inform the user and suggest good energy use practices.

Energy retrofitting of existing buildings. Geometric-informative modelling and management

Giovanna A. Massari — 2022-12-31

In 2017 the company Fanti Legnami Srl launched the Renew-Wall research programme concerning a system of prefabricated timber-framed panels for energy performance improvement in existing buildings. In order to manage the complexity of the entire system, an integrated digital solution was developed to support the entire workflow, from design to production. The requirements of the digital solution are the ease of geometric and informative modelling in the design phase, the replicability and adaptability to different configurations and the transferability of information needed for production to the CAD-CAM system. This paper is aimed at illustrating the process of creating a library of BIM objects, as a key element of the integrated digital solution proposed for the management of the Renew-Wall system, describing the implementation and assessment of the procedures adopted.

4.0 low-tech building systems. BIM-based product-process innovation for corrugated cardboard prefabrication

Rosa Romano — 2022-12-31

Construction production chains are facing a profound ecological and digital transformation to support the competitiveness and resilience of the sector against ongoing environmental and socio-economic challenges. In recent years, the development of digital technologies has opened the field to the possibility of transforming prefabricated building production facilities into highly integrated, controlled, environmentally and economically efficient Industry 4.0 systems. CARES research is part of the ongoing debate, developing and implementing an innovative production model of construction elements made of corrugated cardboard, based on the principle of product-process digitalization through the use of BIM tools, aimed at rationalizing the use of resources and reducing the environmental burden of the construction phase.

Digital transition in facility management. BIM, CMMS and diagnostic maintenance

Mario Claudio Dejaco — 2022-12-31

Managing a building’s life cycle is a fundamental part of designing sustainable constructions and implementing efficient management strategies. The research described in this paper is inserted within this context, with the objective of integrating the facility management phase within this virtuous process. The purpose of the study is to develop a user-friendly and cost-effective strategy that can be used to create a digital twin, based on CMMS, on which to integrate real-time data in order to optimise the use and maintenance phases, moving towards a predictive system. The strategy was developed through two case studies. The first was linked to the procedure to build the digital twin on the CMMS database, and the second was to define the indicators necessary to collect data in real-time, a function underpinning diagnostic maintenance.

Automation of urban technological census. The historical centre of Bethlehem

Elisabetta Doria — 2022-12-31

The research proposal reports the outcomes of a research track concerning the automation of the architectural census of technological elements in urban environments, aiming at the development of a monitoring and management system for the built heritage. The proposal is focused on a set of specific elements (water tanks) stacked on the coverings of the historical centre of Bethlehem and leverages close-range photogrammetric acquisitions to train Deep Learning models. The model lifecycle management, from training to prediction and deployment, as well as the storage of both image data and metadata, is performed through the scalability of a Cloud enterprise architecture. Periodical scheduled monitoring enables comparisons across different periods, allowing the detection of modifications, removals, and additions, therefore identifying the insurgence of potential criticalities. The goal of the project is the definition of a protocol to automate the identification of recurrent elements and monitor their evolution through time.

Transition product design. A framework proposal for a holistic approach to systemic design

Mario Bisson — 2022-12-31

The Transition Design (TD) discipline is based on a design framework and methodology that prioritises social and environmental well-being and the goals of local resilience and radical changes in socio-technical contexts. Terry Irwin (2019) sees two aspects of TD as fundamental: the idea that entire societies will face a transition to sustainable futures and the realisation that this will entail changes at the systemic level. As part of the ongoing disciplinary debate, this contribution investigates the potential of new design drivers, such as territorial value and local resilience, linked to specific case studies that can be seen as best practices. The result is a theoretical framework of eight guidelines that aims to answer some of the TD process’s problems and model the requirements that can then be replicated.

Design and digital transition. New design-driven challenges for techno-social innovation

Salvatore Di Dio — 2022-12-31

How can it be possible to work salvifically on an asphyxiated society that is being dragged down by turbo-capitalism, the ‘soft tyranny’ of algorithms and ‘data-cracy’ and marked by hegemonic and centralised socio-technical systems? Starting from theoretical reflections and multidisciplinary contributions, this paper focuses on the strategic importance of techno-social innovation, critically illustrating some significant design-driven experiences that outline innovative lines of development in the field of design research: WASP’s experimental activity (3D printing), Manzini’s reflections on hybrid local communities and cities in chaotic mutation, the projects of hacktivists Persico and Iaconesi on open source artificial intelligence, the experiences of frugal technological innovation with high social impact in the Planet’s most challenging economic, environmental and social contexts, and, finally, the bold projections on the food of the future with the related problematic experiments on production systems and lifestyles.

Beyond personas. Machine Learning to personalise the project

Niccolò Casiddu — 2022-12-31

The paper deals with some problems linked to Human-Centred Design (HCD) methods, namely Personas, that may mislead the designers to create distorted and stereotypical representations of users. These archetypal models of ‘human’ are questioned in favour of a data processing approach, that better responds to the needs of the projects contextualised in our hyperconnected society. The core value of this approach is the ability to adapt, based on algorithms capable of matching the product to the activity of each user. These considerations aim to balance the important benefits of the HCD design methods with necessary caution on the introduction of new tools still in verification. The integration of the well-established HCD methods with the new possibilities given by datafication originates a design process integrating the two aspects and that is presented at the end of the paper.

Towards a circular project, between architecture and exhibition design. Digital platforms for reuse practices

Davide Crippa — 2022-12-31

Sustainable development and digital transition find wide space in the debate around design disciplines that take up the theme at different paces. While architectural and urban design research has long been working towards innovating design and construction paradigms in a sustainable and circular sense, exhibition design has slowly integrated these aspects into its creation and management structures. From this perspective, the digital transition represents an excellent opportunity to develop integrated systems for circular production chains. The text explores the state of arts in architecture and exhibition design, identifying innovation trajectories within cases of emblematic collaborative platforms, and highlighting their limitations and mutual lessons learned.

Networked and integrated digital platforms for the university system

Davide Bruno — 2022-12-31

The paper aims to stimulate and share new opinions on the opportunity to reorganise and enhance the wide universe of digital applications to handle the Italian university system, trying to outline a forward-looking scenario considered in its structural components (teaching, research and third mission) placing people at its core. The final aim is to design networked and integrated digital platforms in collaboration with CINECA Inter-University Consortium, with the aim to submit to it the areas of intervention where it is possible and desirable to think about the development and subsequent implementation of innovative and original products, making Italian universities catch up on the most qualified international situations by fostering the transition to an open, transparent, inclusive and sustainable system.

Digital archive for high-end craftsmanship processes. Comparing research paths in Italy and China

Gabriele Goretti — 2022-12-31

This article approaches the digitisation of the Intangible Heritage preserved by the traditional craft processes of SME manufacturing districts through a comparison of two case studies. Two distinct manufacturing areas – furniture and accessories in Tuscany (Italy) and Miao silverware in Guizhou Province (China) – are investigated in terms of their characteristics, structures and capacity to access technological innovation. The proposed analysis highlights on emerges a privileged role of the digital archive as a catalyst of creative and organisational processes. On the one hand, it favours the construction of an organised and transmissible memory that supports SMEs in their market competitiveness. On the other, it serves as a basis for developing user-experience processes aimed at dissemination and reintegration in the context of contemporary design.