Exteriorless: The Design of the Ordinary

Contemporary cities characterize themselves for the presence of building types which, despite the diversity of functions they accommodate, share a same condition: their floor plans are typically generic, their exteriors hermetic, their interiors vast. These spaces are warehouses, department stores, fulfillment hubs, data centers. Generally considered as conventional and banal structures, these spaces are in reality extremely relevant for the role they play in the daily functioning of our cities.

This seminar course will investigate the nature of these types, as well as their spatial qualities and their material components, in order to ideate design strategies that can turn them into meaningful and expressive structures public buildings open to the city, capable to act as collective magnets and to generate new urban dynamics. By exploring how these structures can progressively be opened up, to become active part of the urban fabric, students will learn new design techniques: via different exercises, they will turn neutral structural grids into interior landscapes; they will engage in biophilic operations of green design; and, finally, they will use multi-sensory elements to transform existing typologies.

What design strategies can we implement to turn the generic and the ordinary into the meaningful and the diverse?

How can we give these spaces back to the cities, by injecting them with new functions and activities?

How can existing and new functions hybridize?

The course will consist of lectures, readings, and conversations with invited guests from fields other than architecture. The course will be divided in two parts; the first part will be research-oriented, in which students will select and investigate one specific spatial type; in the second part, students will apply the outcome of their research into the (re)definition of an existing type via light, colors, nature, sound, technology, etc.