Building = Town: the urban project as the place of the architectural inter-scales.

Abstract

To consider the Architecture as an inter-scale field and so the relationship between Building and Town as an architectural unique and inseparable system corresponds to a hypothesis of education aimed to be a sole process structured on the basis of the different scales. This discourse aims to question the themes, the methodical techniques and the pedagogical process as well as to reflect this thesis. The specific sample is the didactical approach developed in the courses of Architectural and Urban Project of the Department of Architecture of the Polytechnic in Bari (Italy), directed by the undersigned. It is an approach aimed to spread a Project Culture based on a consideration of the Architecture as “inter scale procedure”, intended to understand the general urban phenomena referring to the architectural form. This discourse will provide for a complete framework of this thesis, trying to insert the findings in the large international critical framework. The aim is to contribute to update the project culture in relationship with the transformation dynamic of the town; to make more and more coherent the relationship between the urban and the building scale; to set on the didactical instructive processes, that are able to give the student a method of critical analysis of the different scales. The main instruction fields are: the understanding of the processes binding Landscape / Town / Building; the study of the building types and of the tissues that validate them, their urban characteristics and architectural languages. The explanation will be based on the analysis of the didactical research carried on in Italian urban situations and in some cities of the Mediterranean Europe.