ADD PhD course in Architecture and Design

The PhD Course in Architecture and Design is divided into two curricula: Architecture and Design. The aim of the course is to address, in an interdisciplinary dimension, the wide domain of the environment and the material and immaterial artifacts that define it, having as a focal element the activity of design as a process, its tools, and its cognitive and operational apparatuses aimed at addressing the new phenomena of change - social, cultural, spatial and material - that influence today the environments of our daily lives and their relationship with the information society and knowledge.

The innovativeness of the approach lies mainly in the development of research themes related to emerging issues and needs, new economies, the production structures involved and the cultural context in which they are located. In this sense, the training project aims to study and deepen the relations between the environment at various levels and the social context, the political and cultural values that influence the design choices. The main purpose of the course is to allow the acquisition, by PhD students, of a critical dimension about the issues that cross the theme of the project in its complexity.

Research, a collective adventure

In recent decades we have witnessed important changes in our life and interrelationship scenarios. The development of computation, communication systems and new process technologies (materials and digital), has not only contributed to a leap of exponential scale in the entropic manifestation of our relational environments, but also to the recognition, of its open, dynamic and irregular conditions. A definitely complex condition (plural, heterogeneous, evolutionary), that demands new keys of reading and orientation. We are aware, in this sense, of a substantial change in design thinking, open to the possibility of combining data, programs, messages and scenarios, with a new interactive and informal logic that is one of the most important social revolutions, of our time. In this moment of shared exploration, design research must become, in effect, a collective, intellectual and cultural adventure. An opportunity that involves the innovative exploration of shared horizons, stimulating experiences beyond standardized conventions and banal consumerism, but beyond, also, the "individual trajectories" (of the "iconic figures", of the "unique cases" or of the "magisteria of reference"); today proposals become necessary able to generate "networks of complicity and relationship", attentive to the conditions of their time, the exploration of new paradigms (and criteria for action) critical and operational at the same time. This new operational will requires a more complex and transversal look. A "critical-propositive" look, capable of recognizing reality and designing it qualitatively. We must promote - in the profession, in education and also in research - intellectual generosity rather than competitive rivalry; teamwork, and in a team; networking (and without a network); presence and distance. Work with discipline, between disciplines and beyond disciplines. Combining rigor and boldness, analysis and intuition, singular affirmation and shared restlessness; identity character and cosmopolitan projection; intellectual respect and complicit admiration; intimate conviction and enthusiastic curiosity. Without mistrust or fear of error, risk, or confrontation. A change in the university model appears on the horizon. We are witnessing the latest manifestations of a model anchored in structures that are still too defensive and rigid. It is clear that we must open ourselves to society itself, but, above all, to the emergence of talent and proactive energy. The students are no longer the old "disciples" of the tradition of the masters, but new "accomplices" of a complex and shared research and production. The craft gives way to research (the transmission of certainties to the construction of criteria of action).

The idea of a research based on schools or monolithic training spaces, gives way to proposals intended as virtual laboratories of investigation: pluralistic, creative and investigative environments, on the net. Confidence in talent and emerging energies (combining the rigor and weighting of experience with the imagination and enthusiasm of young people) is fundamental to ensure the quality of a true educational environment, vital and sustainable. This is what we try to do in the Genoa ADD. Celebrating the project (in Architecture and Design) and exploiting research: a shared message, fundamental to affirm - and project - the transversal role of a possible and rich transdisciplinary education.