Ma.Chi.Na. is a design interactive laboratory of urban spaces in the cities of Manchester, Chicago and Napoli organized between the University of Salerno, Manchester School of Architecture and the Washington State University. Students from England, United States and Italy worked in connection creating a network of interpretation of sites - video, texts, and images - which migrating from one site to another, from a group of students to another, constituted the basis for the design work. The project work made for a certain city was effected also by the material developed for the other cities, through the relational work. The methodology stems from the aim of interpreting and designing a site starting from the relation with other places through a work of association and personal perception. The theoretical basis derives from the concept of heterotopia introduced by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, defined as a space capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces initially considered incompatible. Ma.Chi.Na. becomes a “machine” generating design projects starting from the perception and through the exchange of information. Ma.Chi.Na. is an investigation on the contemporary city in the relation among reality and imaginary, the physical and the mental, the near and the far. It leads us to look at the city besides the oppositions of global / local, real / virtual, identity / lack of identity ad so on, in order to consider the city as an open and multiple system, made of parts which can interact and communicate with other sites and cultures, which initially seemed distant. The paper aims at commenting on the didactic experimentation in the view of a broader investigation on issues of the contemporary city and therefore on how research by design can be implemented in design studios.
Ma.Chi.Na. Reflections between theory and design around a laboratory of urban spaces in the cities of Manchester, Chicago and Napoli
COMO, Alessandra
2012-01-01
Abstract
Ma.Chi.Na. is a design interactive laboratory of urban spaces in the cities of Manchester, Chicago and Napoli organized between the University of Salerno, Manchester School of Architecture and the Washington State University. Students from England, United States and Italy worked in connection creating a network of interpretation of sites - video, texts, and images - which migrating from one site to another, from a group of students to another, constituted the basis for the design work. The project work made for a certain city was effected also by the material developed for the other cities, through the relational work. The methodology stems from the aim of interpreting and designing a site starting from the relation with other places through a work of association and personal perception. The theoretical basis derives from the concept of heterotopia introduced by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, defined as a space capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces initially considered incompatible. Ma.Chi.Na. becomes a “machine” generating design projects starting from the perception and through the exchange of information. Ma.Chi.Na. is an investigation on the contemporary city in the relation among reality and imaginary, the physical and the mental, the near and the far. It leads us to look at the city besides the oppositions of global / local, real / virtual, identity / lack of identity ad so on, in order to consider the city as an open and multiple system, made of parts which can interact and communicate with other sites and cultures, which initially seemed distant. The paper aims at commenting on the didactic experimentation in the view of a broader investigation on issues of the contemporary city and therefore on how research by design can be implemented in design studios.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
