LABORATORIO DI RESTAURO M - Z

Academic Year 2021/2022 - 4° Year
Teaching Staff: Chiara CIRCO and Maria Rosaria VITALE
Credit Value: 12
Scientific field: ICAR/19 - Architectural restoration
Laboratories: 144 hours
Term / Semester: One-year
ENGLISH VERSION

Learning Objectives

The workshop aims to provide students with the tools to deal with the design of an architectural artefact that presents problems of conservation. Therefore, the course aimed at drawing up a restoration project is based on "a knowledge that is historical, but also geometric, dimensional, physical and technological". The main objective of the workshop is therefore the learning of a project methodology that develops in three phases (knowledge, interpretation, definition of the intervention) proposed by means of frontal lessons and put into practice during practical project exercises.

The topic of the workshop is the study of some masonry blocks in the Granfonte district of Leonforte (EN); the condition of decay and abandonment that characterizes them allows to carry out an on-field analysis in order to collect the necessary data for the elaboration of a restoration project with residential reuse. Goal of the course is to enhance the students’ ability in integrating their historical, technological and structural competencies and applying them in the preservation of the architectural heritage.

Through the practical project exercise, students are guided to develop their technical, interpretation and design skills in the field of historical buildings, along with improving basic academic skills (comprehension, communication, use of literature, problem-solving).

Frontal lessons provide an illustration of the steps of the design process aimed at the restoration and compatible reuse project; it starts with the knowledge of geometric and material consistency of the block, proceeds with the interpretation of the decay condition and transformations that have occurred over time in order to propose the most appropriate conservative interventions.


Course Structure

The class includes:

1) lectures focused on methodological topics and disciplinary contents.

2) Practical activities aimed at testing the methodology application on the study case. The practical activities will be carried out in parallel with the illustration of the disciplinary contents and through the detailed indications provided by the teachers.

Should teaching be carried out in blended mode or fully remote, it may be necessary to introduce changes but anyway following the program outlined in the syllabus.


Detailed Course Content

Knowledge of traditional buildings: the graphic survey and historical bibliographical research. Architectural survey, graphic elaboration, methods and scales of representation; the main documentary sources and their relationship with the building.

Knowledge of traditional buildings: typological and architectural features, material and finishing elements.

Knowledge of traditional buildings: Stone, bricks, mortars, wood: processing and construction techniques. The historic masonry work: analysis and interpretation. Structural elements and configuration of the historic buildings.

Analysis of the state of conservation; constructive and transformation phases: time, matter and degradation; stratifications and conservation.

Analysis of the conservation condition and of the crack pattern: damage mechanisms.

Interpretation of the data: comparison among the results of the analyses; interpretative synthesis as a moment for the definition of the conservative intervention.

Architecture, Restoration and Reuse: main theoretical positions in the current debate, operational practices and examples; the historical centres between abandonment and redevelopment; methodological approaches to the historical heritage, categories and examples.

Restoration project: Intervention methodologies, guide-line principles and operational solutions. Reorganization of the architectural space; compatible reuse. Intervention criteria: local and global interventions; seismic strengthening.


Textbook Information

1. CAROCCI, C.F. (a cura di). Conoscere per abitare. Un seminario di studio a Motta Camastra, Siracusa, Icosaedro, 2008.

2. VARAGNOLI C., La materia degli antichi edifici, in Trattato di restauro architettonico, diretto da G. Carbonara, Torino, Utet, 1996, vol. I (pp. 303-470)

3. FIORANI, D., Rilievo del degrado e diagnostica, in Trattato di restauro architettonico, diretto da G. Carbonara, Torino, Utet, 1996, vol. II (pp. 523-580).

4. GIUFFRÈ A. (a cura di), Sicurezza e conservazione dei centri storici, il caso Ortigia, Bari, 1993.