TRANS-USE

Interdisciplinary and international summer school
10 – 24.7.2019
Toolbox Coworking, Turin

The summer school aims to share, in an international comparative framework, innovative approaches and tools for the synergistic design of financial instruments, environmental recovery procedures and urban master planning operating in complex market conditions on large-scale obsolete industrial sites that embody controversial legacies.

Participants will focus on the analysis of case studies of urban industrial legacy and urban production transformation. They will be asked to develop a toolkit (in terms of architecture, urban planning, landscape design, management, environmental and economic sustainability) and present it publicly at the end of the summer school.

Case Study

Comparative overview of international case studies and focus on Thyssenkrupp Torino, Corso Margherita 400, as a test-case to re-discuss and refine working and investigation methods.

Methodology

• The transformation and re-signification of a physical place in the city imposes interdisciplinary approaches and scientific investigation tools. The identification of economic models of reuse linked to the redevelopment project of industrial buildings / areas that are in search of a new identity need to take into consideration the contributions given by architectural and urban composition, environmental engineering, landscape architecture, industrial and information engineering, economic-political geography, urban economy and engineering for industrial production, all at the same time.
• The project is built not only on an interdisciplinary ground but involves also an international team of scholars. The possibility of hosting interventions, contributions and criticisms of projects carried out jointly by professors of foreign Universities invited by PoliTO.

The research project will be organized in 4 steps:

1. Preliminary research and overview of international best practices of economic and spatial models of industrial legacy re-use.
2. TRANS-USE: TRANS-forming industrial legacy. Spatial and economic models of re-USE. A joint interdisciplinary and international summer school between Politecnico di Torino and Tsinghua University of Beijing, School of Architecture, School of economics and management, held in Turin from 10th to 24th of July 2019.
   Teaching activities will test “in the field” and discuss the various theoretical frameworks, methodological and design approaches. The subjects of investigation of the summer school will not only represent a topic for interdisciplinary analysis and design activity, but they will serve as a test-case to re-discuss and refine working and investigation methods on the Europe-China axis.
3. Students will focus on the analysis of case studies of urban industrial legacy and urban production transformation. They will be asked to develop different strategies, scenarios and visions that will be collected and exhibited in a public event at the end of the school.
4. The final output of the summer school will be a toolkit (in organizational, architectural, urban, construction, environmental and economic sustainability terms) which develops and improves an analytical approach through “research by design” method, concerning transformations at architectural and urban scales and the question of industrial legacy.

Outputs

For each step of the research project the outputs will be:

1. Un atlante di casi di studio su scala globale di ex complessi industriali;
2. Open seminars;
3. A Report of different scenarios: booklet;
4. A toolkit book: it will transform this applied experience into an opportunity for scientific research, further developing the “research by design” method, explored during the summer school.