TRANSSCALAR: Beyond architecture, towards a creative holistic approach for the reactivation of habitats

Abstract

Navigating the growing complexity of habitats, especially in fragile inner territories, amid rapid digital and ecological shifts, poses a significant challenge for architects. It requires cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary knowledge, along with creative and collaborative approaches to transforming space. Indeed, addressing the reactivation of habitats necessitates connecting architectural design to broader strategic visions that transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Similar to a polycentric solar system, the new constellation of spatial relationships envisioned by TRANSSCALAR proposes a holistic approach to architectural design, moving beyond architecture as a unique centre of gravity. This perspective emphasizes expanding design considerations to include urban, landscape, and territorial aspects, encompassing ecological, community, economic, circularity, and time dimensions. Central to this approach is a focus on space, architects’ domain of expertise, to be reactivated with innovative and creative ideas.

Mountainous inner areas in the Mediterranean region are special hotspots for sensing changes both in terms of climate issues and in settlement dynamics. Engaging in place-based, co-designed processes, architectural design in the holistic sense addressed by TRANSSCALAR could be transformative for such fragile contexts, being at once site-specific and disruptive, and promoting ecological sustainability, social connections, beauty, and happiness for the people.

Starting from these conceptual premises, the lecture will present a methodology and a vision for the Central Apennine and for the Italian inner territories in general, drawing from the recently concluded Branding4Resilience project (www.branding4resilience.it).

As part of a double event also featuring a lecture by Jörg Schröder (Leibniz University Hannover), this lecture contributes to the DFG research training group ‘Urban future-making’ at HCU Hamburg. Discussion on ‘methodologies of matter,’ the overarching topic of the lecture series, will be moderated by Claudia Massioni, a fellow of the research training group.

About the lecturer

Maddalena Ferretti (architect, international PhD at IUAV) is an associate professor in architectural and urban design and the coordinator of the master’s degree in Building Engineering and Architecture at Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM), Italy. Her scientific and design research, which has been awarded prizes in national and international competitions, highlights the centrality of architectural design as a tool for the regeneration and transformation of marginal and peripheral contexts in combination with a transscalar approach. Maddalena’s recent projects include Centri Storici Accessibili e Inclusivi, Branding4Resilience, Rural Commons, and several design research activities with local municipalities in the Marche Region, Italy. The book “Atlante Branding4Resilience. Ritratto di quattro territori interni italiani, edited together with S. Favargiotti, B. Lino, and D. Rolando, is currently in press with LetteraVentidue (2024).