Z E M C H 2 0 1 2 I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e
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indispensable the relationship between architecture (technological system), humanity
(socio-cultural) and environment (environmental system). The project, in essence, is the
site of the connections between all environmental issues and architectonical object in
terms of technology and inventive.
It’s important to replace the old linear model design that provides a continuous
consumption of new resources and waste production, with a circular model that
considers the building throughout its life cycle and that projects the end of life phase, so
that it will be the starting point for new cycles, without the need to use natural resources.
Design process must be addressed through the need-performance approach without
forget the implications of environmental issues i.e. through a sustainable approach that
integrates the environmental, social and economic aspects.
It becomes essential to implement a systemic approach to the construction process that
allows controlling all the process through the parts and vice versa. "
It is therefore
important in designing, keep in mind the need not to leave anything out, to integrate
everything
" (Quaroni, 1995), then working to integration and summation of elements.
"
The most difficult and highest of architecture it’s the need to achieve a synthesis
between different elements, such as formal and technical requirements, the heat of
inspiration, and the coldness of scientific reasoning, the wealth of imagination and the
strict laws of economics
" (Nervi P.L., 2010). To accomplish this aspects, the analysis of
the different parts that compose the building and of different phases which characterize
the life cycle is required, in order to highlight the critical points and to hypothesize
strategies to solve them.
The decomposition of the building in elements (minimal units known in form, materials,
dimensions), parts (structural elements connected to each other) and connections
between parts, represents an approach to knowledge and to control the building that
allows a careful design of details without losing the whole building. The performance
approach to the project is based on the assumption that, in the project, the aim should
be the achieving of a goal expressed in terms of requirements. It’s important to define
the "task" that a building, technological or functional unit, has to perform without
prescribing how it should be built, but leaving to the designer the task of finding the best
solution in terms of physical-technical, environmental and economic aspects.
Each building is transformed over the years in relation to the change of the users’ needs
or to use, to physical decay and obsolescence of some elements. Some of these
changes, however, can be controlled with the architectural design and can be guided
and facilitated through a project capable of predicting the likely behaviour of next users,
in terms of flexible spatial arrangements and modifiable and implementable building
systems. The need to maintain the highest degree of reversibility of the technological
concept, makes it necessary to modify deeply the essence of our monolithic
constructions to facilitate the operations of processing, handling, maintenance and
demolition.
Building sustainable means questioning a millennial constructive culture that conceived
the building as a monolithic object, based on primary natural materials, made through
irreversible assemblies obtained with wet connections. In the European tradition, each
building is made of parts chemically inert (stone, brick, wood), difficult to separate. That
building became source of incoherent scrap and waste, often not reusable, produced
during the construction phase or the building’s lifecycle. The new techniques, plant
system and new materials introduced in the last half century (particularly coming from
chemistry, such as paints, insulators, waterproofing), were used for the construction
buildings, making them much less inert, sometimes unhealthy, much less separable into
their different elements, and having the building sites more pollution and full of enormous
amount of waste.
It is therefore necessary to understand what are the tools available for designer to
respond with quality construction to a changing framework of needs, to control project’s
