Design

Design Research Studios at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio are where the project’s strands are brought together. Students take everything the other arms produce, the narratives gathered on the walks and in the workshops, the point-cloud surveys and historical reconstructions, the landscape signatures and their measured perception, and synthesise it through design research into proposals for the demonstrator. Each round is reviewed with municipal representatives, set against the place as it was recorded and as it is perceived, and assessed for the Baukultur qualities it proposes and their effect on sense of place. What is learnt feeds the next round: a design-science loop in which a strategic vision emerges from a set of precise, complementary interventions.