Now at its fourth edition, the Masters in Landscape Architecture held in Milan by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona) and ACMA Centre of Architecture (Milan) is considered one of the major European training experiences. Thanks to the innovative teaching structure based on modules of 50 hours and multiples thereof, it is possible to complete this training within eighteen months only. The planning laboratories, seminars and workshops organised in Milan as well as in other European regions, are led by interpreters of the most relevant international experiences. They deal with current issues in landscape architecture (environmental sustainability, renewable energy, public space, etc.), identified in collaboration with local and national administrations, in addition to prominent international bodies in charge of landscape protection and valorisation. After attendance of the second level university Masters (1500 hours of which 750 face-to-face, 60 Italian CFU credits/75 ECTS) or of the single modules, equivalent to those organised from 1983 in Catalonia, the UPC Foundation of Barcelona will award a title which is recognised by EFLA. For the current year, ACMA has activated scholarships for enrolments to the Masters and the Continuing Education Courses of the UPC Foundation.
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Focus on landscape. Comparison of international experiences. Open lectures. Milan 2012
Landscape is becoming ever more a key topic in the contemporary world. Not only because the European Landscape Convention signed over ten years ago in Florence triggered a series of protection and valorisation norms in our country, on behalf of the public bodies but also because it obliged universities and professional associations to programme new figures and revise the planning culture. Yet the very culture of a country which boasts an envied density of cultural assets on its territory as well as a long history of norms for their protection, turns out to be paralysed, frozen before the challenge of modernity, the proposal of development and the relative infrastructurisation of the territory, which the current globalisation processes are imposing. The initiative includes a series of meetings with some landscapists, lecturers from the Masters in Landscape Architecture UPC-ACMA and interpreters of the main international experiences, which are open to the public. These meetings will be a moment of exchange and comparison on themes which are becoming increasingly topical, not merely for technicians and professionals in the sector but also for stimulating a widespread awareness in the people who must necessarily share the collective landscape assets.
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Alternative / Milano. Comparisons, proposals, images and projects for the possible faces of the city. Milan 2012
Milan is experiencing a moment of decisive choices for the construction of its future image. The big building projects triggered off by the estate groups are rapidly changing the face of entire parts of the city, whose skyline is ever more connoted by the most varied and original skyscrapers. However, these interventions as a whole appear to be the result of disjointed estate evaluations rather than articulate urban redesigning. Nonetheless, large spaces are still available for the characterisation of new areas of the future city. From resolving environmental emergencies to designing new infrastructures, from creating the network of bicycle tracks to valorising the extraordinary heritage of the Southern Agricultural Park, from designing public spaces in the recently built residential neighbourhoods to creating new urban parks and betting on Expo: experts and local technicians, protagonists of the most significant international experiences, young landscapists and representatives from local institutions will discuss proposals and concrete planning formulations with the aim of involving the citizens in these choices offering a better future for the city of Milan.
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Public space / common space / shared space. Design Laboratory. Module 05 [150 hours]. Milan, spring 2012From condominium flowerbeds to gypsy camps: whether we like it or not our cities are made of shared spaces. Often in conflict, the various urban communities use the same public spaces according to their own needs which are continuously evolving. These spaces have been inherited form the eighteenth/nineteenth century city, producing a variety of anthropological phenomena resulting from this appropriation. Promiscuous use, partial or temporal, ambiguous and interstitial spaces, spaces of representation and conflict areas or of social control: the unpredictable variety we are up against obliges us to substitute our typological certainty (square, street, park, avenue, parking place) with a methodological approach of knowledge and investigation for a site specific solution. The means of intervention for the contemporary project are hence multiple, more attentive to the morphological structure and enacting staging of the city effect by using materials and techniques which are unexpectable for contemporary sociality.In addition to evaluating venues and themes of topical interest for the new image of the city of Milan during the build up to the Expo 2015 event, the laboratory will work alongside with landscapists, artists and architects who have repeatedly examined the theme of public spaces and of its new social meaning. [go to page]
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Sustainable Energy and Landscape. Design Laboratory. Module 04 [150 hours]. Milan, autumn 2012
Together with the limited availability of sources of fresh water and farmable soil, energy supply for the increasing consumption of advanced societies, and not only, will mark the choices of international politics for the next decades. In view of the decline in production from fossil fuels (whose deposits are running out), the worldwide energy industry has chosen the route towards a rapid re-conversion using advanced technologies in continuous evolution for the use of renewable resources. Sun, wind, water, soil and biomasses: a real race is taking place in technological research regarding production, widespread throughout the territory, of energy with a low environmental impact which coincides with new emerging subjects able to contribute to the local energy balance. New cultivations, wind parks, dams along rivers, canals for installation of hydroelectric microturbines and solar power plants are just some of the most evident elements which have been available for years now in our campaigns, often surrounded by conflicts.However, what impact may the spreading of new forms of sustainable production suitable for specific geographical characteristics of national territory have on the Italian landscape? [go to page]
