A Shift in Teaching Architectural Design Studio: Adaptative Reuse and Retrofit as the Main Focus to Prepare Students for Complex Challenges of a Changing Profession

Abstract

“The greenest building is the one that already exists”, Carl Elefante stated in 2007). In the last few years, this statement has been strengthened and the approach to sustainability in architecture has been focused more on understanding and decoding the potential and complexity of the existing built environment. To confirm this trend, in 2021 the Architecture Pritzker Prize was given to Lacaton & Vassal, whose mantra is “Never demolish, never remove or replace, always add, transform, and reuse!”. Considering this crucial shift in the profession, we need to adapt our teaching and equip students with specific tools to deal with this complex scenario. Re-use and retrofit are never an easy task and the constraints the existing building generates are an expression of the complex changing world. This new layer of complexity needs to be implemented in studio teaching to allow students to decode, investigate and take decisions after an existing artefact and contribute to the reduction of carbon emission and waste production. Since 2018 the research/teaching group (made of academics and professionals) tackled this issue in an integrated way where design, sustainability and technology, run across the semester in an interconnected delivery. From the appraisal of the existing building to the final scheme, fostering their peer-to-peer learning, students are teamed up stressing the potential of this fully integrated approach. Their final resolution is a design proposal informed by this wider complexity and able to improve and decode the world we are living and alongside this preserving its cultural values.