DOME, where pedagogy meets collaboration

A low-tech housing system by the students of School of Architecture collaborating with students of the Building School of Siracusa, and studio AION.

DOME, a collaboration between Professor Luigi Alini and AION, involves students from the Design Laboratory II at the Facoltà di Architettura (School of Architecture) and from the Scuola Edile (Building School) in Siracusa in constructing a 1:1-scale low-tech residential system. Brick arches, vaults and domes are the building blocks with which students experiment the potential for the innovative use of traditional materials and technologies. Within an educational framework, DOME is one of the few examples of integrated instruction in Italy with activities aimed at real professional training.

With this objective, the project experiments with the potential of unconventional forms of teaching in order to instruct students from the Design Laboratory under "real" operating conditions. These are concrete, objective conditions within which the project must be developed: site, function, budget, construction techniques, materials, client. The contributions of the business sector (ANCE, Building Fund) and professional training organizations (AION, Building School, Architects Association) were the natural completion to activities undertaken during the first semester in the classroom and during the second on site.

DOME, a collaboration among students from Siracusa's School of Architecture, the Building School, and studio AION.

It is an educational model that effectively opened the doors to the professional world for the students through interaction with the aspects of practice that they will face during their professional life. This model was set out in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Building School with the University of Catania, under the scientific direction of Luigi Alini.

The technique adopted for the construction of DOME is based on the use of the 'compass'—a method that the architect Fabrizio Carola has used for over thirty years in Africa, in particular in Mali. This method derives from traditional Nubian building techniques and from the experiences of Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. In fact, this educational/experimental site is also a tribute to Fabrizio Carola, "man of stone" as the Dogon of Mali call him—the man who, through his example, showed a way of finding a more balanced relationship between architecture and place within a vision in which research, education and profession are no longer separate domains. Through this experience, students at the Siracusa School of Architecture experienced a form of integrated "learning by doing" through direct experience of the factual aspects of "making architecture."

The project experiments with the potential of unconventional forms of teaching in order to instruct students from the Design Laboratory under 'real' operating conditions.

The project's construction technologies are framed by principles of energy efficiency based on the use of passive ventilation systems. Building system efficiency is also extended to the system's structural performance that is well suited to Mediterranean environments.

This experimental project, which saw architecture students collaborate with workers and professionals from the business and manufacturing sectors, closes the first phase of a research project that, beginning next year, will also benefit from the collaboration of researchers and industry experts working on similar programs at other universities throughout the world within a program of internationalization of the teaching and research activities of the Design Laboratory.

Project coordination:
Prof. Arch. Alini Louis, Siracusa School of Architecture
Arch. Andrea Di Stefano and Aleksandra Jaeschke, AION, Siracusa

In partnership with:
Building School, Siracusa
Building Fund, Siracusa
Archimedes University Consortium
ANCE—Siracusa
MAPEI
Material Design
Architects Association, Siracusa
ANDIL
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