Keywords

1 Introduction

The contemporary debate on the future of cities tries to respond to the need to make the built environment adaptable to the challenges posed by climate change by investing in redevelopment or the addition of new public buildings. Within this scenario, the university campus appears as a suitable urban element to promote a regeneration that must be rooted in a mature awareness of the environmental issue, orienting the design discussion towards issues such as the growing urgency of using effectively the available resources, in a respectful and resilient way.

In recent decades, there has been a growing awareness of the influence that the university campus has on the surrounding area, identifying in the dialectic with the city the tool through which the university, initially a passive holder of culture, can play, now, a primary role as an educational institution for sustainability.

The present contribution intends to bring attention to the potential of this urban complex by adopting the architect's point of view, and guiding towards a multi-scalar analysis that makes explicit how to make the built environment resilient and sustainable.

Therefore, the reflection will be dedicated to the definition of a correct approach, proposing dialectical ecologism as the manifesto of an effective response to the environmental issue that, although not yet structured as an objective judgement tool through which to scientifically evaluate the performance of architecture, it identifies the issues necessary for sustainable construction. In these terms, a brief discussion will be focused on some specific interventions carried out on two Milan campuses of the Polytechnic University of Milan, paradigms of an effective response to spatial and environmental issues.

2 Beyond Rhetoric. The Responsibilities of Architecture on the Environmental Issue

For more than half a century, the ecological question has been increasingly important in the development of architectural theories and projects, trying to counteract the negative impact that human artifice has on nature (Ingersoll 2009). Although it was initially raised as an ethical issue, sustainability has now become so widely recognised that it has become a dominant criterion in the evaluation not only of architecture, but also of all other practical disciplines. The need to act in this way is therefore undisputed, but the debate on how architecture can and must respond to sustainability remains open.

There are an increasing number of examples of architects whose projects limit their efforts to adopting new technologies as the only way to achieve the high energy and environmental performance standards required, and even more widespread are the cases in which architects see superficial imitation of nature as their passe-partout for an presumed, but often hypocritical, adherence to the logic of sustainability.

Thinking that an effective response to the ecological question can only be achieved through these attitudes reveals, however, a major shortcoming: architecture has always been a discipline interested in sustainability, whose contribution must primarily be sought in the form, orientation and relationship with the neighbouring context at various scales; nevertheless, there are many contemporary cases in which the identity and specificity of the place, which have always been fundamental to the definition of architecture, take a back seat, leading to a reduction in cultural diversity (Dematteis 2009) and an impoverishment of the built heritage; With such superficial attitudes, there is a risk that architecture will be emptied of its importance, leading architects to hide behind the “rhetoric of environmental sustainability” (Dematteis 2009) instead of encouraging actions aimed at conscious design. The challenge of sustainability to which architecture is called to respond cannot be extinguished just by creating zero-impact buildings, because this is not enough to build a sustainable city; the ecological footprint of a city must be measured through density and compactness, and through an idea of environmental comfort that goes beyond the limits of home spaces to create public spaces in compliance with a sustainable urban model. Architecture has the responsibility to trigger a real paradigm shift, through those criteria of accessibility, permeability and aesthetic durability which find, in form and in dialectic with the context, the main tool through which to become part of the built heritage.

3 University Campuses. From Heterotopias to New Urban Centralities

The greatest contribution architecture can make in terms of sustainability is, therefore, the promotion of urban regeneration, through an increase in density and a reduction in the ecological footprint: it seems reasonable, hence, to start again from those nodal elements with a public character and unexpressed potential which, instead of embodying the role of new urban centralities, still remain faithful to their image as Foucauldian heterotopias, that are isolated objects, with a distinct architectural identity and linked to function, which recreate a “space that is other, another real space, so perfect, so meticulous, so well organised” to be inevitably at odds with the city (Foucault 1986); a definition which also includes universities that have historically been established far from cities, due to the desire to recreate isolated and introverted communities of knowledge, in order to prevent their function, so encumbered, from affecting the urban conformation of the city. The strong expansionist growth, however, has led in most cases to the inclusion in the consolidated urban fabric of numerous campuses which, over time, have progressively broken down their boundaries, seeking a dialogue with the neighbouring city, through public spaces which transform the sites of the universities into engines of development and, therefore, into potential new urban centralities.

A similarly attentive approach is increasingly being adopted with newly founded campuses, for which peripheral sites previously used for industrial production—now abandoned—are often chosen and whose spaces are redeveloped to host new knowledge communities, proving to be a valid strategy for redesigning public space and giving rise to new forms of peripheral centralities (Biraghi and Pierini 2016); in these places, borns a hybrid campus model (Postiglione et al. 2016), open to the city, which responds to the needs of the community, no longer composed exclusively of students and teachers, but also of the citizens of the neighbouring urban fabric. Universities, as Bernard Tschumi suggests, become “condensers of the city. Through their programmes, and through their spatial qualities, they accelerate or intensify a cultural and social transformation that is already underway”, and the task of architects is to foster, as much as possible, the interaction between campus and city, so as to propose “a model of living that rediscovers urban values at the local scale, that is ecologically aware and conscious of the need for local connections” (Guidarini 2018).

4 Dialectical Ecologism: A New Methodological Setting

The choice of the site therefore proves to be an important first decision in terms of sustainability. The desire to work for grafts on existing university campuses and the decision to regenerate large disused industrial spaces to host the new sites reinforces the desire to trigger spontaneous regeneration phenomena, a very effective response if we consider that university campuses are able to recreate a network of relations in the peripheral areas. It is enough to think about this simple assumption to reflect on the fact that the criteria with which the performance of university campuses is currently assessed reveal a general lack of interest in the specific contribution of architecture, looking instead only at contributions in terms of energy and environmental performance—equally important, but not holistic in defining the contribution architecture can make to the construction of a more ecologically responsible city; and it is precisely this first reason that has revealed the need to define a new methodological setting within which to assess the architectural performance of university campuses.

The method presented here, which is still in the process of being developed, is called dialectical ecologism and aims to define the first guidelines which, through a multi-scalar approach, respond to the urgencies of ecology by basing its contribution not only on economic, energy and environmental choices, but also on architectural ones. The challenge is to provide a method capable of guiding towards an effective, rather than efficient, design logic (McDonough and Braungart 2002) by shifting the focus to the achievement of objectives such as creating healthy, sustainable urban habitats with a propositive response to environmental issues. The strategic design framework presented here defines the design themes to be investigated at different scales:

  • Relations with the city at the territorial planning scale. Starting from an analysis of the quality of the consolidated urban fabric, it will be possible to identify areas where the abandonment of old industrial sites and peripheral location will be the key elements in deciding where to build new university campuses, which will become spaces serving the neighbouring city, that lacks services and needs regeneration;

  • The dialectic between the campus and the neighbouring urban context. The typological analysis of the context and of the scale of the neighbouring urban structures will provide the tools through which to start designing the new university complex, so that it does not become an out-of-scale element. In these terms, there has already been a tendency to abandon the image of the campus based on the hospital citadel model, in favour of the construction of autonomous and identity-driven buildings that at times suggest a “discordant landscape, an assemblage of quality architectural objects on a programmatically open surface” (Biraghi and Pierini 2016). Reflections on issues such as the environment, and thus on the ecological footprint of the building and the ability to promote urban and social regeneration should then follow;

  • Quality of the architectural complex. This parameter is measured on the basis of the heterogeneity of the spaces and the amount of green and open spaces present. At this scale, the university complex should be concerned with providing services to the city, such as sports facilities, green areas and recreational spaces so that the campus can become an integral part of the urban fabric. Attention is also paid to the economy, under three headings: the promotion of a circular economy, the search for an economy of means—which is reflected in the choice of local materials and prefabrication techniques—and economy of language—in other words, the definition of buildings without unnecessary superfetations or decorations;

  • Choice of materials and technologies. The challenge lies in the ability to use new technologies that contribute effectively to the fight against climate change without degrading the language of architecture. It is therefore a question of building a new architectural artefact which has a language coherent with the tradition of the place, but which at the same time is a synthesis of zeitgeist (spirit of time), making the best use of new technologies.

5 The Milanese Paradigms of the Polytechnic Experience

This is the background behind the action taken by the Politecnico di Milano, whose two campuses in the homologous city offer themselves as paradigms in terms of regeneration, valorisation and urban redesign, taking their first steps from profoundly different evolutionary histories and identities (Faroldi 2020).

The Campus in Città Studi, built in what was then the Milanese countryside, has progressively broken down the boundaries of the hospital pavilions, expanding northwards in the second half of the twentieth century with new buildings that went along with Gio Ponti's innovative vision of a school open to cultural exchanges and dialogue with the adjacent context, and welcoming the recent mending action proposed by Renzo Piano's studio and implemented by Ottavio di Blasi and Partners, and the intervention conducted by the Vivi.Polimi group. This last renewal, radical in its paradigm shift but delicate in its terms, has contributed to rediscovering the existing building, consolidating its historical and architectural value and giving back to the city a campus with new values, from which emerges an idea of a campus with greater density, whose mending sees its maximum expression in the quality of the semi-public space, open to the community, in the regeneration of the external spaces, until now scarcely used, and recreating a system of interrelationships between pre-existing and empty spaces able to accommodate the new buildings (Faroldi and Vettori 2021), responding to the growing need for dialectic between the campus and the neighbouring urban context (Figs. 77.1, 77.2 and 77.3). Even the choice of materials and technologies used, which have reduced the language of architecture to its essentiality, have supported the vision of a “new poetics of building” (Piano in Irace 2021), representing a natural extension of open space rather than an antithetical relationship with it (Faroldi and Vettori 2021).

Fig. 77.1
A photograph of the exteriors of a glass building. Multiple benches are randomly arranged near the trees.

Leonardo Campus, Polytechnic University of Milan, photographer Marco Introini

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Fig. 77.2
A photo of a wooden building with a glass window at the center. There is a tree beside it.

La Masa Campus, Polytechnic University of Milan, photographer Marco Introini

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Fig. 77.3
A photo of a university campus surrounded by trees and benches.

Bonardi Campus, Politecnico di Milano, photographer Marco Introini

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Equally valid is the approach used for the La Masa Campus, located in an area still on the periphery of the city: here the large abandoned industrial buildings, which bear witness to the area's historical and industrial past, have undergone a significant transformation since the second half of the 1990s, when the Politecnico di Milano settled in the area, building teaching spaces and regenerating the existing heritage, thus triggering policies of social, economic and productive change in the neighbouring territory as well (Faroldi 2019). La Masa Campus is in continuous evolution, within a framework that is extremely dynamic and receptive to new stimuli. The last element to be built is the Collina degli Studenti (Figs. 77.2, 77.3 and 77.4), a project created by the Vivi.Polimi group, conceived as an open space for students and teachers to socialise, which takes on the appearance of a university infrastructure, seeing it as an element capable of connecting different urban functions and insisting on its social and educational role in sustainability. In the area in which this project stands, primarily lacking in vegetation and identity, a programmatically complex building has been inserted, whose use of materials recalls the historical and industrial identity of the place, and whose transparencies permit a more direct relationship between the internal, collective space and the green hill outside, also a place of encounter and exchange. From an anonymous contextual space, the new building has been able to transform itself into a centrality for the entire Campus, also contributing in terms of sustainability, fighting to reduce the existing heat island.

Fig. 77.4
A photograph of a university campus surrounded by trees, lawns, and benches.

La Masa Campus, Politecnico di Milano, photographer Marco Introini

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6 Conclusions

The latest projects on the two Milan campuses support the vision of a dialectical ecologism, in that the Politecnico di Milano's contribution does not end with the creation of new high-performance and/or zero-impact buildings, responding only “passively” to urgent environmental demands, but seeks to adopt a truly sustainable approach, capable of becoming a manifesto of the demands of the new generations, thus becoming the bearer of a paradigm shift that sees its highest dimension in its relationship with the city and in the creation of new centralities. Universities can no longer be seen as cumbersome portions of the city, characterised by monofunctional spaces that blend into the urban fabric: they must also commit themselves to actively contributing to the development of the city. It must be recognised that the main contribution architecture can make in terms of sustainability is to be found in its strong social vocation, and that therein lies the potential for urban regeneration through which it is possible to contribute to the creation of healthy, sustainable habitats.

Universities, hence, as a paradigm of a design education that sees architecture as its noblest tool.