We are currently at a stage in history where we finally understand that we cannot continue consuming land endlessly for new buildings and occupying new territories, Deputy Dean of the School of Design and Architecture at ADA University and associate professor at the dASTU department of Politecnico di Milano, Marco Bovati, said during the event titled “Housing and Education: The Role of Living Space in Architectural Curricula” held within the framework of the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku.
He noted that after accepting this reality, it becomes important to work with the idea of redeveloping existing residential areas, for example, in Baku:
“In this case, it is important to understand the hidden qualities of those areas, initiate processes that will strengthen them, and preserve important documents and traces related to the country’s recent and distant past.”
Bovati also spoke about the connection between the housing crisis and spontaneous constructions:
“When we talk about spontaneous settlements, we actually acknowledge that they were not designed. If they are spontaneous, it means they were not planned. In that case, how can we teach how to design something that was not designed? But this is an extremely important issue. Because architectural and design education is not only about teaching how to draw a good plan or design good furniture. It is also about understanding the social side of design processes. That means learning how to work with communities, understand their needs, and operate in environments where spontaneous processes are sometimes stronger than planning itself.”
