Ivrea, a project for a dynamic landscape

Ivrea is today an original contemporary laboratory of different strategies in the cultural sphere, the enhancement of memory and the planning of cities in the process of transformation.
The school’s opportune location in Ivrea comports important and varied stimuli: the possibility of immediate encounters with a high quality of architecture and construction that is unparalleled in the Italian and International context, due to the presence of the rich heritage left to the city by the Olivetti company; the city’s welcoming attitude towards the original cultural debate arising from themes central to the school’s program; and sensitivity to themes of higher education and advanced research.
Through laboratories, lectures and conferences, events and visit itineraries, the summer school proposes to develop analyses, projects, strategies and policies that aim to provide suggestions and ideas for the transformation of the landscape of Ivrea and Canavese, springing from the originality of the learning experience in progress and, at the same time, with the goal of utilizing the case of Ivrea as a focal point for a more general elaboration. The school is conceived as an important opportunity for more than merely cultural exchange with the City of Ivrea on themes of contemporary architecture, drawing citizens into the debate on the organization of the landscape in which they live, and proposing itself as a laboratory of ideas, proposals and experimentation for future prospects, essential for technical, administrative, economic and cultural decisions in the local sphere.
With its program, the school intends to underline the need for an interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach to the themes of the transformation of the city.
At the basis of this proposal is the awareness of the continual process of transformation of the city and the territory, which, in order to be recognized and stimulated, requires continual investigation of the cultural, social, economic and institutional background that impacts the city, and of the roles played in this process by the knowledge of the various parties that contribute to making architectural planning the instrument for constructing images and forecasts of the city’s future.
Each year, the school will present a program targeted towards reflection on a general theme, which will stimulate the project’s various levels: the theoretical and technical tools and materials offered by various disciplines for recognizing and managing existing uses and inferring compatible potential uses; strategy analysis, evaluation of cultural processes and policies in force to deal with transformation and the planning of a new urban, natural and cultural landscape.

The school will welcome Italian and foreign university students who have frequented at least the first year of a specialized degree. The school is also open to doctoral students in architectural planning, urban planning, architectural history and conservation, architecture and urban planning history, environmental and cultural assets management and construction materials technology course. Also eligible to register are those who already have professional experience in sectors that guarantee the critical tools necessary for participation in the school.
At the end of the course, an attestation of participation in the summer school will be issued. Course attendance and evaluation of the project developed will give students the right to 4 ECTS credits. For accreditation of the course within the student’s own plan of study, 100% attendance at lectures is required.

The school is promoted by the Department of Architecture and Planning and Milan Politecnico with the City of Ivrea and the Adriano Olivetti Foundation.

Lectures will be held in Italian and English.
News about laboratories, lessons and conferences are published on the school website: http://www.issivrea.it.

Admission procedure
In order to guarantee the quality of teaching the type of exchange necessary for the success of the laboratories, the number of students is limited to 24. Applications must be sent by July 7th , 2009 using the attached form in the website, along with the following documentation:
- a letter of recommendation from an instructor assessing the student's personal qualities and academic achievement as they relate to his or her ability to participate successfully in the course overseas
- a letter of motivation
- synthesis of university work (courses and seminars, exams passed, activities)
- his or her curriculum vitae Selected candidates will receive communication of selection by e-mail by July 20 th, 2009.
- his or her curriculum vitae.

For further information:
www.issivrea.it