Collaborative Classroom

Sensitization of designers to the
needs of people with disabilities.
Application of experiences in
residential interior solutions in Milan

Agata Bonenberg, Barbara Linoweicka, Marco Lucchini

HOUSING ENVIRONMENT 45/2023 WSPÓŁCZESNA ARCHITEKTURA MIESZKANIOWA W PRZESTRZENI MIASTA / CONTEMPORARY HOUSING
ARCHITECTURE IN CITY SPACE e-ISSN 2543-8700 DOI: 10.4467/25438700SM.23.032.19132

Abstract:
The coordinated experimental and design activities presented in this article are dedicated to the topic of design for people with disabilities. They involve two dimensions. The first and most significant is to draw the attention of future designers and current Interior Design students to the challenges in using space encountered by people with disabilities. To achieve this, sensitization training (workshops) was conducted through simulated disability experiences. Personal experiences and the identification of real difficulties in accessing the surrounding space served as a starting point for design activities: solutions for residential spaces intended for use by people with disabilities in Milan along Via De Amicis. The projects were carried out in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano as part of the Collaborating Classroom initiative, aimed at jointly achieving educational goals in different
parts of the world using a shared digital environment and information and communication technologies (ICT). The basis for interior development was architectural projects created by students within Design Lab1 under the guidance of Prof. Marco Lucchini.
The subject of the architectural project was a five-story residential building, in which some units were fully adapted for wheelchair users, crutch users, or blind individuals. Changes, modifications, and improvements made by the students were based on individual experiences of simulating disabilities through the execution of organized tasks outlined in a proprietary accessibility questionnaire (Table 1, 2). Observations of movement, overcoming obstacles, using toilets, and other pieces of furniture were used to create non-obvious functional-spatial solutions linked to design solutions from the field of interior design and design.
Keywords: sensitivity training of designers, simulated disability, residential interior design

FLEXIBLE ARCHITECTURAL SOLUTIONS FOR INTERIORS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGES

Agata Bonenberg

Abstract:
The flexibility and multifunctionality of architectural interiors is of great importance in the era of dynamically developing economic and social situation. Increasing mobility and migrations within regions, countries and continents drive the demand for variable solutions that can be easily adapted to user requirements. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to introduce social distancing pose new challenges to living spaces. Their function began to go much beyond the private dimension of the home sphere. The text presents the author’s taxonomy of the susceptibility to changes of architectural space in the interior design process. Student projects carried out at the Faculty of Architecture of the Poznań and Milan Universities of Technology constitute an experimental activity that confirmed the validity of the assumptions.

A COMMON GROUND BETWEEN NEUROSCIENCES AND ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN: EMPATHY, EMBODIMENT, EMOTION

Agata Bonenberg, Marco Lucchini
DOI: 10.21005/pif.2022.50.B-01

Abstract:
In the last decade, the increasing popularity of neuroscience has involved architecture. Both neuroscientists and architects have endeavoured to understand how the experience of architecture works from the standpoint of cognitive functioning. This has been possible thanks to the neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI and discoveries like mirror neurons. These researches, despite their outstanding quality, are difficult to implement for what concerns the practice of architectural design. However, there is a common ground where architectural theory, phenomenology and neuroscience intersect, represented by empathy, embodiment, and emotion. They are the frame of the awareness of space and the counterpart of the visual perception. The main goal of design is to make the living space but to take a meaning, it has to be the “negative” of the human body. This process comes into existence through “old” tools, i.e. the mentioned empathy, embodiment, and
emotion. Still, they can get a new meaning if their traditional hermeneutic is blended with the latest knowledge provided by neurosciences.
Key words: Neuroscience, Empathy, Embodiment, Emotion, Space, Phenomenology

Home Office: Working and Studying Spaces
in Residential Interiors during
and after Forced Social Isolation

Agata Bonenberg, Marco Lucchini
HOUSING ENVIRONMENT 39/2022 WSPÓŁCZESNA ARCHITEKTURA MIESZKANIOWA W PRZESTRZENI MIASTA / CONTEMPORARY HOUSING
ARCHITECTURE IN CITY SPACE e-ISSN 2543-8700 DOI: 10.4467/25438700SM.22.016.16594

The influence of global lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the lives of many people. Once performed elsewhere, many activities had to be moved to private spaces of individual homes, influencing how people use their residential space, modifying their living and working conditions. The purpose of this study was to research the changes in the use of residential space through questionnaires addressed to respondents in five age groups (up to 25, 26–35, 36–50, 51–65, and over 65), and living or studying in the Milan area (Lombardy)—an area affected severely by COVID-19 in the period March–May 2020. The obtained questionnaire results allowed the authors to create a set of guidelines for apartment design, intended to improve their spatial performance. The observations made when creating the case study projects led to two main conclusions: First, at the level of the house plan, the arrangement of the plan should be free and adaptable, al-lowing for fast alteration by the user. Second, the project should be tailor-made, highly specialized, and purposefully designed at the level of home office design, including appropriate furnishings, technical appliances, and lighting systems.

Key words: residential architecture and interior design; social isolation; lockdown; COVID-19 pandemic; working and studying routines; creativity

Accessibility of spaces for learning

Agata Bonenberg, Barbara Linowiecka
DOI: 10.21005/pif.2023.55.F-01

Abstract:
The purpose of the presented research is to identify problems with the orientation and accessibility of the fragment of the “Warta” Campus at Poznan University of Technology and the building of the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Management Engineering (WAWIZ). The new, almost zero-energy building designed by Prof. Sławomir Rosolski meets ecological and pro-environmental requirements to the highest degree and combines them with the perfection of the building’s archi-tectural form. The scope of the ergonomic research conducted concerns access to the Warta Campus from the nearest public transportation stop, the route to the WAWIZ building running through the campus, and the first floor of the building. The scope of the research and accompany-ing workshops also had an awareness-raising (socio-educational) character, ending with a discus-sion, and were preceded by design classes, where methods were discussed. The results of the accessibility study allowed the identification of the four most significant measures to eliminate exist-ing limitations. The research focused on architectural accessibility only.
Keywords: accessibility, ergonomics, education building, visual identification.

Space Shape Idea

Agata Bonenberg, Marco Lucchini
SPAZIO FORMA IDEA. ZAPIS DYSKUSJI AKADEMICKIEJ O IDEI ARCHITEKTURY WSPÓŁCZESNEJ – NOTY Z SEMINARIUM NAUKOWEGO

Abstract:
The previously unpublished part of the project “Cultural and demographic factors in shaping the architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries” is the dissemination of the results during a Polish-Italian scientific seminar; This reporting article is devoted to this issue. The Spazio Forma Idea scientific seminar was held in May 2021 on the initiative of the director of the Institute of Interior Architecture and Design WAPP, prof. A. Bonenberg. As part of it, the speakers – professors of the Politecnico di Milano and the Faculty of Architecture of the Poznań University of Technology – gave lectures disseminating and developing research threads in the latest architecture.

Per una Nuova Casa Italiana

Prospettive di ricerca e di progetto
per la post-pandemia

Agata Bonenberg
Per una Nuova Casa Italiana

Prospettive di ricerca e di progetto
per la post-pandemia