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Academics:
Building Envelopes & Building Systems. Studio Workshop, Winter 2013. UCLA, Los Angeles, CA. Given the position of a buildings structural members and devised building system in which a strategy has been established for solar protection, students developed concepts for the building Envelope and Enclosure. Through a specific set of criteria the workshop pursued to identify the major facade strategies to develop further through particular material choices. (Visiting Professor: Ilaria Mazzoleni; Faculty: Mack Myers Predock Refuerzo/Coffmann)
Building Science Master's Thesis. Master Thesis, Spring 2013. USC, Los Angeles, CA. As a thesis advisor the we review the scientific method in general and as it applies to each thesis topic, considering the value and impact of investigative tools in the process and product of Architecture. (Visiting Professor: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
A Sustainable Community at Tait Ranch. Vertical Studio, Fall 2012. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Recently we saw another hurricane (Issac) hit the southeast USA with a force that was greater than human resistance or defense. What we witnessed was an intense interaction of land – water – people. The studio focuses on an Educational Village for an inner city organization with a mission to educate at-risk youth with a trans-disciplinary curriculum of arts, science, humanities. The site at Tait Ranch will allow this organization to experiment with new curriculum concepts and delivery that will enhance and expand their current mission. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni, Michael Rotondi) - Syllabus
Environmental Studies II. Applied Studies Seminar. Fall Semesters. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Environmental systems for buildings, both active and passive, remain a rather unsolved research pursuit within architecture, even some 40 years after the architectural historian and critic Reyner Banham lamented the fact in his book, The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment. This seminar focuses on understanding and applying the key technical principles of fundamental physics and environmental design for air, light, and sound, using core texts and material from architectural discourse, building science research, and case studies of significant buildings. (Faculty: Russel Fortmeyer, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Design Is One – Milano, Italy. 3 Elective Seminars Field Trip. Summer 2008-12, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Organized more like a field trip than typical academic course, during their visits to Milan, Bologna, Torino and Modena students learned about the development of design fields through a series of site visits to world leading Italian design factories, designer studios and cities that shaped the design field at large in the past centuries. The starting point for the seminar was the 2008 Milan Furniture Fair, the most important European annual event that hosts the protagonists of design from all around the world in the city of Milan for the launch of their new products. The so-called Italian Style and its way to choreograph the city at different scales has been the unspoken protagonist of the seminar: the class explored how contemporary design disciplines are merging in new ways from the spoon to the city and defined the professional figure of the architect as someone who could and would design buildings, cities and objects with the same involvement. (Faculty: Elena Manferdini, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Bio-Inspired Materials. Elective Seminar. Spring Semester. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The seminar undertakes an in-depth analysis of bio-inspired materials, starting from the understanding of what constitutes matter and materials. The emphasis is upon the research of bio-composites and bio-materials. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Gull-wing Airplane Fuselage Design. Workshop. Spring 2011. USC, Los Angeles, CA. This workshop, in collaboration with Professor Geoff Spedding, from USC Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, focuses on the development of an airplane design inspired by seagulls. During the workshops students learn about the design of the seagull inspired airplane and focus then on the optimization of the internal airplane layout along with the design for the interior layout of cabin to accommodate passengers. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni, Geoff Spedding) - Syllabus
Advanced Building Systems. Applied Studies Seminar. Fall / Spring Semesters. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The seminar focuses on the understanding of intelligent design techniques used to optimize building performance throughout its life, in an integrated and holistic manner. The course content includes active and passive building systems as they apply to the overall site, building envelope and façade, building environmental control systems and conveying systems. (Faculty: Jeffrey Landreth, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Biomimicry I & II: Building Envelopes - Materials & Technology. Elective Seminar. Fall / Spring Semester. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Today, we design and engineer dynamic systems to mediate the interaction between man and nature. By learning from nature we can greatly enhance our design abilities and interface with the environment in a more sophisticated and less invasive way, creating a more intelligent way of living. These seminars focus their attention to materiality and building technologies that, while continuing to learn from nature, can be used to design and build architectural envelopes that use nature in a structural and performative way. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus I, Syllabus II
Beyond Panelized Surfaces. Workshop. Fall 2008-2010. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. This workshop addresses issues related to the rationalization of complex building envelope geometries in relationship to environmental parameters. Students ambitiously manipulate an existing 3D parametric model focusing on optimizing the cladding Form, Pattern and Texture. The software of choice is Digital Project which provides unparalleled power on the control of Cellular Systems. (Faculty: Roberto Davolio, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Critical Mass: Exploring Design Solutions for Bike Sharing in L.A. Elective Seminar. Fall 2009. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Will LA develop a bike sharing program? Will the city "find the space" for bike lanes? Will Angelinos leave their cars to embrace the bike culture? Will we be able to live, perceive, observe and access our neighborhoods at a different speed? Will we be able to observe and "use" the city at a different pace?
These and other questions are analyzed, dissected, and observed to find strategies of implementation in the Wilshire Center District: the most forward-looking LA district in terms of sustainability. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
obeCity: The Fat of the Land - L.A. Productive Landscapes. Studio 2A, Fall 2009. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The studio explores the limits of the numerous and varied conditions, both physical and conceptual, that characterize a project site. The ambitions are to navigate these complex systems of information and strategically implement a full range of contextual relationships that both condition our experience and build our perception of our surroundings. (Faculty: Dana Bauer, Rob Ley, Ilaria Mazzoleni, Stephen Slaughter) - Syllabus
L.A. Heat - From Body Heat to City Hot. Elective Seminar. Spring Semester. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. How can focusing on heat then inform our own discipline? This seminar looks at it both as a productive means of reading the city as well as a generative tool in the production of the built environment. In order to do so "From Body Heat to City Hot" is organized as a research and design strategy seminar, tying together the perceptual, technological, organizational, infrastructural and formal aspects related to heat. (Faculty: Marc Frohn, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
BIOMIMICRY: Innovation in Architecture Inspired by Nature. Elective Seminar. Fall Semesters. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The seminar finds inspiration from the animal world and, through the analysis and understanding of specific examples such as spider nets, termites, polar bears, bees, birds, etc., translates the learned principles to the built environment.  (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni)
PubliCity. Studio 2A, Fall 2008, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. This studio will investigate the nature of publicness in the context of the city of L.A. In our re-search of a re-definition, re-interpretation or re-argumentation of what is public today in Los Angeles, where stereotypically individuality has been for many years considered the basis for design of any type of space, can we today start to re-consider and re-connect to the city in a different way? (Faculty: Marc Frohn, David Gerger, Ilaria Mazzoleni, David Ross)
LA must grow - WILSHIRE IS GROWING. Building on the top. Los Angeles, CA. Studio 3B, Fall 2007, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. We envision the future of the city as increasingly dense in multiform ways: not only taller buildings, not only closer together, but partial buildings, growing on top of each other, or from the side on another……Transformation, not demolition and reconstruction, is the proposed attitude for this studio. The e – gallery will focus on the contemporary topics related to the environment: urban, natural, sociological, and political. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
A L A M E D A C O R R I D O R - The Architecture of X Ecologies. Los Angeles, CA. Studio 2GB, Spring 2008, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The 2GB Studio begins with a simple premise.  Cities [yes, they start with a plan and yes, evolve through the complex efforts of planning and even, sometimes, urban design - especially with respect to infrastructural systems and certain elements] are the result of an accumulation of buildings.  If the makers of those buildings develop a set of ideas about the city past and city present, and visions about the city becoming, then the city may develop in ways that accumulate richness and allow for necessary variety and diversity as opposed to cancellation, reduction, and exclusion. An ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT resource center for the City of LA and its region is the program to be developed in this studio. (Faculty: Marc Frohn - Margaret Griffin - Ilaria Mazzoleni - Mary-Ann Ray) - Syllabus
Smart, Emerging, Sustainable Systems. Seminar, Fall 2005-08. SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The seminar is an introduction to sustainable design techniques, including an analysis of the construction process starting from material selection, use and dismantling of building components, and integration of the engineering systems.
Today, we design and engineer dynamic systems to mediate the interaction between man and nature. This course illustrates how emerging active technologies can assist and enhance the evolution of an energy-efficient society. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
miLAnxchangesCross Cultural Exchanges in Architecture & Design. Studio 4A, Spring 2007, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. The studio addresses the development of architectural design through the engagement with identified cultural differentials of new urban cultures emergent in Los Angeles and Milan. We like to think that we can, starting from the design of an object, arrive to the design of a building and its insert in the city fabric. (Faculty: Jean-Michael Crettaz, Ilaria Mazzoleni) - Syllabus
Fabbric(itt)a* : Urban Production. RE-MAPPING, RE-MAKING, and RE-TAKING ALAMEDA Cinema makes the City, Factory makes the City, Architecture makes Architecture,  and Architecture makes Cinema. Studio 4A, Fall 2006, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. This studio, Fabbric(itt)a, is about the interrelation between the city (citta’) and its places of production (fabbrica). Through the re-appropriation (re-taking) of the north part of the Alameda Corridor we will be re-thinking (re-making) the places of production and through a re-consideration of the role of these architectural spaces we will re-define (re-mapping) the role of this part of the city in the larger contemporary urban discourse. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni, Dwayne Oyler, Mary-Ann Ray)
Dynamic Architectural Systems: Emergent Integration and Performative System. Biotech Think Tank, La Jolla, CA. Studio 3B, Spring 2006, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. This studio will presume that great architecture, in fact, is an integrated symphony of all building systems, operating in a carefully choreographed manner on one hand, on the other is the relationship between the users and the building’s specific program. (Faculty: Ilaria Mazzoleni, Rob Ley) - Syllabus
Formworks: Sites, Contects. AMARC, Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson AZ. Studio 2A, Fall 2005, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, CA. Reflecting on and responding to a specific site will be considered over the semester as a way to prompt formal and technical investigations and ultimately as a means to locate a setting for locating for innovative architectural proposals.  The studio will be to design a visitor center for AMARC, based on our analysis of the site as both a physical fact (desert surface as aircraft storage facility) and a socio-political condition (airforce base as museum or artifact of the post Cold War era.)  (Faculty: Andy Ku, Ilaria Mazzoleni, Peter Zellner)