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An Ode on the Theme of Three
Beyond Adaptive Reuse.
Affordances (of) Architectural Typology
Gennaro Postiglione (Interior Architecture), Matteo Clementi (Environmental Architecture), Stamatina Kousidi (Architectural Design Theory)
Link to the PDF of the Studio Presentation [hold online on 24/07/2025]
1. SYLLABUS
The primary objective of this Interior Architecture Studio is to illuminate two pivotal insights into the complex, and often contradictory, nature of architectural design through experimentation with transformative building projects. The aim is to demonstrate, by means of design, that achieving typological clarity extends beyond simply meeting functional demands; it posits that this clarity is essential to architectural excellence and serves as a foundation for flexibility in future transformations. In other words, achieving high typological quality involves not only adapting structures to present needs but also fostering a design approach that anticipates and accommodates evolving functions and uses. These seemingly contradictory imperatives are central to our endeavour to enhance building quality, demanding a nuanced understanding of when and how architectural knowledge should be applied to cultivate appropriateness and excellence. Ultimately, this paradigm shift is crucial for fostering a built environment that aligns with the diverse needs and aspirations of contemporary society.
The second objective is to advocate for a renewed paradigm in understanding and designing resilience in architecture. It suggests that revisiting and updating the post-functionalist critique of Type as a foundational epistemology within architectural practice is essential for evaluating building quality. Enhancing architectural quality requires an understanding of how buildings succeed or fail. But this also necessitates examining the rhetorical devices and descriptions used to bridge physical form with sociocultural representation and its proclaimed urgencies, needs and aspirations.
Affordances, inherent in both designs and our perceptions, are validated over time through a building’s multiple performances. They exist physically within the structure and virtually within the design projects, ready to adapt as needed. Architecture plays a key role in activating these affordances, fostering "spatial resilience" by revitalizing spaces that might otherwise fall into disuse. Beyond physical adaptation, architecture’s cultural responsibility lies in harmonizing type and form while balancing and challenging functionality, aesthetics, and context in the built environment.
Considering a building’s shearing layers, the primary structural system can endure for centuries, while non-load-bearing walls, surfaces, furnishings, etc., are more transient in nature. The differing rates at which components of a structure evolve over time influence its affordances. Therefore, designing resilient and adaptable systems hinges on recognising and accommodating these varying rates of change. Clarifying the core structure and services of a building from a typological perspective facilitates easier adaptation to shifting needs without necessitating extensive overhauls. Conversely, elements such as interior spatial planning and decor can be modified more readily and frequently to meet evolving requirements or preferences. The concept that a building, or any complex system, can be divided into layers with distinct rates of change and adaptability significantly enhances potential affordances. The expansive nature of affordances contrasts sharply with ergonomic or behavioural design studies and approaches, vividly demonstrating how adaptive reuse in architecture intricately intertwines with design evolution over time. Cross-reading typology with cognitive psychologist James J. Gibson’s concept of affordances aims to clarify these design potentials. Affordances respond, on one hand, to the ecological and pedagogical imperative of bringing building adaptation more prominently into the design studio. On the other hand, the concept of affordances helps to define and sharpen an important update of architectural expertise. As Gibson explains, “An affordance cuts across the dichotomy of subjective-objective and helps us to understand its inadequacy. It is equally a fact of the environment and a fact of behavior. It is both physical and psychical, yet neither. An affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer” (Gibson 1979, 129). This novel perspective on the relationship between the built environment and human perception describes potential actions that the environment enables or affords to an individual, much like being tasked with adapting, renewing, or extending recurring structures. The concept of affordances seeks to understand how people interact with and experience spaces, furniture, or spatial elements and installations. In architecture, affordances refer to inherent qualities of a space or structure that open up numerous possible uses or actions for its occupants, rather than focusing solely on the physical attributes of a building. Gibson's theory emphasizes the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between the environment and the individual, moving away from a purely formal or aesthetic analysis of architecture and exploring how the design of a space interacts with human behavior and perception.
Architecture’s efficacy is crucial in offering and realizing these affordances, shaping designs that endure while accommodating a diverse range of functions and uses, ultimately achieving a form of "spatial resilience." This design principle embraces sustainable and efficient utilization of built environments, revitalizing structures that may have become obsolete or underutilized. Sustainability emerges as a primary driver of adaptive reuse, as architects contribute to reducing construction-related waste and conserving resources by repurposing existing buildings. This approach resonates with contemporary environmental awareness, minimizing the ecological footprint associated with traditional construction practices. However, the cultural responsibility of architecture extends beyond physical transformations and functional fulfilment in adaptive reuse contexts, striving always to achieve a harmonious relationship between typology and urban form.
Main course reference: A. Lechner et Alt., Architectural Affordances, Naples 2025 (selected essays)
Please, take your time to read the excerpt if you intend to apply to the studio.
2. STUDIO GOAL AND DESIGN STRATEGIES
Beyond Adaptive Reuse. Affordances of Architectural Typology is a Design Studio in Interior Architecture aiming at pursuing building resilience by architectural means (Architectural Affordances), namely, at promoting Typological Quality by deploying 3 of the following 6 Interior Architecture design strategies (and goals):
[INFILL Zero] - not for us now
Adaptive Reuse of an existing building by minimal functional alteration, mainly consisting in the introduction of furniture (to exploit its original typological quality).
Pre-condition: initial structure with robust typological quality.
Case study: Domenican Monastery, Mechelen; Postparkasse, Vienna; The Hospital de São Teotónio, Viseu; Provianda di Santa Marta; Casa Andresen, Porto; Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington D.C.
INFILL by Alteration
Adaptive Reuse of an existing building by altering and/or adding structures (to exploit its original typological quality). The building typology doesn’t change, but its formal structure does.
Pre-condition: initial structure with clear and robust typological quality.
Case study: Halles aux Blés, Paris; Water reservoir, Barcelona; Peveril Parking, London.
INFILL by Transformation
Transformation of an existing building by adding and/or transforming its structures (to improve its original typological quality or to achieve a completely new one).
Pre-condition: initial structure with generic typological quality.
Case study: Kesselschmiede-Halle 180, Winterthur; St Paul’s church, Stockholm; Fonderie SABIEM, Bologna.
ADDITION by Alteration
Transformation of an existing building by mainly adding volumes and structures (to reach a possible and convincing “completeness” of its original typological quality or to achieve a completely new one).
Pre-condition: initial structure with extra (hidden) potential typological quality.
Case study: Palazzo Gravina, Naples; School of architecture, Milano, Aerhotel Executive, Milan.
[ADDITION by Transformation] - not for us now
Transformation of an existing building by mainly adding or subtracting volumes and, eventually, transforming its structures (to achieve a completely new typological quality).
Pre-condition: initial structure with poor or generic typological quality.
Case study: Palazzo Madama, Turin.
[ADDITION total] - not for us now
Substitution of an existing building by adding volumes and/or heavy transformation of its original structures (to achieve a completely new typological quality).
Pre-condition: initial structure with poor or generic typological quality, or with no interest in its preservation.
Case study: Geldmacher Villa, Frankfurt.
3. STUDIO MAIN DESIGN ASSIGNMENT
We will assign a specific working site to every 3 groups: we have 9 different working sites.
The design work will be developed by exploring the following three disciplinary fields, and must adopt one of the three
Design Strategies (and related goals) highlighted above:
a) The Field of Typology
The Typological exploitation/transformation of the existent (according to one of the selected three Design strategies: INFILL by Alteration, INFILL by Transformation, ADDITION by Alteration).
b) The Field of Construction
The consequent (and related) Mastering of Materials and Construction Techniques (to develop the typological decision into structure, form and materials) by analysing the relationships between typology and local climatic conditions (via physical models supported by digital tools).
c) The Field of Architectural Ethnography
The search for possible Patterns of Occupations of their Spatial configurations (to exploit the affordances of the typological decision taken).
4. PRE-DESIGN EXERCISES & RELATED REFERENCES
4.a) TYPOLOGY
Texts to read (available in our Library folder)
M. Bandini, “Typology as a Form of Convention,” AA Files, 1984, 73–82.
R. Moneo, “On Typology,” Oppositions 13, 1978, 22–45.
A. Forty, “Type,” in Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Thames & Hudson, 2000, 304–311.
MAPPING TYPOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Typological exercise
(individual with a group coherence: each group has to cover all three selected possible Design Strategies).
Redrawing (by hand on tracing paper) the assigned Case Study to map its typological transformation and identify the adopted design strategy (edit a text, a drawing and elaborate an icon).
Texts to read (available in our Library folder)
A. Lechner et Alt., Architectural Affordances, Naples 2025 (selected essays)
E. Guidetti, The Potential of Form, Berlin 2025, pp. 32-42; 46-58.
K. Paschburg, Permutation as a Compositional Approach for the Adaptation of Building, Ghent 2024 (As Found Proceedings).
Images
A. Lechner et Alt., Architectural Affordances, Naples 2025
A. Lechner, https://counterintuitivetypologies.com
C. Voet, Mechthild Stuhlmacher, Affective Restoration and Typological Strategies, Ghent 2024 (As Found Proceedings)
Practices
Francesca Torzo, Genova
Johannes Norlander, Stockholm
Monadnock, Rotterdam
4.b) APPROPRIATING CONSTRUCTION EXPERIENCES
Construction exercise (individual with a group coherence: each group has to cover all three representations).
Redrawing (a Plan, a Section, and an Axonometry) a fragment of the assigned Case Study using pencil and tracing paper in scale 1/10 useful to testify the awareness of the construction processes and the different durability of the proposed artefacts.
Texts for consultation (available in the School Library)
Andrea Deplazes, Constructing Architecture, Materials Processes Structures. Birchauser, 2005.
Atelier BowWow, Graphic Anatomy. Toto, 2007.
Edward Allen and Joseph Iano, Fundamentals of building construction: materials and methods. John Wiley & sons, 2008.
Images
Jo van den Berghe, https://www.studio-anatomy.org
Flores & Pratz, https://www.prats.arc.usi.ch
AJDVIV, https://architectenjdviv.com
Practices
Albori, Milan
51N4E, Bruxelles
HARQUITECTES, Sabadell (Barcelona)
4.c) EXPLORING ARCHITECTURAL ETHNOGRAPHY/ARCHEOLOGY
Architectural Ethnography exercise (individual with a group coherence: each group has to explore one Pattern of Occupation according to INFILL zero strategy). Design three Possible Patterns of Occupations (one each student) of the assigned Case Study using pencils and tracing paper: Drawing in scale 1/25 of one room to show three different Architectural Ethnography/Archaeology usages of the selected space according to the three selected Patterns of Occupation.
Texts to read (available in our Library folder and in the School Library)
P. Briata, G. Postiglione, People, Places, Practices, Naples 2023
(Open Access: https://thymosbooks.com/People-Places-Practices)
M. Keijima, Architectural Ethnography, Tokyo 2018
T. Ingold, Lines, Drawings, the Human Condition, 2021
Images
MSc Thesis
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/5ohhybxflvazwcex6gunx/AAQEwm4wZNY3kdXvIeipdt8?rlkey=cun6yf0r2j14dhw3w3ygxhnfz&dl=0
Lab Report
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/kttra469cyhtif29h6kx2/ACQ-iEyvedT9mgMThkZ45qg?rlkey=dck2gbf5is9fdr8xvhfvgpcpx&e=1&dl=0
M. Keijima, Architectural Ethnography, Tokyo 2018
Practices
Atelier Bow-Wow, Tokyo
Niklas Fanelsa, Berlin
Construct.lab, Berlin
5. “3x3” LECTURE SERIES
3 lectures for each of the three themes (Typology Transformation, Construction, Architectural Ethnography)
On Typology (Transformation)
International Seminar on 19/09/2025
Andreas Lechner, TU Graz
Gennaro Postiglione, Politecnico di Milano
Elena Guidetti, Politecnico di Torino
Tobias Hentzer Dausgaard, PhD Cand., Aarhus University
Robbe Pacquee, PhD Cand., Antwerp University
Katharina Paschburg, PhD Cand., TU Wien
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TBC
DeVilde-Vink, Caritas Building, Ghent
Spridd, St Paul’s church, Stockholm
OnSite Studio, Aerhotel Executive, Milan
On Construction
H ARQUITECTES > TBC
51N4E
Albori
On Architectural Ethnography/Archaeology
Nelson Mota, TU Delft
Paola Briata, Politecnico di Milano
Michela Caserini, Politecnico di Milano
6. STUDY TRIP
Period to be defined together
Possible destinations and related offices:
Stockholm?
Spridd, Johannes Norlander/Joahn Celsing
Barcelona?
Peris+Toral, H Arquitectes, Flores&Pratz
Bruxelles/Ghent
AguwA, 51eN4, JDVIV
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Inglese