Representing Abundance

1.5 units

Architecture requires significant investments of energy, and for this reason buildings always symbolize social priorities. What should be done when these priorities change? The Florentine palazzo building type was developed in the early Renaissance as a means for an emerging entrepreneurial class to give back to the public realm through urban magnificence. This seminar asks students to transform the facade of a palazzo to match contemporary agendas. We will do site surveys and build catalogs of ornamental details, and we will create new ornamentation and functional facade elements using generative AI. Readings and discussions will help clarify what has changed since the Renaissance, how architects can engage this history through aesthetics, and how ideas about the future of housing can be represented architecturally. The seminar will culminate in a speculative adaptive reuse project of re-skinning a palazzo using generative elements.