ROMA 3 UNIVERSITY- FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE –   Second semester 2025/2026

URBAN MORPHOLOGY COURSE

STARTING on 6th MARCH 2025 –  h 14.30,  Room Nicolini for information:  gstrappa@yahoo.com – https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/

prof. Giuseppe Strappa  –  arch. Rita Salamouni

AIMS OF PROCESS-BASED MORPHOLOGY COURSE

The course in UM, optional, in English, provides 6 credits and is open to all students, including Erasmus ones. The purpose of the process-based morphological studies proposed by the course, is the knowledge of the characters of the built environment and the recognition of its formation and transformation having as ultimate goal the architectural design open to multiple estetic synthesis.It aims to teach a method of reading the physical form of the city through the understanding of the forming process common to urban fabrics and buildings, The term “reading” not indicaes the neutral recording of phenomena, but an awareness which requires the active and dynamic contribution of the reader. The basic notions of urban organism and forming process will be provided.

 

COURSE STRUCTURE

The course will consist of:

1. a series of lectures (see schedule)aiming to provide the student, through the morphological/processural method, with the tools to read the built environment, historical and contemporary, having the architectural design as its goal.
2. some lectures given by external professors or experts, on complementary subjects.
3. “morphological walk”. Field surveys organized to examine the fabrics and buildings under study.

EXAMINATION

Students will be evaluated trough an oral test trough a presentation of the work carried out during the course on one of the themes included in the program or chosen together with the teachers. The student’s work may also contain a simple design proposal as an example of the theoretical study.The students will be free also to present their individual notebook and all the works they consider useful for evaluation.

COURSE REFERENCES

Base text in paper format

1. Salamouni, N. Scardigno, G.Strappa, Architecture in Becoming. Dialogues in Urban Morphology and Design. Springer, 2025

Base texts online

1. Strappa, L’architettura come processo, Franco Angeli, Milano 2015

The main chapters translated into English can be found on the teacher’s website (https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/) and are indicated below:

.              Notes on base building – https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/?p=8400

.               Learned language/everyday language

LEARNED LANGUAGE / EVERYDAY LANGUAGE

.               The aggregation process and the form of the fabric, https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/?p=8380

.               Special nodal building, https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/?p=8159

.               Architectural knotting, https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/?p=8414

.               G. Strappa, Territory as architecture, 2019 – https://www.giuseppestrappa.it/?p=8355