TXP: Open to receive the collaboration, ready to provide it.

The exceptional circumstances in which we find ourselves lead to some reflections that I would like to share with our academic community. We have all faced these 2 months of segregation with courage and a sense of duty: nobody would have thought of facing such a catastrophe in his academic career.
The mother of all modern pandemics has revealed itself quickly and in just 100 days has travelled all over the globe aboard business class planes. The catastrophe knocked on our doors, overwhelming our entire interconnected system, forcing billions of people who have a roof to shut themselves up in their homes and the most derelict to wait for one of the inexorable disasters.
We are in an unimaginable situation until a few weeks ago, nor do we see how and when all this will end. People look at science with hope and therefore those of us who have useful skills in any discipline have thrown themselves into a desperate race against time to beat an invisible enemy that governments anachronistically try to shut off the borders of their countries while we know that will inevitably be crossed by the microscopic monster.
Today as never before we have observed the dark side of the overwhelming efficiency of globalization: this virus travels at a digital speed and we humans look like Palaeolithic pachyderms in comparison. Indeed we are, if only in the knowledge of the problem. The world’s scientific-technological powers, equipped with the most sophisticated technologies, are disarmed by the mysterious Covid-19 whose behavior we know almost nothing.
Causes, effects, mutations and immunities are unknown. Each cell of 7 billion intelligent beings is at the mercy of the invisible replicant with a speed equal to 1 carrier cell per 100 infected in 24 hours. The Mutant first takes his breath away then like a bomb explodes in the vital systems hitting the victim’s weak points. About 15% of those infected end up in intensive care, between life and death. The pandemic is lethal and in a bizarrely differentiated way it causes the death of up to a third of the serious infected.
Bill Gates in agreement with the opinion of many scientists had spoken of it at a conference on the web in 2015 and is now among the main contributors to the research. After their direct experience, everyone understands the value of the research and the time and opportunities lost in ignorance of the risk of the pandemic and its consequences. Now we face with another serious systemic risk: that of not adapting quickly to a completely different way of life and which involves a new organization and spaces designed differently to carry out human activities.
Modern living, the city, infrastructure and transportation in the time of Covid-19 proved totally inadequate. The invisible Monster forced us to slow down the physical rhythm and intensify the digital one. The educational and university spaces suddenly instead of welcoming places of knowledge have turned into places fraught with risks to avoid and we found ourselves remotely.
We must ask ourselves if research in this field has not been neglected and if today we are not paying the price on the skin of young people who on all campuses are deprived of a fundamental experience for their cultural, civil and human growth. We can certainly say that no discipline can fail to appeal against the pandemic and for the urgent need for remedies and safe solutions.
This observation comes from an architecture department but ranges from thinking to the whole community and reminds us of the importance of the cohesion of the academic body against the invisible danger that threatens not only our health and the economy, but also our happiness.
Open to receive the collaboration, ready to provide it.
Firenze (IT), May the 5th 2020

Maria Antonietta Esposito, Professor of Project Design Management #TxP_R #Dida #UNIFI

Le circostanze eccezionali in cui versiamo inducono alcune riflessioni che vorrei condividere con la nostra Comunità accademica. Noi tutti abbiamo affrontato questi 2 mesi di segregazione con coraggio e senso del dovere: nessuno avrebbe mai pensato di affrontare una tale catastrofe nella sua carriera accademica.
La madre di tutte le pandemie moderne si è palesata fulmineamente e in soli 100 giorni ha attraversato tutto il globo a bordo degli aerei in business class. La catastrofe ha bussato alle nostre porte travolgendo tutto il nostro sistema interconnesso obbligando miliardi di persone che hanno un tetto a chiudersi in casa e quelli più derelitti ad attendere una delle sciagure inesorabili.
Ci troviamo in una situazione inimmaginabile fino a poche settimane fa, né non si vede come e quando tutto questo finirà. Le persone guardano alla scienza con speranza e quindi coloro che tra noi hanno competenze utili in qualsiasi disciplina si sono gettati in una disperata corsa contro il tempo per battere un nemico invisibile che i governi anacronisticamente tentano di chiudere fuori dalle frontiere dei loro paesi mentre sappiamo che verranno inevitabilmente valicate dal microscopico mostro.
Oggi come non mai abbiamo osservato il lato oscuro della schiacciante efficienza della globalizzazione: questo virus viaggia ad una velocità digitale e noi umani sembriamo dei pachidermi paleolitici al confronto. In effetti lo siamo, se non altro nella conoscenza del problema. Le potenze scientifico-tecnologiche mondiali, dotate delle tecnologie più sofisticate sono disarmate dal misterioso Covid-19 del cui comportamento non sappiamo quasi nulla.
Cause, effetti, mutazioni ed immunità sono ignote. Ogni cellula di 7 miliardi di esseri intelligenti si trova in balia del replicante invisibile dalla velocità pari ad 1 cellula portatrice per 100 infettate in 24 ore. Il Mutante prima toglie il respiro poi come una bomba esplode nei sistemi vitali colpendo i punti deboli della vittima. Circa il 15% dei contagiati finisce in terapia intensiva, tra la vita e la morte. La pandemia è letale e in modo bizzarramente differenziato provoca la morte fino ad un terzo dei contagiati gravi.
Bill Gates in accordo con l’opinione di molti scienziati ne aveva parlato in una conferenza sul web nel 2015 ed ora è tra i principali contributori alla ricerca. Tutti, dopo la loro esperienza diretta comprendono il valore della ricerca ed il tempo e le occasioni perse nell’ignoranza del rischio della pandemia e delle sue conseguenze.
Ora ci troviamo di fronte a noi un altro grave rischio sistemico: quello di non adattarsi in fretta ad un modo di vivere completamente diverso e che comporta una nuova organizzazione e di spazi diversamente concepiti per svolgere della attività umane.
L’abitare moderno, la città, le infrastrutture ed i trasporti ai tempi del Covid-19 si sono rivelati totalmente inadeguati. Il Mostro invisibile ci ha costretto a rallentare il ritmo fisico ed intensificare quello digitale. Gli spazi educativi e dell’università improvvisamente invece che accoglienti luoghi del sapere si sono trasformati in luoghi irti di rischi da evitare e ci siamo ritrovati in remoto.
Dobbiamo domandarci se anche la ricerca in questo campo non sia stata trascurata e se oggi non ne stiamo pagando il prezzo sulla pelle dei giovani che in tutti i campus sono deprivati di una esperienza fondamentale per la loro crescita culturale, civile ed umana. Possiamo certamente affermare che nessuna disciplina possa mancare all’appello contro la pandemia e per l’urgenza di rimedi e soluzioni sicure.
Questa osservazione viene da un dipartimento di Architettura ma spazia pensando all’intera Community e ci richiama all’importanza della coesione del corpo accademico contro il pericolo invisibile che minaccia non solo la nostra salute e l’economia, ma anche la nostra felicità.
Aperti a ricevere la collaborazione, pronti a darla.

Firenze (IT), 5 maggio 2020, Maria Antonietta Esposito, Docente di Project Design Management #TxP_R #Dida #UNIFI

Corona (COVID-19) – Measures in European airport operations

(Foto by Tedward Quinn on Unsplash)

A picture on the status on March 25^th 2020 (last update April 27)

Authors: C. Boehner, M.A. Esposito, TXP Research Group at Florence University, Italy, 28 March 2020

Reported on airport homepage’s English Version on March 25^th 2020 (with updates until April 27)

To get a first idea of the different ways airport authorities all over Europe reacted on the implications of the so-called Corona or COVID-19 pandemic in 2020,

We generated a static check on all WWW-Homepages of the European Capital airports.

We are perfectly aware, that this does not cover all major air traffic nodes, but it offers a first superficial insight in the very different handling within the member stated on the one hand, ranging from exclusive emergency support to business as usual, and the variety of measures implemented by airport and public authorities to handle the crisis. It also shows, how much the different authorities could learn from each other e.g. copying single measures from other sites.

We divided the European Member State capitals from the rest of the European countries to show how close these countries are in some measures whereas others are far from being integrated.

The links implemented for the Airport Information on Corona correspond to position and content on March 25^th 2020. On many sites information may be updated frequently.

As next steps we are going to analyse these data in terms of best practices and try to generate a comparative set with Asian airport sites and sites from other countries. In the meantime we will monitor the European sites for changes during the pandemic and inform our partner airports and the relevant European authorities on the results in order to support the airport authorities as well as the controlling institutions with the development within the airports, measures which could help improve the situation at the airports and developing procedures for reopening and reaction to possible later waves of COVI-19 or other pandemic events. 

For more information about our current research please refer to the “living” project pages: Chapter 1 (Measures encountered on European air terminals), Chapter 2 (Data Analysis of measures), Annex 1 (Information published on the website of European capital airports from March 25 2020), Annex 2 (Selected Asian and Northern American and airports)

BIM, Safety and Infrastructure Design seminars

Two seminars are being held today in Florence at the School of Architecture of the University of Florence:

1. “Fire Safety Engineering nelle infrastrutture dei trasporti: le stazioni di Firenze Santa Maria Novella e di Torino Porta Susa” (“Fire Safety Engineering in transport infrastructures: the stations of Florence Santa Maria Novella and Turin Porta Susa”)
2. “Lo sviluppo progettuale della strategia antincendio in ambiente BIM: progettazione, costruzione e gestione”. (“The design development of the fire prevention strategy in the BIM environment: design, construction and management”.)

Both seminars are presented by Ing. Giuseppe Amaro (GAe srl, based in Turin) and propose a full immersion on the interaction field between BIM, Safety and Infrastructure design, using intermodal train stations as case study.

International experts, architects and students will focus and exchange ideas to provide a state of the art framework of current trends in the architectural and systems airport planning and design. The three aspects are interrelated and, in these three areas, methodologies and tools have been developed to support decisional processes regarding planning, design, operation and decommissioning of infratructures in accordance with European and international regulations.

“ABC – Tecnologie del Progetto di Architettura” is out now!

The first volume of the Airport Booklets Collection is out: check out our new release book on www.didapress.it

Authored by TxP Research | Technologies for the Project
Foreword by Arto Kiviniemi
Collection published by DIDApress – Unifi

 

 

 

Airport Design Lab presentation

Environmental Design Lab Presentation to the 4th Year students.

 

Redesigning GOA

Martedì 12 Giugno, presso la sala conferenze dell’Aeroporto C. Colombo di Genova, si è tenuta la presentazione dei progetti degli studenti del Laboratorio di Progettazione Ambientale, diretto dalla nostra Prof. Maria Antonietta Esposito.

La giornata ha visto il suo inizio al mattino, con i saluti dell’Aeroporto di Genova. Sono intervenuti il Diretto Generale, Ing. Piero Righi, il Direttore Tecnico, Ing. Marco Bresciani e la Progettista, Arch. Emanuela Tondo.

A seguire l’introduzione del Corso da parte della Prof. Maria Antonietta Esposito.

Si sono poi avvicendati uno dopo l’altro i 15 gruppi del Laboratorio, presentando le loro proposte progettuali per l’ampliamento dell’Aeroporto.

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AAT – Airport Architecture Technology exhibition

 

Exhibition Catalog:

 

Exhibition Teaser:

World Architecture Conferences – GENSLER Aviation & Transportation

Click on the link below to download the conference guest speakers career fact sheet:

Arch. Terence Young 

Arch. Sergio Valentini

The international seminar ADE – Airport Design Experience at ENAC

The Ente Nazionale Aviazione Civile (ENAC, National Civil Aviation Authority), as part of the framework agreement with the Università di Firenze – Dipartimento di Architettura, organized the international seminar ADE – Airport Design Experience – Practice and research methods approach dealing with industrial cases: Airports. The seminar is about the latest architectural and systemic airport design trends.

Airport Design Experience seminar, take off!

On Monday April 18th Airport Design Experience seminar started with the first session at the Rectorate of the University of Florence, with Prof. Richard De Neufville offering a lecture on the state of the art of Airport Terminal Design. The second session, aimed at the Industry was held in Rome on the subsequent day, paralleled by a third session dedicated to the students in the premises of the Department of Architecture of the Università degli Studi di Firenze.

More photos and videos will be added soon!

April 18th  – Università degli Studi di Firenze, Rectorate

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April 19th – Ente Nazionale Aviazione Civile, Rome

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April 20th – Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Architettura

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