Diploma 20 investigates how architecture shapes the relationship between power and knowledge.

Architecture can be an instrument which represents a dominant class’s worldview, imposing territorial order, shaping subjects and organising resources. However, architecture is also a collective practice that mobilises protection and solidarity, shares mutual aid and knowledge, and offers the means to resist oppression and build forms of life based on care and co-operation.

The studiolo is the archetype of our method of investigation and design. In the 15th century, the studiolo was a small room in Renaissance palaces where the sovereign temporarily withdrew from political duties to construct a physical archive of books, artworks, instruments and curiosities that showcased erudition and therefore conferred prestige and authority. The unit reclaims the studiolo as a collective space wherein knowledge, techniques and tools are made available for a community of intents. Rather than imposing an order, architecture can embody the common ground where individuals identify with a collective and the collective establishes a relationship with the territory.

In the first term, students will select and engage with a collective subject and its territory, constructing an archive of texts, drawings, models, photographs and films. This collection of documents will become a brief for an individual project and will revolve around three formats: the map, the almanac and the scene. The map is an inquiry into the ecosystem of production in which the collective subject operates, charting geographies, resources and processes. The almanac organises the archive’s knowledge by questioning hierarchies between author, audience and producer implied in the project’s organisation and communication. The scene is an architectural interpretation of the subject’s relations with the territory; the platform where knowledge becomes an everyday practice of emancipation.

In the second term, we will produce physical models as a means of designing – rather than representing – the project. Using simple materials, we will develop architectures that act as spatial frameworks for collective practices of gathering and production. In the final term, we will use these models as scenographies for short films, weaving architecture’s materiality with narrative’s temporality.