The course consists of three parts. The first part explores the complex relationship between city and local society not only declining it in the present but also in the past, so that to gather the historical stratification of the cities. A typology of urban forms is proposed, correspondents to well-defined waves of European urbanization: the Roman-, medieval-, Renaissance-, industrial-, fordist-, post-fordist- city. For every of these forms we show the link among: the factors producing the wave of urbanization; the physical structure, the size, the architecture of the city; the social structure; the space distribution of the different classes; the mobility of the inhabitants. We besides analyze the forms of government (the transition from “government” to the “governance”), the urban policies (the urban renewal on a large scale projects and the integrated policies) of the contemporary city.
The second part of the course illustrates some of “enlarge design” experiences, in which the architect / urban planner is supported by other professional figures as the sociologist, the anthropologist, the economist, to better control the social implications of the project activity.
The third part of the course, offers, finally, tools and methods, coming from the social sciences, to face the issue of the relationship among the architectures and their “users”. In particular, the “post-occupancy evaluation” methodology will be introduced.