Innovation in research: the challenge and activities in progress/ L'innovazione nella ricerca: la sfida e l'attività in corso

Front matter

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SCUOLE DI DOTTORATO

Part I — DOCTORATE IN CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY: APPROACHES AND RESEARCH METHOD

Theory as an engine of innovation. Strong point of doctoral reseatch

Inter-university research doctorates Gabriella Caterina

Doctorate teaching experience in Milan and Naples Virginia Gangemi

The doctorate in the Bologna Process Maria Antonietta Esposito

PART II — THE CHALLENGE OF INNOVATION Innovation in Construction Technology Lorenzo Matteoli

EU Strategies for Research and Innovation Ezio Andreta

The Future Of The Research Doctorate: a challenge for innovation, multidisciplinarity and the business world Interview to Mario Rasetti by Silvia Giordano

O. De Paoli, E. Montacchini, Innovation in research / L'innovazione nella ricerca, ISBN 978-88-6453-039-0 (online), ISBN 978-88-6453-036-9 (print), ©2009 Firenze University Press

Part III — Innovation In Construction Technology Doctorate: Osdotta_08

Innovation as culture: the new role of universities and research in innovative processes

Methodological Framework Mario Grosso 98

Topics and Results

1. INNOVATION OF DWELLING PATTERNS: BUILDING STRUCTURES

Moments of contemporary building, that is the architecture of dissonances Emilio Faroldi 104

The Metamorphoses of Dwelling — New Models of Dwelling, New Paradigms of Design Massimo Perriccioli 125

Innovation and quality of living Paola Boarin 137

2. INNOVATION OF LIVING IN THE URBAN AND REGIONAL SCALE

Tools for innovation of housing at a urban scale Anna Mangiarotti 150

Trans-scale and trans-disciplinary: motivations

Innovation of living forms

3. INNOVATION OF PRODUCT: MATERIALS, COMPONENTS, SYSTEMS AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

Product innovation: materials, components, construction systems and processes Fabrizio Tucci, Alessandra Zanelli 169

Sustainable technologies for the construction industry: eco-compatible innovation of opaque and transparent, massive and light products and components Fabrizio Tucci 171

Product Innovation and Innovation as a Product: Development Scenarios in the Construction Industry and the Role of Architectural Technology Alessandra Zanelli

Product Innovation Rosa Romano, Milagros Villalta

4. INNOVATION OF PROCESS: DESIGN METHODS AND TOOLS

Process innovation: planning instruments and methods Alessandra Cucurnia, Francesca Giofrè

Innovation in tools for support and for checking Irene Macchi

5. INNOVATION OF PROCESS: METHODS AND TOOLS FOR EVALUATION, QUALITY CONTROL, AND MANAGEMENT

Evolved organizational processes for the evaluation and management of the environmental quality of the project Elena Mussinelli

Methods and instruments of management and of quality valuation Oliviero Tronconi

Qualitative and quantitative instruments Giuseppina Alcamo

APPENDIX — Synthesis of doctorate research fot the 21° cycle

DANIELA Bosra!, GABRIELLA PERETTI’

Research and innovation

On the concept of innovation

The year 2009 has been proclaimed the European Year of Creativity and innovation. “The initiative aims at developing the importance of creativity and innovation, as key skills for personal, social and economic development. It also aims at sustaining the European Union in the challenging process of globalization. One of the issues that demands immediate attention is the environment, which as well as being a precious resource in need of the utmost care and protection, can also represent a strategic resource for economic development”.

Creativity and innovation contribute to economic prosperity and to individual and social well-being: this is the key message of the European Year of Creativity and innovation, that has as its main objective that of “promoting creativity through constant learning, seen as the engine of innovation and playing a key role in the development of personal, professional, entrepreneurial and social competences, as well as the well-being of all the individuals in society”.

The 2008 Osdotta seminar chose innovation as a theme for the doctoral candidates’ work, also taking into account the international outlook of this event.

It represents a thinking cap on the trends that have characterised research, particularly on technological innovation, in most recent years.

1 Politecnico di Torino. ? Politecnico di Torino.

O. De Paoli, E. Montacchini, Innovation in research / L'innovazione nella ricerca, ISBN 978-88-6453-039-0 (online), ISBN 978-88-6453-036-9 (print), ©2009 Firenze University Press

It also analyses current emerging problems in order to define a scenario of tentative objectives and to intensify a debate with external interlocutors. This is both a subject and a problem that has always stimulated out discipline and the research in the various scientific areas involved.

The theme of innovation is tied to the concept of creativity, intuition, invention and development. It is also deeply influenced by the socio-political and economic relations it emerges from. The newest element in a creative process today, compared with the past, is the fact of working in a team, where different skills, experience and tools meet and interact in a very complex process, whilst in the past the inventor was usually ‘alone’. When talking of innovation and referring to the field of architectural technology, we’re dealing with “a research for mediation between technical and scientific knowledge and the specific values of architecture. That is to say the social, psychological, anthropological, aesthetic and built environment aspects.” This mediation must in any case take place according to a rigorous methodological system that represents the specific element of our discipline”.

Invention, that comes from an intuition in its first phase, and is linked to creativity which characterises human beings, becomes innovation when exploited in a specific social, economic and environmental context, and engenders an idea of development. N. Rosemberg explains the passage from invention to innovation very well, saying that ‘in the prenatal phase of innovation’, a trajectory is set through the context where invention develops and proceeds on an arduous path of great complexity.

The general concept or innovation has also an economic origin as well as a technical and scientific one and lies at the basis of studies and entrepreneurial development strategies.

According to J. Shumpeter, whilst invention consists in perfecting a scientific type of knowledge, innovation also includes the circulation and use of innovation, be it a product, a process, services, organization or market.

Innovation can in fact take different profiles that become more specific and articulate depending on information and communication, but still with complexity as its main scenario, while research and development are its promotional tool.

Innovation, which may be considered one of the leading elements of the so-called “Lisbon strategy”, according to the general definition of the European Commission, consists in fact “in the production, assimilation and successful exploitation of new economic and social strategies” and can be reached through the “renewal and expansion of the range of products and services, together with the associated markets. It also coincides with the use of new productive methods, supply and distribution, the implementation of managerial changes both in the organisation and in the working conditions, as well in the qualifications of the workers”.

For the European Union, research promoted by what is commonly defined as R&D activity, provides a fundamental contribution to innovation, especially when tightly linked to the entrepreneurial world. Among the indicators to evaluate innovation, a important role is played by the investments in Research and Development, together with the number of patents and scientific publications.

As underlined in the European Commission Communication on innovation Policy: updating the European Unions approach in the context of the Lisbon strategy (2003), innovation is much more than just the successful application of the results of research, therefore innovation policies must not only focus on the relationship between innovation and research. The concept of innovation has evolved in time, moving from a linear model where research and development are the starting points, to a more structured and systemic model, where innovation is born and develops from complex interaction among individuals, organisations and their working environment.

The increase in the systemic nature of the innovation process and the variety of the roles that contribute to the making of and circulation of a new scientific and technological knowledge, allow us to apply the definition of “innovation systems” to groups of enterprises (both small-medium and big), governments (central and local), universities and public and private research centres. All of these participate together in the making of innovative processes (cfr. Preface, in F. Crespi (edited by), Annual Rapport on Innovation 2008, COTEC — Foundation for Technological Innovation).

Other than the close relationship between research and innovation in the entrepreneurial field, which leads to the so called technological innovation (of the process or product), that is to say innovation derived by research, according to the parameters of the European Commission, innovation can also be organizational. This would include novation in relation to commercial models, that admits that a new way of organising the working force in sectors such as work force management, distribution, financing or production can have a positive influence on competitiveness. The expression znnovation of presentation is used as a general concept that includes innovation in sectors such as design and marketing,

In general, innovation can be considered as the application on a vast scale of an invention, and can manifest itself in different ways, such as the exploitation of an invention that came from research or from re-proposing ideas, products or processes used in other sectors. This invention would operate by analogy, with “transference of fields”, as happened in the construction sector, i.e. in the application of industrial methods to construction.

As well as looking for new markets, with low technological impact innovations, ot of new commercial organizations, innovation can also re-use already existing and known materials.

This is an implication of technological innovation that is largely applicable in the field of architecture and gives ample room to research.

The theme is not new in itself, as can be seen in a 1931 issue of “La Casa Bella”. Compressed straw panels were accompanied by such words as: “among the materials that help create a new and modern home, some ate but a modern and intelligent re-use of old and very common systems, simple and practical ideas that have been taken by contemporary technology and industry and launched on the market”. In those days the autarchic economic system was setting foot in Italy, and greatly encouraged research in the construction field.

These words seem particularly modern if we think of the research scenarios that environmental issues have prospected as solutions. On the one hand they are have a high technology content, exploring highly specific sectors such as nanotechnologies, on the other hand they repropose appropriately adapted traditional technologies and materials, such as straw, earth, wood, with an almost direct passage from tradition to innovation.

The relationship between research and innovation

The basis for a research activity must be, without doubt, an original starting point, dictated by the intuition of a new unexplored direction that will lead to innovation. In this sense a tight relationship between research and innovation can be established. When starting a research, the first operative phase consists in a detailed analysis of the state of the art on the topic we want to study to acquire the knowledge of unexplored spaces of the theme which is of particular interest to us. Another interesting aspect of the research-innovation combination is that when a research is started, and with it a process, starting from the questioning phase, we don’t know what the next step or the results may be, but a methodology is established in the first place, and we can only just catch a glimpse of the field in which results will be found.

Because of the sum of aspects in the field of research and innovation it is necessary to have courage and a vision of the future that must be different from the standard one. We need to explore the potential of new knowledge and accept the influence of imagination, which are all elements that are tightly tied to the concept of creativity and intuition.

In the field of research the final phase is also important, that is to say the circulation of the results. It is especially important for results not to remain within the walls of the academic world, but that there should be a real and profitable circulation of results specifically because of the lapses that they may otherwise encounter in future strategies. Of course, methods and means of publicising vary according to the context, but rely more on the production market rather than the public sector or specific private sectors. The theme of the circulation of research results is tightly connected to the role of the various purchasers who constitute the first interlocutors for researchers. During the Osdotta seminar, we tried to tackle this theme because of its great importance, and to bring doctoral candidates to test themselves and the products of their research with possible purchasers.

Even research method, a theme that has been largely debated by doctoral candidates during this seminar, is of great importance.

Considering the two theories of planning and design of innovation, that is to say the principle of — demand pulland technology push, according to which innovation derives either from a market demand that stimulates it or by the research itself that increases knowledge and proposes it to the market, it is obvious that, given the complexity of the theme of innovation, the two theories coexist.

We must also take into consideration the fact that the construction sector is characterized by great slowness which is due both to the diverse responsibilities and by their distribution in time and space. Part of this slowness of the innovation process can also be ascribed to construction planning, by nature a conservative field, little informed and at times decidedly static, little inclined to give innovation new impulse. Another responsibility is due to a culture that is too specific in the industrial context. All these factors unequivocally weigh upon an innovative development in the field of architecture, and more generally in construction, and demonstrate how technological innovation must be born from a general knowledge that should also be intra-sectorial and must be nurtured with specific managerial tools to modify both the product and the productive process, the relationship between the firm, the business and the market.

The challenges that innovation research sets in contemporary society are also obvious in the themes of the research undertaken in the various research doctorates that deal with Architectural Technology. Further thought could however turn out to be useful, such as the reinforcement of interdisciplinary dialogue in the research work done by doctoral candidates (an interdisciplinary process in order to produce innovation — be it the product or the process — is nowadays inevitable and evident). Other points ate the accurate exploration of “technological places” to direct the choice of the theme, contact with productive reality and with the market, with its needs, its limits, its tendencies and the dynamics that distinguish it, and the comparison with an international or at least European perspective on research.

Learning by doing is possibly the method that is most suited to doctoral research in architecture: one learns to do research by researching, one learns more by mistakes than by success. We sometimes have to change course, to adapt to new conditions or “perturbations” with route changes that are also significant. We sometimes follow an idea without having verified that others may have had it before us... on the one hand the ‘rigour of the approach’ remains constant, on the other, poetic intuition still plays its role.

This is the challenge we must give our doctoral candidates.

Orio DE Paoti!, ELENA MONTACCHINI?

The experience of the fourth Osdotta seminar

The principal theme of the fourth edition of the Osdotta seminar, which was held in Turin from 10-13 September 2008, was innovation in research as seen through the methods used and the contributors reporting on the results of the research. In comparison with the previous editions there was an important new element in the final round table, namely that the session was opened also with the presence of three prestigious valuators who are external to the technology sector: professors Ezio Andreta, Lorenzo Matteoli and Mario Rasetti.

The purpose of the seminar was to overcome the self-referential characteristics that may emerge when the discussion remains purely within the discipline of Architectural Technology, and to be open to a different perspective determined by the analyses that the external invited valuators developed during the discussion which followed the presentation of the doctoral candidates’ work.

The program of the three days of meetings developed, as in the preceding editions, with discussions on themes defined in the preliminary meetings in preparation for the seminar, conducted by the doctoral candidates with the contribution of tutors and with the final presentation of the work and then the final round table that hosted the discussion and the verification of the three external valuators.

The text reports the results of the activities carried out during the seminar, defining the work of the different discussion tables carried

1 Politecnico di Torino. ? Politecnico di Torino.

O. De Paoli, E. Montacchini, Innovation in research / L'innovazione nella ricerca, ISBN 978-88-6453-039-0 (online), ISBN 978-88-6453-036-9 (print), ©2009 Firenze University Press

16 Orio De Paoli, Elena Montacchini out by professors, tutors and doctoral candidates and the contribution of supervisors external to the discussion on research and innovation. Moreover in the first part it contains contributions from various professors in the Technology area on several considerations pertaining to the research doctorates in our sector.

The publication is divided into three principal parts:

e Part I - Doctorate in Construction Technology: approaches and research method;

* Part II -'The challenges of innovation;

e Part III - Innovation in Construction Technology Doctorate: OSDOTTA _08

In the first part we want to pinpoint the aspects that characterize the innovation of the Research doctorates in Architectural Technology from the point of view of organization, content and method. A few essentials were identified, such as the importance of the Internet for the dissemination of the results of research on a national and international scale, the inter-university organization of doctorates, the interdisciplinarity of areas relating to the same doctorate.

The second part illustrates the current scenario and the future challenges on the theme of innovation, specifying the strategies that research must tackle in the coming years.

Through the contribution of experts who took part in the seminar’s round table, indications are given for possible research: strengths and weaknesses in the field of research in Architectural Technology (contribution from L. Matteoli), strategies and methods of approach in European research (discussed by E. Andreta), aspects of innovation in doctorates in Italy (contribution from M. Rasetti).

The objective of the third part of the text is to identify the results and problems that emerged during the debate on themes proposed to the doctoral candidates, in each discussion table on the theme of innovation in the construction sector. This part is divided into five sections, one for each discussion table: Innovation of dwelling patterns: building structures, Innovation of living in the urban and regional scale, Innovation of product: materials, components, systems and construction process, Innovation of process: design methods and tools, Innovation of process: methods and tools for evaluation, quality control, and management.

Each section has been structured on the basis of a methodological synthesis of the contributions of the participating lecturers and a presentation of the results that emerged from the doctoral candidates’ discussions. In addition, the publication provides an appendix with the synthesis of the research carried out by the cycle XXI doctoral candidates.

This seminar, like the previous ones, with all the difficulties that emerged and were discussed with the external valuators, has been a positive experience for the doctoral candidates who took part in it, not only because of the enriching work around the discussion tables, but also for the information provided about the research carried out in the various universities in terms of contents, methods and observations about the role of research in the university in relation to external contributors.

DANIELA Bosra!

Data on the participants

One hundred and thirty doctoral candidates, with fifty lecturers, from fourteen universities and twenty doctorate programs, participated in Seminar IV OSDOTTA_08 of the network of research doctorates from the scientific disciplinary sector of the Technology of Architecture.

The greatest number of doctoral candidates came from the Politecnico of Milan, with 27 candidates from four doctorate programs: 6 from the Doctorate in “Programming maintenance and requalification of building and urban systems” (PMT), 6 from the Doctorate in “Technology and Project for the Constructed Environment” (TPAC), 8 from the Doctorate in “Technology and Project for Environmental Quality” (TPQA) and 7 from the Doctorate in “Project and Technologies for the Valorization of Cultural Property” from the center in Mantua. The Doctorate programs that registered the greatest number of participants are the Doctorate in “Technology of Architecture” (TA) of the University of Ferrara, with as many as 21 participants, followed by the Doctorate in “Technology of Architecture” (DOTTA) of the University of Florence, with 17 participants.

The participation of doctoral candidates from the centers in Naples was also good: 15 from the University of Naples “Federico IP’— 10 candidates for the Doctorate program in “Technology of Architecture” (TDA) and 5 for the inter-university Doctorate in “Building and Environmental Recovery” (REA) — and 3 candidates for the Doctorate

O. De Paoli, E. Montacchini, Innovation in research / L'innovazione nella ricerca, ISBN 978-88-6453-039-0 (online), ISBN 978-88-6453-036-9 (print), ©2009 Firenze University Press in “Technologies of Architecture and the Environment” (TAA) of the Second University of Naples.

The host institution, the Politecnico of Turin, participated with a total of 13 candidates, of which 12 from the Doctorate in “’Technological Innovation for the Constructed Environment” (ITAC) and 1 from the Doctorate in “Architecture and Building Design” (APE).

In descending order, finally, the participation of the other doctoral candidates of the OSDOTTA network: 7 candidates from the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria and from the Siracusa center of the University of Catania, 6 candidates from two Doctorates from Rome La Sapienza (4 from the Doctorate in “Environmental design” (PA) and two from the Doctorate in “Requalification and recovery of installations” (RRI)), 5 from the University of Camerino, 4 from the IUAV, 3 from the University of Chieti-Pescara and 1 from the centers of Genoa and of Palermo.

The participation of doctoral candidates with respect to the cycle of the Doctorate showed a preponderant presence of cycle XXII and XXIII (corresponding respectively to 36% and 40% of the participating candidates), a reduced presence of cycle XXI (22%). Since cycle XX is in the process of being phased out, the limited presence of candidates from this cycle is justified.

The work of the candidates was organized in five “work tables”, under the tutorage of over fifty lecturers:

1. Innovation of dwelling patterns: building structures; Innovation of dwelling patterns: urban areas, land and infrastructures;

3. Innovation of product: materials, components, systems and construction process;

4. Innovation of process: design methods and tools;

5. Innovation of process: methods and tools for evaluation, quality control, and management;

It appears clear that research themes on innovation of forms of habitation and of innovation of product dominate over those of innovation of process.

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Distribution of lecturers by location

OSDOT_TO8 CICLO DOTTORATO

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Distribution of doctoral candidates with respect to the cycle of the Doctorate

OSDOT_TO8 TAVOLI

Tavolo 2

Distribution of doctoral candidates in the five “work tables”

PART I Doctorate in Construction Technology: approaches and research method

MARIA CHIARA TORRICELLI!

Theory as an engine of innovation.

Strong point of doctoral research

Mario Rasetti, in his report to the OSDOTTA seminar on doctoral training for research, underlined the distinction between research as an original production of thought and knowledge, and research targeted at development and transfer. Rasetti declared that the specific role of the university in the field of doctoral training is first and foremost to train for the original production of thought and knowledge. This statement has struck me particularly, both in the context of my experience of coordination of the doctorate for some years now, of tutoring doctorate theses and of participation in final examination commissions in different seats of doctorates pertaining to the OSDOTTA network.

I wondered what contribution to the production of original thinking was provided by researches in connection with the thesis (the culminating moment in training and production of results in doctorate courses), in particular in relation to the technological disciplines of architecture. And further: how this originality, so declaimed in the criteria of judgment in connection with the final examination, could be identified and evaluated, and to what capacities it could be ascribed. Last but not least, I wondered if it was a capacity truly useful to the doctor in research, with regard to possible career outlets.

Reflection becomes necessary at this point, also as a result of the determination, universally declared, to draw up a balance sheet of the experiences gained thus far in the OSDOTTA summer seminars, with a view to passing on to a second phase, following the start-up period

1 Universita degli Studi di Firenze.

O. De Paoli, E. Montacchini, Innovation in research / L'innovazione nella ricerca, ISBN 978-88-6453-039-0 (online), ISBN 978-88-6453-036-9 (print), ©2009 Firenze University Press represented by the first four seminars focused, in two cases, on how research is done, and in the other two, on the priority challenges that research should face up to, namely:

e Creativity and innovation in research, I OSDOTTA Seminar — Viareggio 2005

* Innovation and mobility for research II OSDOTTA Seminar — Pescara 2006

* Research faced with the environmental challenge, IIT OSDOT- TA Seminar — Lecco 2007

* Research faced with the challenge of innovation, IVOSDOT- TA seminar — Turin 2008.

The thesis that I propose here for discussion is that of a reevaluation of the innovative role of theory.

Training for research in the architectural technologies: a question of practice or theory?

The technologies of architecture are design disciplines which deal with the built environment. From the point of view of theoretical and methodological apparatuses, research in the area of architectural technologies belongs to the multidisciplinary ambit of the design sciences’. In this ambit specifically the echnical sciences, are marked by recourse, among others, to prescriptive theories, in the sense of theories that propose solutions to problems, rather than explaining, predicting or narrating’. Design methodologies originate from these, aimed at introducing into reality new or innovative facts meeting the determination of making modifications in the positive sense, as an expression of a know-how based on theory, experience and practical wisdom (epistezze, techne, phronesis). The project is fuelled by inventive and creative capacities, but also calls for transparency, communication, and clarity transferable and evaluable in order to be understandable. So that there is a problem of concepts and methods on which to base the project. As it becomes more and more complex, the project of the built environment has

* “Scienza del progetto di architettura: nuovi paradigmi di ricerca. Riflessioni sui temi di Palazzo Vegni” in Ricerca Tecnologia Architettura un diario a più voci, a cata di M.C. Torricelli e A. Lauria , Edizioni ETS, Pisa 2008.

° Simon, H. The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, Cambride, Massachusetts, 1969.

seen the origination of a fragmented know-how, divided according to competences, disciplines and permanent posts. The exceeding in a collaborative and shared way of such a fragmentation re-proposes in new terms the problem of the common theoretical terms of the project disciplines in the built environment.

From the viewpoint of training for research, the question which then arises is not whether today it is necessary or possible to conceive of the doctorate as a basic training for research in Technology of architecture, through paths that contribute to building, validating and trying out an apparatus of theories to which technical know-how and project practice can be traced back.

It is interesting to evaluate the different implications of the question: can one speak of a theory of the architectural project, is it necessary? Can one speak of a theory of the built environment project, is it necessaty?

In answer to the question on the theory of the architectural project, I would quote something written by Carlos Marti Arris* in his essay “Centring and the atch” leading back to the more general question: is objective and transmissible knowledge in the field of artistic activity possible? For Marti Arris the answer is ‘yes’, but attention must be paid to not confusing theory with doctrine, and concepts with norms or rules. “The task of theory is that of widening the practice of the project and its problematic field, at the same time providing instruments which enable us to pose such problems with greater clarity and correctness, that is to say, which make it possible to recognise more tidily the complexity of the real”. However Marti Arris maintains a distinction between theoretical knowledge in the natural sciences and theoretical knowledge in art and architecture, since the former is of “an accumulative and progressive nature” and the latter of “more of a cyclic and persevering nature”.

In the specific case of the field of action of the disciplines of Technology of architecture it appears more congruent to pose the question in terms of: theory of the built environment project, meaning by this concept the system of artefacts, organisations and procedures, and the environment in the broad sense. I will refer in this case to what Lauri Koskela writes in an editorial of the issue of

4 Carlos Marti Aris, La centina e arco, Christian Marinotti Edizioni, Milano 2007 p. 22, edizione originale La Cimbray el arco, Barcellona 2005.

Building Research & Information of May 2008, dedicated to this theme, gathering the contributions emerging in relation to a Symposium held in 2007 on Theory of the Built Environment at the University of Salford (UK). In his view, a project theory becomes necessary as a scientific instrument of mediation between objectives of knowledge and results, as an instrument of evaluation and validation, as an instrument for exceeding a theory in the light of the anomalies and deviations found at the procedural level’.

Thus know-how, whether addressed to the architectural project or to the built environment, postulates a theory as the scientific basis of transmissible knowledge. In this way it has to allow for training for research in architecture and in architectural technologies. But it is precisely in the ambit of the disciplines of architectural technology, insofar as they take over the concept of a built environment, that a theory assumes the role of engine of scientific innovation, moving from conceptual systematisations (frameworks, concepts) and from observation of the system of artefacts, processes and the environment, to exceed itself and innovate.