Interfaces. Urban design education facing green transition, demographic shift, and environmental crisis

The post-crisis measures are perceived and anticipated as significant opportunities for the recovery and revitalization of cities and regions. Such opportunities for change mobilize spatial design efforts, even if their actual effects in regions that experience complex demographic and economic challenges remain open for debate. With our contribution, based on three-year design studio at Politecnico di Torino, we would like to reflect on how education in architectural schools addresses notions of marginality, places that are out of focus, and whether exploring ecological transitions in education may provide more conscious practitioners for the future. In the pedagogical process, ordinary villages intersect the interests of an international academic community; those same villages exemplify transition in context – questioning conventional agriculture and old industrialization processes; and through the experience international students are exposed to practices that broaden critical thinking.