The teaching of parametric modeling in the School of Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino

Almost 15 years ago the first course dedicated to the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology was included in the Master of Science (MSc) in Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino. At the same time, the job’s world in Italy has changed, thanks also to the publication of legislation that now makes the adoption of BIM mandatory for public works with an amount over 1 million euros. This course is proposed by the Drawing discipline (ICAR/17), whose declaratory clearly states that the sector deals with the generation, construction and analysis of drawings, images and models, as outcomes of scalar representations of existing or planned realities. By the way, the parametric approach can take on multiple forms, favoring multidisciplinary collaborations that allow for in-depth study of specific themes proposed by the design disciplines. In this regard, according to the recent reform of the Master’s Degrees, the theme of Parametric Modelling has been appropriately declined on the different programmes. In the MSc in Architecture Construction and City, the Parametric Digital Modelling course (6 ECTS ICAR/17) provides the necessary cultural, critical and operational tools to introduce students to the BIM modeling applied to the design, construction and management process. Alternatively, the Architecture and Computational Design atelier (6 ECTS for: ICAR/14-Architectural Design; ICAR/17), considers parametric design as an ideational and compositional process, through the explicitation of a conception process inextricably linked to the representation process. The design process is linked to the investigation of drawing methods and tools used today for the prefiguration of the architectural project: modeling supported by Visual Programming Language (VPL) enables the management of morphological/functional complexity in the compositional phase, the BIM approach anticipates and resolves the building’s construction issues. In the MSc in Architecture for Sustainability the Parametric and Algorithmic Digital Modelling course (6 ETCS ICAR/17) allows the acquisition of new methodologies for the control of complexity, specially intended in the integration of the different systems (spatial, structural, cladding, etc.) that make up the architectural object; we work on the application of constructive logic to parametric modeling, emphasizing the role of efficiency, legibility and generalization of the compositional process of the algorithms. In the Parametric and algorithmic modeling atelier (4 ECTS for: ICAR/14; ICAR/17; ING-IND11 - Building Physics), forms and elements are designed by defining their performance standards and verifying their construction and production methods. In this sense, the parametric approach enables the management different information systems, allowing changes to the project to be made quickly and precisely or to investigate a range of possibilities/alternatives, starting from numerical (dimensional, quantitative, performance) or formal hypotheses assigned. In the MSc in Architecture for Heritage, the Point Clouds and HBIM course (4 ECTS ICAR/17; 2 ECTS ICAR/06-Geomatics), explores the potential of BIM for Cultural Heritage. The H-BIM (Historical-Heritage) approach encourages a multidisciplinary collaboration that critically analyzes the integrated 3D metric survey products and their subsequent transformation into graphical/numerical representations.