Thinking the Edge is an international, multidisciplinary architectural workshop focusing on built and natural environment and the notion of edge as a dynamic shifting, transitional, nomadic place of interchange among different realities. A place for memories and thinking bodies. The edge as a magnet in motion where different fluxes collide bringing tensions but also new events and richness of density.

Thinking the Edge will be attended by students from all over the world, starting from the Politecnico in Milan, and many other international schools: from the USA, Spain, Holland and Asia, bringing different views and approaches into play in the workshop.

Thinking the Edge will be hosted in Sarnico, on the Iseo lake near Bergamo (50 km from Milan on the way to Venice) and the theme for this first edition is the waterfront, as a condition extended to the whole lake, in terms of manmade and natural environment with its potentialities for the touristic sector and for the overall economy of the area.Specifically we will investigate the network of ferries terminals, abandoned industrial sites and quarries by the lake as different aspects of a rich context that needs to be re-emphasised.

Thinking the Edge will transcend architecture to infiltrate other realms, like literature, philosophy, the arts and scientific research, with the aim to invite major figures in those fields to bring in a multidisciplinary approach to the subject under discussion.

Thinking the Edge will have a total of 20/25 participants. They will be divided into small groups of 5/6 students for each teacher with one or two assistants

Program

Monday July 26th to Saturday August 7th
Workshop from 9:30 AM till 6:00 PM

Noon lectures (12:00 AM) on subjects related to the workshop’s theme

Evening lectures (8:00 PM)

Field trips on the lake by boat

Saturday morning August 1st
Mid review

Saturday August 7th
Final review with prize for best project

Weekend July 31st and August 1st free visits to Northern Italy hot spots

Evening lectures

Tuesday July 27th 8:00 PM

• Manuel Gausa "Landlinks"

Wednesday July 28th 8:00 PM

• Leslie Kavanough "All Along the Waterfront: Philosophical Reflections on the border/edge/limit."

Thursday July 29th 8:00 PM

• Frederic Levrat "Architecture as an Interface" Between Virtual – Visual – Physical Environment

Friday July 30th 8:00 PM

• Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi "Why we love to look at the sea and we hate being in Prison"

Tuesday August 3rd 8:00 PM

• Sislej Xhafa "The wine and the bee"

Wednesday August 4th 8:00 PM

• Yehuda Emmanuel Safran "In the matrix of time"