IUAV works on a wide range of scales and subjects regarding the whole design process: the ability to work with a multiscale approach, that unites different technical and cultural problems, must be considered as the starting point for the collaboration. IUAV has a long experience of working alongside international organizations and NGO’s either as a consultant for architectural design or drafting large scale planning schemes.
UN Habitat’s work in the search for new urban paradigms finds in IUAV University a perfect partner for the research of design strategies able to impact the future of the cities with particular regard to developing countries. African megalopolises are today icons of the future of human settlements facing incredible urban growth and unprecedented modifications due to climate change. IUAV could collaborate with UN Habitat in drafting multiscale plans that impact urban settlement working on themes such as: solidification and control of urban slums, systems of urban growth and bottom-up community driven development, urban agriculture and ecological features, sustainable development, etc. These issues are key in the development of African cities and IUAV could act either as a consultant or as a leading designer.
IUAV is particularly interested in working in multidisciplinary environments alongside universities and organizations working in fields such as: earth sciences, agriculture, water management, geography, health and sanitation. IUAV emphasizes the collaboration among different actors and strongly believes in the role of international organizations as UN Habitat in managing cosmopolitan relationships between transnational partners. The ability of UN Habitat to set global policies applicable to local conditions is a framework in which IUAV is keen to work.
The participation of IUAV in UN Habitat’s activities fits into the willingness of the university to pass from a concept-oriented methodology to a problem-oriented one. IUAV aims to teach its students the ability to face different scale projects as a sum of distinct problems that can be faced through specific solutions. The appliance of a problem-oriented methodology within the clear framework of UN Habitat global policies can be a tool for the solutions of urban problems.
