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Il tema della casa, e più in generale dell’abitare, è argomento tornato al centro del dibattito sociale più di quanto non sia avvenuto in campo tecnico‐architettonico. Sono infatti abbastanza evidenti i limiti delle proposte che nel recente passato sono state, di norma, elaborate nelle nostre città, proposte molto spesso incapaci di tener conto delle molteplici dimensioni che l’evoluzione dei costumi e della struttura urbana e sociale ha indotto anche nella sfera della residenza e che sono legate a mutate condizioni lavorative, alla diversità di cultura e di religione di nuovi gruppi etnici insediati, alla struttura dei nuclei familiari (ove ancora esistano) ed a molti altri fattori; cambiate le esigenze, un tempo composte nella struttura della famiglia, sono cambiati desideri e richieste mentre l’apparato normativo è rimasto strutturato su modelli sociali ed economici superati. Il tema dunque assume, oggi più che mai, connotazioni con forti relazioni fra problematiche funzionali, tecnologiche e simboliche. Stimolata da queste osservazioni generali, la ricerca si è mossa partendo da un’analisi di casi realizzati nel periodo storico in cui si è esaurita, in Italia, l’emergenza abitativa post‐bellica, nell’intento di riconsiderare l’approccio vitale che era stato messo in campo in quella drammatica circostanza, ma già consapevole che lo sviluppo che avrebbe poi avuto sarebbe stato molto più circoscritto. La tesi infatti, dopo aver osservato rapidamente la consistenza tipologica ed architettonica di quegli interventi, per trarne suggestioni capaci di suggerire un credibile e nuovo prototipo da indagare, attraverso un’analisi comparativa sugli strumenti oggi disponibili per la comunicazione e gestione del progetto, si è soffermata sulla potenzialità delle nuove tecnologie dell'informazione (IT). Non si può infatti non osservare che esse hanno modificato non solo il modo di vivere, di lavorare, di produrre documenti e di scambiare informazioni, ma anche quello di controllare il processo di progetto. Il fenomeno è tuttora in corso ma è del tutto evidente che anche l'attività progettuale, seppure in un settore quale è quello dell'industria edilizia, caratterizzato da una notevole inerzia al cambiamento e restio all'innovazione, grazie alle nuove tecnologie ha conosciuto profonde trasformazioni (già iniziate con l’avvento del CAD) che hanno accelerato il progressivo mutamento delle procedure di rappresentazione e documentazione digitale del progetto. Su questo tema quindi si è concentrata la ricerca e la sperimentazione, valutando che l'”archivio di progetto integrato”, (ovvero IPDB ‐ Integrated Project Database) è, probabilmente, destinato a sostituire il concetto di CAD (utilizzato fino ad ora per il settore edilizio ed inteso quale strumento di elaborazione digitale, principalmente grafica ma non solo). Si è esplorata quindi, in una prima esperienza di progetto, la potenzialità e le caratteristiche del BIM (Building Information Model) per verificare se esso si dimostra realmente capace di formulare un archivio informativo, di sostegno al progetto per tutto il ciclo di vita del fabbricato, ed in grado di definirne il modello tridimensionale virtuale a partire dai suoi componenti ed a collezionare informazioni delle geometrie, delle caratteristiche fisiche dei materiali, della stima dei costi di costruzione, delle valutazioni sulle performance di materiali e componenti, delle scadenze manutentive, delle informazioni relative a contratti e procedure di appalto. La ricerca analizza la strutturazione del progetto di un edificio residenziale e presenta una costruzione teorica di modello finalizzata alla comunicazione e gestione della pianificazione, aperta a tutti i soggetti coinvolti nel processo edilizio e basata sulle potenzialità dell’approccio parametrico.

Le tecniche dell'informazione e i metodi della comunicazione hanno modificato il modo di redigere documenti destinati a trasmettere la conoscenza, in un processo che è a tutt'oggi in corso di evoluzione. Anche l'attività progettuale in ingegneria ed architettura, pure in un settore caratterizzato da una notevole inerzia metodologica e restio all'innovazione quale è quello dell'industria edilizia, ha conosciuto profonde trasformazioni in ragione delle nuove espressioni tecnologiche. Da tempo l'informazione necessaria per realizzare un edificio, dai disegni che lo rappresentano sino ai documenti che ne indicano le modalità costruttive, può essere gestita in maniera centralizzata mediante un unico archivio di progetto denominato IPDB (Integrated Project DataBase) pur essendone stata recentemente introdotta sul mercato una variante più operativa chiamata BIM (Building Information Modelling). Tuttavia l'industrializzazione del progetto che questi strumenti esplicano non rende conto appieno di tutti gli aspetti che vedono la realizzazione dell'opera architettonica come collettore di conoscenze proprie di una cultura progettuale che, particolarmente in Italia, è radicata nel tempo. La semantica della rappresentazione digitale è volta alla perequazione degli elementi costitutivi del progetto con l'obiettivo di catalogarne le sole caratteristiche fabbricative. L'analisi della letteratura scientifica pertinente alla materia mostra come non sia possibile attribuire ai metodi ed ai software presenti sul mercato la valenza di raccoglitori omnicomprensivi di informazione: questo approccio olistico costituisce invece il fondamento della modellazione integrata intesa come originale processo di rappresentazione della conoscenza, ordinata secondo il paradigma delle "scatole cinesi", modello evolvente che unifica linguaggi appartenenti ai differenti attori compartecipanti nei settori impiantistici, strutturali e della visualizzazione avanzata. Evidenziando criticamente i pregi e i limiti operativi derivanti dalla modellazione integrata, la componente sperimentale della ricerca è stata articolata con l'approfondimento di esperienze condotte in contesti accademici e professionali. Il risultato conseguito ha coniugato le tecniche di rilevamento alle potenzialità di "modelli tridimensionali intelligenti", dotati cioè di criteri discriminanti per la valutazione del relazionamento topologico dei componenti con l'insieme globale. / Wide uptake of digital drafting techniques forms part of a generalized praxis today, almost in all professional teams practicing engineering and architecture. The design activity itself has been deeply changed due to new I.T. procedures, even if the construction industry is notoriously reluctant towards shifts. Electronic devices and information technologies have soundly changed how professionals conceive and develop plan's documentation (aimed to define and expose specific or general information): however they are involved in a process whom development is still improving, both in hardware instruments and in their specific use. The proposed research is based on a methodological definition focused on digital integrated models, intended as sets of base elements constituting a graphical and alphanumerical archive, establishing an architectural-dedicated informative system layered into a "Chinese box" paradigm. The integrated model's structure is bound to the building's logical deconstruction and embedded information can be looked up with advanced interfaces by different actors involved in design process, from structures to HVAC. The single element's properties cataloguing, for which geometrical models set up a friendly hint interface, may follow archiving coded instructions such as IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) open format and BIM (Building Information Modeling) standards are.

The research aims at developing a framework for semantic-based digital survey of architectural heritage. Rooted in knowledge-based modeling which extracts mathematical constraints of geometry from architectural treatises, as-built information of architecture obtained from image-based modeling is integrated with the ideal model in BIM platform. The knowledge-based modeling transforms the geometry and parametric relation of architectural components from 2D printings to 3D digital models, and create large amount variations based on shape grammar in real time thanks to parametric modeling. It also provides prior knowledge for semantically segmenting unorganized survey data. The emergence of SfM (Structure from Motion) provides access to reconstruct large complex architectural scenes with high flexibility, low cost and full automation, but low reliability of metric accuracy. We solve this problem by combing photogrammetric approaches which consists of camera configuration, image enhancement, and bundle adjustment, etc. Experiments show the accuracy of image-based modeling following our workflow is comparable to that from range-based modeling. We also demonstrate positive results of our optimized approach in digital reconstruction of portico where low-texture-vault and dramatical transition of illumination bring huge difficulties in the workflow without optimization. Once the as-built model is obtained, it is integrated with the ideal model in BIM platform which allows multiple data enrichment. In spite of its promising prospect in AEC industry, BIM is developed with limited consideration of reverse-engineering from survey data. Besides representing the architectural heritage in parallel ways (ideal model and as-built model) and comparing their difference, we concern how to create as-built model in BIM software which is still an open area to be addressed. The research is supposed to be fundamental for research of architectural history, documentation and conservation of architectural heritage, and renovation of existing buildings.

Il campo d’interesse della ricerca è stato l’attuale processo di ricentralizzazione del Social Housing nelle periferie urbane in una parte del contesto internazionale, che sembra stia portando le città a ricrearsi e ripensarsi grazie alla presa di coscienza delle differenze esistenti, rispetto al passato, nei nuovi processi di trasformazione nei quali la città è intesa sia come spazio costruito ma anche sociale. In virtù di quest’ultimi due aspetti complementari della città, oggi, il ruolo della periferia contemporanea sembra essere diversamente interpretato, così come gli interventi di riqualificazione di tipo assistenziale - migliorativo tenderebbero a trasformarne i suoi caratteri alla ricerca del “modello di città”. L’interesse alla tematica è inoltre scaturito dalla constatazione che alla base della crisi dei modelli d’intervento pubblico starebbero sia l’insostenibilità economica ma soprattutto l’errata lettura dei bisogni delle famiglie nella loro specificità e diversità e che in tal senso l’eventuale partecipazione della cittadinanza costituirebbe effettivamente una proposta valida, anche per risolvere la crescente domanda abitativa che si pone a livello mondiale. L’obiettivo della ricerca è stato quello d’analizzare, nel contesto internazionale del Social Housing, le caratteristiche di partecipazione e sussidiarietà che connotano particolarmente gli interventi di riqualificazione destinati a famiglie economicamente carenti, nello specifico analizzando i metodi e gli strumenti atti alla comunicazione partecipativa del progetto in aree urbane periferiche italiane e brasiliane. Nella prima e seconda fase della ricerca è stato svolto, rispettivamente, un lavoro di analisi bibliografica sul tema dell’emergenza casa e sulle nuove politiche abitative di sviluppo urbano ed uno specifico sulla tematica della riqualificazione partecipata del Social Housing in aree della periferia urbana, infine nella terza fase sono stati analizzati i casi di studio prescelti dando rilievo all’analisi delle caratteristiche e requisiti prestazionali delle tecniche partecipative di rappresentazione - comunicazione, più idonee ad influenzare positivamente il suddetto processo. / The research covers the current process of re-centralization of Social Housing in the suburbs in a part of the international context, which seems to be leading the cities to rethink and reshape themselves thanks to the awareness of the existing differences, as compared to the past, in the new processes of transformation in which the city is considered both as made up buildings and as a social space. As a conseguence of these two complementary aspects of the city, today, the role of contemporary suburbs seems to be interpreted differently, likewise the welfare rehabilitation tend to transform their characters in search of the "model city". Moreover the interest in this topic is the result of the realization that at the basis of the crisis of public models of intervention lies economic unsustainability and above all the misunderstanding of the needs of families in their specificity and diversity. In this sense the participation of citizens would actually be a valid proposal, even to solve the growing housing demand that is arising in the world. The aim of the research is to analyze, on the international level of Social Housing, the characteristics of participation and subsidiarity that characterize the redevelopment works aimed at less well-off families, in particular by analyzing the methods and means suitable to participatory communication in the project in Italian and Brazilian suburb areas. The first and second steps of the research were, respectively, a work of literature review on home emergency and new housing policies of urban development and a specific on the issue of participatory rehabilitation of Social Housing in suburb areas. Then the third step analyzes case studies selected by highlighting the analysis of the characteristics and performance requirements of participatory techniques of representation - communication, best suited to positively influence this process.

Real-time testing with dynamic substructuring provides an efficient way to simulate the nonlinear dynamic behaviour of civil structures or mechanical facilities. In this technique, the test structure is divided onto two substructures: the relatively crucial substructure is tested physically and the other is modelled numerically in the computer. The key challenge is to ensure that both substructures interact in real-time, in order to simulate the behaviour of the emulated structure. This has special demands on the utilized integration methods and their implementations. Researchers have devoted significant effort to implement second-order integrators, such as Newmark integration methods, in a monolithic way where both substructures are integrated altogether. However, in view of large and complex structures, time integration methods are required to advance large-scale systems hence endowed with high-frequency components of the response or mixed first- and second- order systems like in the case of controlled systems. In this case, the monolithic implementation of a second-order time integration method becomes inefficient or inaccurate. With these promises, the thesis adopts the Rosenbrock-based time integration methods for both dynamic simulations of complex systems and substructure tests, and in particular, focuses on the development of monolithic schemes with subcycling strategies for nonlinear cases and partitioned methods with staggered and parallel solution procedures for linear and nonlinear cases. Initially, the Rosenbrock integration methods endowed with one stage to three stages are introduced and their applicabilities to second-order systems are investigated in terms of accuracy, stability and high-frequency dissipation, such as stability analysis of the Rosenbrock methods with one stage and two stages via the energy approach and numerical experiments on an uncoupled spring-pendulum system. Then, these methods are implemented in a monolithic way for real time substructure tests also considering subcycling strategies. Meanwhile, real-time substructure tests considering nonlinearities both in the numerical and physical substructures were carried out to illustrate the performances of the monolithic methods. Moreover, three types of partitioned algorithms based on the element-to-element partitioning are successively proposed. Two of them are based on acceleration continuity with a staggered solution procedure and a parallel solution procedure, respectively, and one of them is based on velocity continuity and a projection method. Both stability and accuracy properties of the proposed algorithms are examined by means of analytical techniques and numerical studies on single-, two-, three- and four-degree-of-freedom model problems and a coupled spring-pendulum system. Finally, a novel test rig conceived to perform both linear and nonlinear substructure tests with different combinations of numerical and physical substructures are presented and commented.

Base isolation system, as one of the most popular means to mitigate the seismic risks, often exhibits strong nonlinearity. To simplify the procedure of structural design, bilinear force-deformation behavior is recommended for isolation systems in most modern structural codes. Although base isolation system can be analyzed through nonlinear time history method, solving of a system with a large number of degrees of freedom may require an exorbitant amount of time. As a substitute, the equivalent linearization method is frequently used. Apparently, under given earthquake ground motions, the accuracy of equivalent linearization analysis method is significantly related to the estimation of equivalent linear properties. How to improve the estimation accuracy of this approximate method constitutes a subject of wide and deep interest among researchers around the world. In this research, the equivalent linearization analysis method for base-isolated buildings was investigated. The literature survey on related aspects of base-isolated buildings was carried out firstly. Then, the estimation accuracy of fifteen equivalent linearization methods selected from the literatures was evaluated when subjected to twelve earthquake ground motions. After that, from simplicity to complexity, the base-isolated buildings were modeled using single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems and multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) systems, respectively. For both considered systems, more comprehensive parametric analyses were performed with varying the parameters selected from the isolation system and the superstructure. Accordingly, improved equivalent linearization methods were derived for SDOF and MDOF systems to improve the prediction accuracy of the maximum displacement of isolation systems. Based on the proposed equivalent linearization methods, different analysis methods for base-isolated buildings were assessed, including equivalent static linear analysis, response spectral analysis, linear and nonlinear time history analyses. It was found that with the proposed equivalent linearization methods equivalent linear analyses could yield more accurate results when compared with the equivalent linearization method recommended by structural codes. As a result, the proposed equivalent linearization method could be potentially useful for the design and analysis of baseisolated buildings, as least in the preliminary stage of structural design.

Structural optimization has become an important tool for structural designers, since it allows a better exploitation of material, thus decreasing structure self-weight and saving material costs. Moreover, it helps the designer to find innovative design solutions and structural forms that not only better exploit material but also give the structure higher aesthetic value from an architectural point of view. When applied to real scale structures like bridges, this approach leads to the definition of voids patterns delimiting regions where fluxes of force migrate from force application point to boundary regions and suggests innovative layouts without renouncing to formal and structural aspects. Nevertheless, the criticality of this powerful tool is related to the ease of defining entire families of possible candidate solutions, by modifying input volume reduction ratio to reduce structural weight as much as possible or defining several starting trial solutions based on the judgment of designer. In this case, structural optimization still leads to the best material distribution, but finding the best compromise between material saving and structural performance is a designer choice. To face this aspect, a global optimization index (GOI) has been defined and applied to the structural optimization of a steel-concrete arch bridge built is San Donà in the province of Venice, Italy. On the basis of this work, a generalized version of the optimization index is proposed and its analytical formulation is discussed in detail in this thesis. The application of proposed optimization index is extended from topology optimization to other optimization techniques. Moreover it allows not only to identify best candidate solution originated by a unique reference model, but even comparing structural performances between candidates solution derived by several starting trial solutions. Through structural optimization procedure performed on three different type bridges, namely footbridges supported by concrete shell, Calatrava Bridge (steel arch bridge) and two cable-stayed bridges, the effectiveness of proposed optimization index is validated. The results show that the proposed optimization index provides to the designer a mathematical procedure able to highlight the best choice among several candidate solutions obtained by the optimization procedure. With the proposed optimization index, a suitable score for each design solution of specific starting layout is assigned, therefore the best overall layout solution which is the best compromise between material saving and structural performance can be highlighted among single-family multi-solutions or multi-families or multi-solutions.

The research activity focused on the study, design and evaluation of innovative human-machine interfaces based on virtual three-dimensional environments. It is based on the brain electrical activities recorded in real time through the electrical impulses emitted by the brain waves of the user. The achieved target is to identify and sort in real time the different brain states and adapt the interface and/or stimuli to the corresponding emotional state of the user. The setup of an experimental facility based on an innovative experimental methodology for “man in the loop" simulation was established. It allowed involving during pilot training in virtually simulated flights, both pilot and flight examiner, in order to compare the subjective evaluations of this latter to the objective measurements of the brain activity of the pilot. This was done recording all the relevant information versus a time-line. Different combinations of emotional intensities obtained, led to an evaluation of the current situational awareness of the user. These results have a great implication in the current training methodology of the pilots, and its use could be extended as a tool that can improve the evaluation of a pilot/crew performance in interacting with the aircraft when performing tasks and procedures, especially in critical situations. This research also resulted in the design of an interface that adapts the control of the machine to the situation awareness of the user. The new concept worked on, aimed at improving the efficiency between a user and the interface, and gaining capacity by reducing the user’s workload and hence improving the system overall safety. This innovative research combining emotions measured through electroencephalography resulted in a human-machine interface that would have three aeronautical related applications: • An evaluation tool during the pilot training; • An input for cockpit environment; • An adaptation tool of the cockpit automation.

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