Experimental Use of Strategic Choice Approach (SCA) by Individuals as an Architectural Design Tool

Abstract

The paper proposes the use of the Strategic Choice Approach as a way of structuring the architectural design process, done by individuals and partly supported by meetings and interviews with DMs, experts, and stakeholders. The aim is to stimulate a debate around the use of SCA and its possible merging with architectural design, also analysing how the micro-processes involved in this merging can work in practice. We reflect on the possible use of SCA to determine prescriptive conditions on physical form at a scale that is still intermediate between the single building and the urban tissue: the method is employed as a design tool to provide alternative transformation scenarios. It represents a way of approaching the challenge of planning in an uncertain world, eliciting guidelines and strategies, and furthermore it produces an architectural project or transformation in a physical sense. Moreover, by investigating what occurs during the different micro-processes with the interviewees, we focus on some behavioural issues and effects, in relation to the context, the models of the application and the different entities involved in the interventions. This proposal shows an application to a real-world problem, currently under debate by the City of Turin (Italy), the re-use of abandoned barracks located in a prestigious residential area.