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The article approaches ‘landscape architecture’, insisting on the term ‘architecture’ as describing landscape formations accepted as structured systems of composed, perceptual elements presenting organizational and aesthetic value. The central idea of this proposal refers to the key concept that design systems do not copy reality in its full complicated substance; they simply cannot manage to represent and work with the complex totality of the real surrounding world. They rather design abstract formational elements that ‘schematize’ reality and create composing syntactic systems, composing ‘languages’. It was in this context that modern 20th-century garden designers insisted on the comparison of landscape design approaches with architectural abstract building plans or abstract early 20th century-paintings. However, analogous correlations may also be regarded in the opposite orientation. Thus, contemporary architectural projects are often described as ‘landscape formations’ in a period of environmental sensitivity combined with enlarged topological awareness; the latter presents earth bas-relief as a convincing metaphor of topological mathematical transformations in general, associated with computational ‘animate’ design. Nevertheless, the principal aim of the article is firstly to insist on the interchangeable approaches of hard-scape architectural design and green-scape design in terms of analogous abstract and schematized formations. Moreover, the present article intends to propose a possible didactic strategy of landscape design for architects or students in schools of architecture and for attendees already accustomed to building or hard-scape urban design. This design didactic strategy is principally founded on the concept that common abstract ‘schematized’ formations underlie all those practices: landscape design as well as building and urban design. Full article

A substantial proportion of Italian students are unaware of the connection between what they learn at school and their work opportunities .This proportion would most likely increase if data were collected today, given the generation of a broad range of new jobs that has arisen due to advancements in technology. This gap between students’ understanding of what they learn at school and its application to the broader world—the society, the economy and the political sphere—suggests there needs to be a rethinking of how teaching and learning at school is conceived and positioned. To help students to approach ongoing social and economic transformations, the Italian Educational Ministry (MIUR) has endorsed a school–work interchange program which, aligned with the principle of open schools, aims to provide students with work experience. It is within the scope of this initiative that we have tested high school students with remote sensing (RS) from space projects. The experience-based approach aimed to verify students’ openness to the use of satellite data as a means to learn new interdisciplinary skills, to familiarize themselves with methodological knowledge and, finally, to inspire them when choosing a university or areas of future work. We engaged three cohorts, from 2017, 2018 and 2019, for a total of 40 h each year, including contact and non-contact time. The framework of each project was the same for the three cohorts and focused on the observation of Earth from space with a specific focus on wildfires. However, the initiative went beyond this, with diverse activities and tasks being assigned. This paper reports the pedagogical methods utilized with the three cohorts and how these methods were transformed and adapted in order to improve and enhance the learning outcomes. It also explores the outcomes for the students, teachers and family members, with respect to their learning and general appreciation. Full article

Although there is already a great amount of scientific literature dealing with the use of building information modeling (BIM) in engineering activities, the majority refer to successful case studies using the usual methods and technology of building construction but rarely bring up the real problems for implementing BIM methodology to the field of transportation infrastructure. It must be also considered that the construction activity is only a part of the infrastructure life and the stakeholder must consider the works of enlargement, renewal, and maintenance of the infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is not only to show a mere review of the existing literature but also present a rational analysis for the use of BIM in different areas of civil engineering. For that purpose, the gathered experience in the use of BIM in civil engineering projects in the final course of Civil Engineering Master Studies in the Civil Engineering School (ETSICCP) at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid were compared with the reported literature. This way, a complete and updated information regarding tendencies, applications, and practice along with limitations and benefits can be presented. The significance of this research relies on the original insight of BIM for civil engineering applications through four case studies. Two of them were focused on construction possibilities and the other two on the possibilities in the exploitation, rehabilitation, and maintenance. The results showed that despite the lack of previous experiences, the use of BIM methodology is possible for activities such as maintenance, managing, or expansion of infrastructure by applying different specific software packages. Among the main problems needing to be addressed are the following: handling of big data files, the integration of new data non-related with the modeled object, and interchange of data without losing information. That proves the need of new more efficient techniques to overcome the challenge of the full use of BIM in the civil engineering field and obtain the mutual advantage of the co-operation of the academic and industrial worlds. Full article