History - DACD
SUPSI Image Focus
With a vocation for innovation from its very beginnings, the Department is characterised by transversal competences in the fields of construction, design, conservation-restoration and the environment. The SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio, opened in 2021, conceals a large covered square and is a true 'factory of ideas'.
The Department of Environment Constructions and Design (DACD) has developed from the integration of pre-existing schools - the Higher Technical School (STS) with its construction section and the Higher School of Applied Arts -, from the merger of a number of research units already present in the area, and from the creation of numerous other units including institutes, competence centres and laboratories.
In 2021, the Department moved from Trevano to the avant-garde structure of the Mendrisio Campus: a building in the name of sustainability that has ateliers, classrooms, laboratories and spaces for applied research.
A concrete architecture with a red colour evoking terracotta and, at the same time, an urban idea of interiority with a sort of large covered square. The heart of the building is a 108-metre internal ramp giving access to the different floors. As the architect Andrea Bassi (Bassi Carella Marello Architectes) explains: 'an alpine path, rather than a road or a motorway, which elevates the spirit in the learning process proper to a school'. Large transparencies also allow those who study, work or attend the building to have both a visual and a presence exchange.
The Campus features the work Haptics walls-Muri tattili by artist Davide Cascio. Composed of polished wooden forms placed on the towers of the stairwells in an alternation that leaves space and breath, it creates unexpectedness and discovery in those who walk through the building. The organic arrangement generates a sense of balance and movement that escapes the rules of symmetry, creating an almost musical harmony.
In 2021, the Department moved from Trevano to the avant-garde structure of the Mendrisio Campus: a building in the name of sustainability that has ateliers, classrooms, laboratories and spaces for applied research.
A concrete architecture with a red colour evoking terracotta and, at the same time, an urban idea of interiority with a sort of large covered square. The heart of the building is a 108-metre internal ramp giving access to the different floors. As the architect Andrea Bassi (Bassi Carella Marello Architectes) explains: 'an alpine path, rather than a road or a motorway, which elevates the spirit in the learning process proper to a school'. Large transparencies also allow those who study, work or attend the building to have both a visual and a presence exchange.
The Campus features the work Haptics walls-Muri tattili by artist Davide Cascio. Composed of polished wooden forms placed on the towers of the stairwells in an alternation that leaves space and breath, it creates unexpectedness and discovery in those who walk through the building. The organic arrangement generates a sense of balance and movement that escapes the rules of symmetry, creating an almost musical harmony.