Research

DAD promotes, coordinates and manages fundamental and applied research, participating in competitive tenders and initiating projects for third parties related to the analysis, history, representation and design of the built environment, the conservation and recovery of existing buildings, technological innovation and design.

Our research deals with the various scales of the design project, from the product, communication and service to the construction element and the built structure, to the urban, landscape and territorial scale, covering theoretical, historical, cultural, economic and technical aspects.

DAD covers the following disciplines: Architectural and Urban Design, Interior Architecture and Outfitting, Product and Communication Design, Technological and Environmental Planning of Architecture, Surveying and Evaluation, Geomatics, Architectural Restoration, History of Architecture, Building Technology, and Sociology of the Environment and Territory.        

DAD has 11 research centres exploring specific topics: “Invisible Cities Lab”; “Institute of Mountain Architecture”; “Centre for the Teaching of Design”; “Centre for the Study of the History of Design in Piedmont”; “China Room”; “Systemic Design Lab” (SYS); “The Construction History Group”; “The Research Centre in Habitat in the Global South”; “Transitional Morphologies”; “Turin Accessibility Lab”; “City of Turin Real Estate Observatory – Research”.  DAD’s researchers also collaborate with interdepartmental research centres, sometimes in partnership with Italian and foreign universities.

The researchers also use laboratories specialised in the Analysis and Modelling of Environmental Systems, Non-Destructive Diagnostics, Geomatics for Cultural Heritage, Survey and Documentation, Innovative Technological Systems, as well as the Make Lab, an interdepartmental laboratory for multimedia communication and for real and virtual models.