The Value of Metaphors in Architectural Design

This essay is included into a collection of reflections on the methodologies and outputs of the platform POLE/ELOP an international alliance of universities (Stanford University, Politecnico di Milano, ITESM Monterrey, Bauhaus, EPFL Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Tonjii University, IIT Chicago and others) initiated by the University of Applied Sciences and Nothwestern Switzerland and dedicated to investigate new pedagogical tools and potential links among education and industry, in the fields of design, architecture, urbanism. External references, metaphors, adjancecies, nomadisms, coinages, analogies, act as refoundations of the narrative of a project, producing new emerging meanings and paradigms of research and education. Through examples of works carried out blending academic with professional environments, this text illustrates -by a 3 chapters structure dedicated to 1) Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Education, 2)Pedagogical and Methodological Concepts, 3) Selected projects- concepts, procedures and outputs of such a pedagogical endevour. Actual cognitive processes are adressed. How procedure, iterations, sequence of "commands" can blend with intuition and lateral thinking, how adjancencies can lead to unveil potential or hidden qualities of a site (or of a product brief). How to convey the typical mind set of a designer (which is proliferative and associative) into a flow of usable ideas, tracking final outcomes back to the very first rough sketches and through the brave waters of apparently failed attempts.