Architectural Ethnography as a Methodological Approach in Teaching Architecture

The article reflects on a series of teaching and research experiences that have taken place in the School of Architecture, Urban Planning, and Construction Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. In the last ten years, in fact, our teaching experiences, our readings, and some joint research paths have stimulated a reflection to develop an understanding of the specificities of the so-called “architectural ethnography”. In particular, in the paper, we make reference to two design studio: Gratosoglio Ground Zero, focused on the observation of the ground floors of a stigmatised social housing estate in the outskirts of Milan (2019); Quarantined Houselives (2020), which has been carried out online during the early months of the 2020 lockdown, a situation in which the domestic dimension was observed in a self-ethnographical and introverted condition.