Architectural design as research product and possible communication tools

Today the pandemic situation forced us to rethink our way to communicate, to share our research results and, in general, it questioned which is the most efficient method to stay connected. “Berlin City West” workshop, a design experience conducted by different international institutions, represented for our work team (PhD school “Architettura e Costruzione”, Department of “Architettura e Progetto” – Sapienza University of Rome) a very crossroad through the before and the after covid-19 exploit, and it offered us the opportunity to investigate the communication field of the research. The information flow was structured in two main moments: inbound and outbound, elapsed by study and design elaboration inside the different work teams headed by Italian PhD architecture and urban design curricula from different universities (Sapienza, Federico II, Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Bari, IUAV). The workshop was structured to answer a specific need of the city of Berlin: the development of its sector called “City West”, an area characterized with the standards of Modern Movement referring to the dimensions of the streets and the displacement of the buildings around them. “City West” is located near the Tiergarten, following its south-west perimeter from Ernst-Reuter-Platz to An der Urania, from the Technische Universität campus to the Urania foundation. We want to give our contribution for future debate describing our journey, collecting our thoughts around missed chances related to covid-19 and with a focus on the communication targets and means.