B015977 - PROJECT ECONOMIC EVALUATION

Italian

The course aims to introduce students to the theoretical and methodological foundations of scientific evaluation which are necessary for the architect in his/her role of coordinator within the decision making process of architectural Project and plan. The course also aims to provide some basic critical knowledge on the operation and use of the most common evaluation techniques in the field of design and planning.

1) Bertin, Giovanni, Decidere nel pubblico, tecniche di decisione e valutazione nella gestione dei servizi pubblici. ETAS libri, Milano, 1989.
2) Florio, Massimo, La valutazione degli investimenti pubblici. il Mulino Bologna, 1991. (da pag. 29 a 70)
3) Faludi, Andreas, I principi dottrinari della pianificazione: implicazioni per la ricerca sulla valutazione, sta in Lombardo, Silvia ( a cura di), La Valutazione del processo di piano, F. Angeli, Milano, 1995.
4) Bentivegna, Vincenzo, Il contributo della valutazione alla razionalità e legittimazione del piano, in Urbanistica n. 105 1995.
5) Bentivegna, Vincenzo, Valutazione e pianificazione strutturale, sta in Lombardi, Patrizia e Micelli, Ezio (a cura di), Le misure del piano, temi e strumenti della valutazione nei nuovi piani, F. Angeli, Milano, 1999.
6) Bentivegna, Vincenzo, La valutazione dei mega progetti urbani parte prima: il processo di decisione, in Valori e Valutazioni n. 4/5 2010
7) Bentivegna, Vincenzo, La valutazione dei mega progetti urbani parte seconda: la valutazione del coordinamento, in Valori e Valutazioni n. 6 2011
M. Berni, L’Analisi Costi Benefici - Aspetti di teoria, dispense (disponibili in formato elettronico presso il docente).
Directorate-General XIX - Budgets – Evaluation unit “Evaluating EU Activities - a Practical Guide for the Commission Services”, July 2004
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/publications/financial_pub/eval_activities_en.pdf
9) CIDA: The Logical Framework: Making it Results-Oriented

The course aims to provide the student with the basic logic of the evaluation process, forming a technician equipped with the theoretical knowledge and the technical skills required to understand, control and design an evaluation process supporting decision-making process of complex project and urban plan according to European, national and regional regulation.
Learning Objectives
The course aims to equip the student with:
• theoretical and methodological knowledge on evaluation as a cognitive process for the expression of judgements of value on the available alternatives according to scientific procedures;
• technical and operational skills needed to carry out economic evaluations suited to the different stages of architectural project and planning.
In particular, we provide :
• the basic concepts of evaluation as a scientific discipline
• the characteristics of the decision-making processes of architectural project and planning
• the main, most common, economic evaluation techniques typically used in evaluating the project at different stages and at different scales.

Basics concepts of economics.

The course consists of lectures which develop course issues including the principle of evaluation theory, the use of evaluation in the project’s (and plan’s) decision-making process and the presentation of the main, most common evaluation techniques used in the architect’s professional practice.

Exams are oral.
Students regularly attending the course have 2 possibilities:
Oral exam on the topics addressed in the course (the power point presentations of all the lectures are provided in digital form by the teacher)
Students interested in deepening a specific topic can make a written report (theme and structure must be agreed in advance with the teacher) and present it orally, demonstrating a sufficient knowledge of course contents.
Students not attending the course:
• oral exam on the texts listed in the bibliography

The concept of evaluation and its definition as a scientific discipline;
Relativity of evaluation;
Reliability and fairness of evaluation;
Relationship between decision making and evaluation;
The decision-making process;
Main models of decision-making processes with a special focus on rational models;
Meaning of architectural design from the decision-making point of view: project as a production plan and as a decision-making tool;
Collective and coordinated nature of the architectural project;
Complexity of architectural project;
The problem of uncertainty and forecasting in Architectural design decision making;
Project and plan as decision-making tools;
Key features of the project actors;
The concept of coordination and different types of coordination: hierarchic and collaborative in public-private partnership;
main problems of collaborative coordination and possible solutions;
Different kinds of coordination models in public-private partnership;
Main roles of evaluation in project’s phases;
Criteria for project success;
Classifications of evaluations;
Main evaluation tools (with a special focus on their pros and cons):
SWOT Analysis;
Needs analysis;
Monitoring;
Project evaluation by logical framework;
Financial analysis:
Cost-benefit analysis;
Multi-criteria analysis.