LUCE estratti LUCE 319_Moro_Intervista con Maurizio Rossi | Page 6

A suo parere si sente la mancanza di un corso
di Laurea nel settore illuminotecnico che
non permetterà il proliferare di “esperti
dell’ultima ora” nel settore?
Si. Il nostro paese è uno dei principali produttori
del settore e non esiste un solo corso di laurea
o di laurea magistrale focalizzato sul tema
dell’illuminazione. Vi sono inoltre pochissimi
- stanno quasi sulle dita di una mano - docenti
universitari di ruolo che insegnano materie
del settore illuminazione e questi docenti
afferiscono a settori disciplinari differenti.
Basti dire che in un contesto importante
come tutta l’area milanese, siamo solo in due,
Francesco Murano ed io. Vi è poi in generale
anche una carenza di coordinamento e di peso
politico a livello nazionale in questo settore,
che sarebbe invece auspicabile per poter
attivare nuovi corsi di laurea, che oggi
sono ancora più difficili da attivare, stante
la nuova situazione legislativa che riguarda
l’Università.
An interview
with the director,
Maurizio Rossi
Master in Lighting Design & LED Technology at
the Politecnico di Milano (Milan Polytechnic):
the discussed topics, the value of the teachers’ contribution
to the training, internship in the partner companies,
and the international panorama
M
r. Rossi, what are the trends and the history
of the Master in Lighting Design at the
Politecnico di Milano, can you tell us how
it was born and how it has evolved?
The Master degree in Lighting Design was
established in 2003 and was strongly endorsed
by Alberto Seassaro who was the Dean of the
Faculty of Design at the time, and who,
already in the 80s, had started the first courses
which specialized in Lighting Engineering,
to make up for the lack of education in the field
of Lighting in Italy. In fact, at the time there
were no courses dedicated to Lighting in Italy.
Lighting Design required the definition
of a new profession and an adequate project
methodology.
The Politecnico di Milano undertook to work at
this, and called the best professional figures and
technicians to contribute, in the role of teachers.
Since 2010, the title of the Master course has
been extended to: “Master in Lighting Design
& LED Technology”, as a result of the new
technologies that have appeared in the market,
to emphasize the attention to innovation
in the sector as seen by the Polytechnic.
Could you briefly describe the Master course?
Our aim is to train professionals to have
the competences to follow Lighting Design
from start to finish in an innovative manner,
and so that they have the capacity to include
these competences in all the activities
of Lighting Design.
From the very start, the Master course was
linked to the work-world, to companies
and professionals in the sector. Furthermore
the academic characteristics of the course, that
are typical of the Politecnico di Milano, which
are recognised and appreciated not only in Italy,
contributed to the quality of the Master course:
three months’ full-immersion in technical,
scientific and cultural topics, followed by
an overview of the designs and practical
applications, and the final part dedicated
to an internship in companies and professional
studios in the sector. The first step, for those
who wish to participate in the Master course,
is to forward an application, a selection-
interview then follows. Admission depends on
the score obtained in the selection-interview.
In order to participate, applicants must be fluent
in English, because since the last three years,
the course is exclusively in English.
How do you, of the research laboratory on
lighting, Laboratorio LUCE, at the Politecnico
di Milano, where the Master course is held,
and who contribute to the development of new
sources of light, carrying out research on new
technologies, deal with Light Design?
Our basic assumption is that it is the Lighting
Designer, the lighting professional, who
determines the quality of light because he is
able to control the choice of the instruments
and also how lighting is distributed. His
intervention is fundamental in the design
process. Our Master course is the only one in the
world that is held in a Laboratory, the largest in
the Italian universities. Human Centric Lighting,
which is one of the themes we are dealing
with at Laboratorio LUCE, has basically shown
the importance of physiology, of psychology and
other themes related to lighting in a multi-
disciplinary manner, which requires a deep
knowledge of many subjects, and also the topic
of lighting historical monuments and buildings.
We, at the Laboratory, do not deal with lighting
projects, because we believe that this activity
must be carried out by professionals in the sector.
The Laboratory has a number of multidisciplinary
competences, and participates in applied
research activities and it develops and integrates
new technologies in the design of new lighting
products and systems. Since 2002, when the
Laboratory was opened, we have participated
in 21 research projects with public funding,
in collaboration with companies in the sector
and 6 research projects sponsored directly by
the companies. Since when it was opened,
the Laboratory has always been publicly-owned
and is 100% self-financed. Every year we verify
and we calibrate our instrumentation,
furthermore we have recently introduced
instruments for 3D printing, for rapid prototyping,
that the students can have access to.
PROJECT WORK
Lighting for Cultural Heritage | Docenti: Cinzia Ferrara, Pietro Palladino
Students: Alfonso Sainz, Josefina Bosch, Selen Celik, Sofia Tsintari
44
LUCE 319 / INCONTRI
Students: Stefany Barbosa Valerio, Hemant Mehta Rushabh,
Minh Tu Nguyen Thi, Reza Rachmat Wangsanagara