GIULIA MAURO

In today's society, people entering the world of work are required more and more qualifications, specializations and insights, which only concern certain fields: we can define it a "sectoral knowledge", detail on some aspects but neglecting many others.

So what do they expect from us, the professionals of the future, who should be able to face all the consequences and effects of a world in constant change, where the future matches the present and the present is already outdated and obsolete?

Every day, through the Internet, social networks and all other forms of communication, we get in touch with much different information, both professional and current, which we automatically rework and which, if not reused immediately, we tend to store in our mind until it is (maybe) useful again. The truth is that it will be forgotten because we remember what strikes us, interests us particularly or of which we are experts; for this reason, a specialist already well-trained and structured stock of knowledge increases, inevitably at the expense of other fields of information.

This often happens also at a working level, one specializes in a certain sector tending to neglect others, which will most likely be the subject of in-depth studies by other people.

In consequence, the collaboration of different figures is needed for the development of a single common project: Jacquard could be the first platform where different professionals have the opportunity to immediately know opinions and observations from a different professional point of view on the same matter.

Isn't this a definition of multidisciplinarity: a network of integration and interaction where different disciplines converge in a common principle?

In the field of building engineering and architecture, this interaction between different disciplines already takes place in different fields: architectural, structural, urban, economic, social, environmental are the most immediate and well-known but it is necessary to consider a reality that is increasingly taking shape and that today is essential to plan constructions and buildings that could be defined as "future generations": we talk about all energy saving studies, the use of innovative materials and the development of sustainable green architecture.

Personally, I consider the activity of the building engineer and architect very fascinating, because they have the opportunity to draw on a wide range of professional references that may or not belong properly to their own working environment and the greater the references and insights are taken into consideration the greater the level of complexity and totality that the project will be able to achieve. There are many valid examples of these collaborations between various professionals who have made their experiences and knowledge available to the community and it was precisely this interdisciplinarity that brought their work to a higher level, because knowledge, always and in any case, improves our skill and shows us alternative and innovative scenarios to which we could not have arrived alone.

Multidisciplinarity, however, is not only knowledge but also and above all interaction and integration that brings together and unifies the variety of fragments of knowledge in a relationship of complementarity between the multiple parts of a single large common project. The growing birth of associated studies puts this sharing network into practice where more experts are in direct and continuous contact but is limited to the components that are part of it.

In a utopian vision, the next step would be to increase the area of influence of these collaborations through a single virtual network addressed to connect professionals from all over the world. This would allow to extend all fields of knowledge, to have access to an infinite different points of view but not as a spectator but as an active participant, free both to express one's thoughts but also to increase one's knowledge, the possibility of confronting ideologies, cultures, and life experiences different from one's own, to question oneself and therefore to mature not only at the level of knowledge but especially at a human level.

Information makes us free, aware of what surrounds us, of the world in which we live; personal relationships, contacts with people make us more empathetic, allow us to look at the world with a different sight, to get to know what we are not able to see and the other way round, in a win-win cultural exchange.