The aim of this module is to develop and refine the architectural skills of measure and judgement necessary to design sustainable urban architecture and place making. Students will explore a range of scales of architectural decision-making and design interventions, from the early stages of material selection of building components, the assembly of building elements, to the building as urban fabric.
In the first semester the field of study will be directed towards the understanding of place and the vernacular, design projects will develop out of this responding to an effective masterplan and focus on small scale interventions within the urban context. These designs should deploy an economy of means in approach and respond to architecture’s civic duty to promote a shared culture within the wider aspects of environmental responsibility.
Material stewardship is an integral part of an architect’s design responsibility and is central to the module. Through moving towards the larger scale students will explore innovative uses of materials, efficient use of natural resources and underlying impacts of early stage design decisions.
Attention is paid to the objectives, targets, and indicators outlined in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 12, which focuses on Responsible Consumption and Production. These ethical considerations and design principles will act as a primer for the second semester architectural design studio in preparation for larger urban scale design projects.
Semester 1 covers the exploration of material, architecture and urbanity and follows this structure:
- The selection and use of precedent studies
- Analysis of an urban context and wider environmental issues
- Analysis of the vernacular through material, use and tectonic
- Preparation of a guiding masterplan
- Measured survey of selected site
- Initial small scale design proposal focusing on materiality and detail
- Selection of and more detailed analysis of selected site
- Design proposal for a community building
- Detailed study of materiality and tectonic
The Studio is the primary learning and teaching environment through which individual and group tutorials, reviews, peer learning, collaborative group work, and the iterative production of both process and presentation material takes place.
A legible urban setting, part of a city or a town, will be chosen as the subject for the academic year and; there will be a series of study trips to the urban settlement during the semester.
Exemplars are a key tool to be used to develop judgement and repertoire; precedents are studied in groups and singularly in aspects of architectural order, tectonics, embodied energy and environmental strategies.
Studio projects will develop out of the precedent studies, at a macro level to understand wider context and then at a smaller scale insertion of a key project in an urban setting.
In combination with ESM , BTS and HTC (essential to first semester teaching) the studio projects should engage with materiality and tectonics and recognise the environmental consequences of such - understanding the issues of bio-regional sourcing of materials, embodied energy and carbon.
| Module Content & Assessment | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Breakdown | % |
| Other Assessment(s) | 100 |