|
Certificate Level Design Studies
Certificate
Level Design studies set out an exploratory and challenging agenda for students
beginning their study of Architecture. The structure balances the requirement
to establish a sound understanding of key skills and techniques with the
facility and awareness to explore beyond the immediate boundaries of a project.
All first year
students, Architecture and Interior Architecture and Design, follow a common
brief throughout the year. In the first semester students are taught in
tutorial groups then, after the field trip to a major European City, students
choose their studio group with whom they work for the rest of the year. At this
point the two courses split but follow the same overarching brief and site
together so as to continue and extend a dialogue.
The first semester
follows a series of projects that are supported by workshops and inductions.
The first design
exercise investigates a site and entails the design and making of a piece of
architectural furniture, at 1:1, made from found objects. During this process
students are introduced to the workshop facilities to gain confidence with
material and machines.
In parallel with introductions to making are a series of drawing workshops. These
encourage students to learn to look beyond a snapshot - visually taking an
object, elements and spaces apart and understanding these carefully. The
introduction to the section and what it represents - drawing the invisible,
taking something apart, understanding what is behind things - is a very
important part of the teaching.
The 1:1
furniture pieces are therefore carefully observed and taken apart through
drawing to help students
understand and explore how the relationship between buildings, objects and
activities can articulate architectural space. The
finished pieces are presented at an exhibition and evening event within the Department.
The building project
in the second semester attempts to synthesise these exercises, ideas and
concepts. Students develop their own briefs from their previous observations
with the expectation that these are translated into a architectural
proposition. Students start to discuss structural and environmental issues as
much as link their culture knowledge within their project.
Students are
introduced to ideas of mapping, cartographic languages and the representation
of social, cultural and political conditions as well as the physical context of
the site. Through such devices students start engaging with briefs and
concepts; they start to record, analyse and reveal details through the use of
drawing as a tool, and to understand that such precision and analysis allows a
deeper understanding of the pieces, spaces and buildings they design.
Their small scale
building proposals are tested, explored and described throughout the design
process in architectural drawing, models and photographs.
The portfolio is
established at the end of the first semester as a device through which a
student’s work and ideas is collated and articulated as well as a submission
for assessment. As the building proposal develops the portfolio is tutored to
demonstrate their personal exploration, like an essay, where ideas are
understood, reviewed, strengthened and then located within a process, towards
the final piece of work.
In addition to the
field trip a variety of visits to buildings and institutions during the year
provided a base for the cultural background around architecture.
Project sequence:
drawing exercise
discovering drawing
cut a section_ build a drawing
mapping and installation
building project
|
