YEAR 3 STUDIO

SEMESTER 1 & 2

DENSITY, URBANISM, PUBLICNESS

Through the lenses of “in-between”, border and threshold conditions, Design 5 explores how architecture relates to other architectures, spaces and urban elements, and its active role in the creation of urban interfaces and the city (life). The notions of DENSITY, URBANISM and PUBLICNESS are carefully considered to challenge the existing typologies and discover new architectural design possibilities to respond to dynamic present and anticipated urban forces and conditions. We approach urbanism in terms of urbanity, which refers to both a state that results from density and diversity, and a socio- cultural quality evoked by the city life.

Understanding the urban context and opportunities it offers is a vehicle for articulating innovative architectural projects that are both responsive to urban conditions and challenge them simultaneously. Accordingly, in Design 5, architecture is envisioned and examined as an urban interface between indoor and outdoor, public and private, collective and individual, natural and manmade, material and symbolic, analogue and digital realms. Such an interface has the capacity of fostering negotiation, exchange and synergy, while actively engaging urban conditions and shaping the above mentioned realms simultaneously. Investigations will be integrated within both processes and outcomes of an architectural design and may consider a range of approaches, from urban acupuncture and adaptive re-use, to parasitic and liminal architecture, among others. Students will gain an understanding of the spatial implications of neighbourhoods, communities and socio-political urban relationships and conditions within and about space, whether real or implied.

SYSTEMS, COMPREHENSIVENESS, INTEGRATION

Design 6 aims to develop a high level of competence in comprehensive and integrated building design, where the architectural whole is approached as a complex of systems (of production, technology, infrastructure and so on), in turn embedded within larger systems (of ecology, economy and so on). Under the guidance of their tutors, students will research and refine a conceptual system of concerns to be fully explored and developed in their architectural proposals. This involves a critical and nuanced understanding of architecture as a synthesis between constituent parts and their whole, and the creation of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Students will sharpen their competence in research, design thinking, operational skills and communication. This semester is intended as a summation, demanding that students take informed design positions incorporating all 18 studio themes they have covered. As the conclusion of this foundational sequence, students are expected to show advanced architectural thinking that will form the basis for embarking on the masters programme at DOA. They should deploy advanced and mature representational techniques to communicate architectural ideas. Design projects at this stage will also demand a holistic awareness of the issues related to the environment, climate, context, technologies and building.