ARCH1101 Architecture Design Studio 1

SESSION ONE 2014

UNITS OF CREDIT, 6UOC

RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS

www.russelllowe.com/arch1101_2014/index.htm
www.arch1101-2014.blogspot.com
https://groups.google.com/group/arch1101-2014/topics?hl=en

The UNSW library home page
Library services for undergraduates
Architecture subject guide
Red Center guide
Campus Map

COURSE CONVENER

Russell Lowe russell.lowe@unsw.edu.au
Office Number 2026, Second Floor

STUDIO TUTORS (SECTION AND ROOM NUMBER IN BRACKETS)

Andrew Wallace (rm1004)
Hank Haeusler (rm 1005)
Shaowen Wang (rm 1005)
Stephen Davey (rm 1006)
Jeremy Harkins (rm 5006)
Jo Ann Kok (rm 5007)
James Pedersen (rm 5007)
Brad Inwood (rm 5008)
Rosamond Kember (rm 6001)
Roanna Manlutac (rm 6003)
Jacky Yuen (rm 6004)
Vinh Nguyen (rm 6005)

Tutorial Groups List

TIME

6 hours per week (2 hour lecture plus 4 hours studio).

Lecture: Thursday 12:00 - 14:00, Richie Theatre, Map Reference G-19

Studio: Thursday 14:00 - 18:00
RedC 1004, RedC 1005, RedC 1006 First Floor Studios
RedC 5006, RedC 5007, RedC 5008 Fifth Floor Studios
RedC 6001, RedC 6002, RedC 6003, RedC 6004, RedC 6005 Sixth Floor Studios

In addition to the 6 hours spent in class students are expected to spend an additional 6 hours per week on self directed study for this course.

ARCH1101 is the first in the sequence of 6 Bachelor of Architectural Studies design studio courses. The design studio is an opportunity for students to integrate skills, knowledge and experience gathered in their Communications, History and Theory, Technology, Enabling Skills and Practice courses with an architectural design brief.

"Dada's devotion to the imaginative disruption of convention is an essential liberation force. I can't imagine how dada relates stylistically to my work, but in spirit it is fundamental." Gordon Matta Clark

In this course students will be introduced to a wide range of representational techniques and strategies. Students will be encouraged to take a critical and reflective attitude toward representation and develop opportunities for Architecture that grow out of Dada's "imaginative disruption of convention". In other words this Architectural Design Studio is about provoking and developing an imaginative disruption in the application of the conventional. Students will be introduced to collaborative research and will be expected to take advantage of contemporary ICT to build a body of knowledge and community of scholarship.

The three experiments prioritize investigation and experimentation. Students should record evidence of both over the course of the session.

The course is delivered via lectures and studio based tutorials. The lectures introduce students to the experiment briefs, to exciting and relevant examples of Architects, Artists and Designers work, to successful examples of student work, and to historical and theoretical concepts that can support design development. The studio sessions are where students engage with specific tasks, each one requiring the testing of a range of opportunities. The studio sessions are hands-on; using either sketches in small notebooks, personal electronic devices, or their laptop computers. While the work in studio isn't formally assessed each session it contributes to the overall assessment of each experiment; and can be seen in the section ASSESSABLE OUTPUTS below.

As noted above; in addition to the 6 hours spent in class students are expected to spend an additional 6 hours per week on self directed study for this course. The self directed study component of this course is a critical element in the overall ARCH1101 teaching strategy. Students will be required to develop significant levels of skills and knowledge without the direct input of the course coordinator or their tutor. This does not mean that they are alone however; with up to 220 students operating public blogs contact with other students in the course can be extremely direct. Developing research strategies including both the course blogs, the course forum and the wider internet in general will provide a valuable resource in your academic and professional career.

At the end of this course students will have:

Developed skills in critical thinking and problem solving using freehand sketching. Students will engage with the conventions of the section, axonometric and perspective.
Developed skills in critical thinking and problem solving using digital representation. Students will engage with a range of important software, including SketchUp, Crysis Wars, Fraps and Blogger.
Developed techniques and strategies for overlapping manual and digital forms of architectural representation.
Developed research skills especially as they relate to formulating research questions.
Developed breathtaking and significant objects, spaces and environments.

Students should also review the UNSW graduate attributes.

Included below are abstracts for the three Design Studio EXPERIMENTS. They are included here to give you an overall impression of the course and to bring your attention to the concepts, clients and software we will be working with. Each abstract will be expanded into a full brief at the introduction of each EXPERIMENT.

EXPERIMENT 1: THE DATUM

TIMETABLE: 4 Weeks, 25% of final grade.
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUE: Selling Creativity.
ARCHITECTURAL CONVENTION: The Stair.
ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE: Articulating below, on and above a ground plane. Studio workshops.
CLIENTS: Revival Cycles, Steinway and Sons, Heston Blumenthal
PREMISE: We can understand Architecture as a series of relationships between surfaces, objects and spaces. The datum introduces an idea of measurement into these relationships so that we can begin to understand the balance or otherwise of a scheme.

EXPERIMENT 2: THE SPACE BETWEEN

TIMETABLE: 3 Weeks. 30% of final grade.
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUE: The Monument.
ARCHITECTURAL CONVENTION: Monumental Architecture and Landform.
ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE: Articulating figure and ground in 3 dimensions. Two monuments.
CLIENTS: Architects. One living, one dead. Chosen by your tutor.
PREMISE: Architecture may be designed by the amalgamation of discrete forms. Such Boolean operations promote an abstract understanding of the relationships required to make whole systems.

EXPERIMENT 3: THE BRIDGE

TIMETABLE: 5 Weeks, 35% of final grade.
ARCHITECTURAL ISSUE: The Architecture of Theory and Practice.
ARCHITECTURAL CONVENTION: The Elevator.
ARCHITECTURAL CHALLENGE: Articulating the relationship between Theory and Practice in the students chosen field. A school of Architecture, or school of Computation and Spatial Design, or school of Engineering.
CLIENTS: Following on from EXP2.
PREMISE: Environments change over time. Action and interaction within an environment provide a vehicle to synthesize information and make sense of continually shifting structures.

GENERAL LINKS AND RECOMMENDED TEXTS:

http://www.sketchup.com/learn/videos?playlist=58

SCHEDULE:

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

Evidence of thought and rigor in concept development
Imagination and innovation in terms of the use of the representational instruments introduced in studio.
Precision and skill in each of the above areas of assessment

In addition to these criteria you will be assessed on the level and extent to which you engage with the learning outcomes for the course and the PREMISES listed in each EXPERIMENT abstract.

Students need to submit all three experiments and pass the Online Lecture Examination to pass the course.

All of the student work is assessed via each students blog. Images and text are uploaded by the students directly. Video is uploaded to YouTube and a link provided from the students blog. Sketchup models are uploaded to the SketchUP3dWarehouse and a link provided from the students blog.

ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS


The Built Environment and UNSW Academic Policies document supplements this course outline providing detail on academic policies and other administrative matters. It is your duty as a student to familiarise yourself with the policies and guidelines as not adhering to them will be considered as academic misconduct. Ignorance of the rules is not an acceptable defence.

The document can be found in your Moodle course as well as:
http://www.be.unsw.edu.au/student-intranet/academic-policies

It covers:

• Built Environment Student Attendance Requirements
• Units of Credit (UOC) and Student Workload
• Course and Teaching Evaluation and Improvement (CATEI)
• Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
• Late Submissions Penalties
• Special Consideration - Illness & Misadventure
• Extension of Deadlines
• Learning Support Services
• Occupational Health & Safety

COURSE EVALUATION AND DEVELOPMENT