Course syllabus
Course-PM
ARK178 ARK178 Design systems lp3 VT23 (4.5 hp)
Course is offered by the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Contact details
Examiner
Ioanna Stavroulaki, gianna.stavroulaki@chalmers.se
Teachers
Ioanna Stavroulaki, gianna.stavroulaki@chalmers.se
Lars Marcus, lars.marcus@chalmers.se
Meta Berghauser Pont, meta.berghauserpont@chalmers.se
Student representatives
Course purpose
The course purpose is to introduce system thinking in the design process and provide the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological tools to apply system thinking in a design context. The focus shifts from describing cities, neighbourhoods, and buildings as areas, as blocks, as objects, as geometries, to describing them as systems, as networks of relations. The design focus of the course shifts as well from designing areas, objects, geometries, and forms to designing spatial structures and shaping systems. The course aims to help students gain a deeper understanding of the concept of 'location' in all scales from a system perspective, to distinguish between local and contextual qualities and to make informed estimations of potential system effects. It also aims to train students to reflect on their own design work from a system perspective and guide them in intentionally applying system thinking in their design process.
Buildings, neighborhoods and cities are besides local things, especially elements in intertwined urban systems. To understand them we need to understand the systems they are part of and their position within them. There are different urban systems - some physical networks (for example mobility systems, roads, railways, green and blue infrastructures) and some immaterial networks, for example social, information or economic networks. We will focus on the spatial networks, because these are the ones that are more directly influenced by architects and urban designers. The immaterial networks, such as social networks, interaction or collaboration networks, economic networks and clusters are also related and indirectly influenced by the spatial networks, and we will comment on that two-way relation during the course.
Besides always being part of larger systems, cities, neighborhoods, and buildings construct their internal spatial networks and configurations by way of their own spatial layouts and organizations, be it the layout of streets in a neighborhood, the layout of rooms in a building, and so on. In other words, a building is at the same time conditioned by the urban systems due to its location and conditioning each room by the internal spatial organisation.
Within each spatial system, places (e.g. rooms, buildings, blocks, neighbourhoods, cities) as locations, have a different role to play. Different conditions, potentials and challenges arise from their relative position within the network, from the relation of each location to all other locations. How connected every location is to all other locations, makes it more or less central, more or less accessible, more or less integrated or segregated in the system, more or less visible or hidden. In other words, the network of relations creates hierarchies between locations.
This fundamental system perspective applies to all scales of spatial design. Systems and networks are inherently multiscalar and so are system effects. They can be found in all scales. One of the greatest systems effects especially important for architects and urban designers is the structuring of movement, co-presence and social encounter in all scales of building and urban space. We will focus on these system effects in particular, as they have deep implications for human behavior in space and spatial experience, but also for the social relations and networks constructed, and drive a lot of other urban processes as the development of local markets, or socio-spatial segregation.
Schedule
Course literature
See Course description (PDF)
Course design
The course consists of lectures and seminars/workshops through which a variety of theories and methods in the field of systems thinking are presented, tested, and discussed. It includes weekly assignments where concepts are introduced and discussed in spatial terms to enable design explorations.
We will work on three scales: city, neighborhood and building scale. At city scale, we discuss how the location of urban activities affect society. At neighborhood scale, the focus shifts to patterns of movement and for the building scale, we discuss human interaction in public buildings.
Each week includes three exercises that are introduced in a lecture and discussed during the seminars/workshops. Each week starts with the identification of location qualities where we distinguish local qualities and contextual qualities. In the next step, we will dig deeper to understand the system effects and discuss tools for intervention. This will then be used to propose structural interventions in the system to change location. For each week one main text is provided that introduces the main theories and/or methods. At the end of each week, the work is presented orally and/or in written form.
The students will work in pairs.
Communication between teachers and students takes place via Canvas e-mail.
Changes made since the last occasion
A new examiner is assigned for the course.
Learning objectives and syllabus
Learning objectives:
- Understand system effects, the role of networks in systems, and its relevance for architecture.
- Discuss accessibility in terms of both proximity and centrality and how this can be used to discuss issues of co-presence, patterns of human interaction and spatial inequality.
- Apply the understanding of system effects in a design context.
Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.
Examination form
Every week a presentation is given of the week's exercises and a simple report is compiled. At the end of the course, these three reports made for each week are compiled in one PDF including an overall reflection on the learning outcomes of this week that is handed in on Canvas.
The grade is a weighted average of the following aspects:
- Results: the result of the exercises for each week compiled in one final report (including all exercises)
- Communication and presentation (orally and in written form including illustrations)
- Attendance: less than 70% attendance pulls down the grade
- Attitude: active participation during the seminars
Course summary:
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