Course syllabus
ACE615 Form, space and structure lp3 VT25 (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
Evgeniya Bobkova, evgeniya.bobkova@chalmers.se
Flávia Lopes flavia.lopes@chalmers.se
Student representatives
Benjamin Maturana Vogel
Emma Sandberg
Maja Skrtic
Cajsa Nathell
Oskar Jarneving
Course purpose
The second course in the ‘Morphology’ learning sequence, ‘Form space and structure’, looks at Building and Urban morphology from a system perspective. The purpose is to introduce the students to the system dimension of spatial form throughout spatial scales and provide the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological tools to apply system thinking in a design context. The focus of the course shifts from describing and designing cities, neighborhoods and buildings as areas, objects and geometries, to describing and designing them as spatial structures, highlighting their system dimension. During the course, students will be introduced to this system perspective in three ways: 1) by describing cities, neighbourhoods and buildings through their underlying spatial network, 2) by describing the multiscalar character and the interconnectedness of these spatial networks, and 3) by purposefully restructuring the spatial networks to fit design aims.
Spatial networks are primarily formed by relations of accessibility/permeability and visibility between the different spatial elements and units (e.g., rooms, buildings, streets, neighborhoods). These relations are fundamental to support a given program or function. The students will learn to describe and analyze relations of visibility and accessibility and discuss the implications of this for the patterns of use, movement and co-presence created in a building or urban layout, and in turn for its spatial experience and function. Students will study spatial networks from a multiscalar perspective, focusing as much on the internal structure of spatial forms as on the external systems these spatial forms are part of. A building is at the same time conditioned by the urban structure due to its location and conditioning each room by its internal spatial organization. Interfaces between scales and nested spatial elements (e.g., rooms, buildings, streets) will be investigated as they mediate between different levels of privacy and publicity, indoor and outdoor environments and between different user groups. Finally, through explorative design assignments the students will train to design spatial forms and layouts focusing on their underlying spatial configurations, make structural interventions to a simple or complex spatial layout with intent and learn to critically reflect on their own design work from a system perspective.
Schedule
Course literature
The compulsory and elective literature will be included in the Course description (PDF)
Content
The content will be organized in two thematic clusters:
- Building structures.
- Urban structures.
In the building scale, the focus is on the relation of architectural layouts and spatial configurations to behaviour, patterns of movement, social interaction and co-presence, patterns of spatial use and activity and spatial cultures. In the urban scale, the focus is on the relation of the spatial form of the city and social structures, urban phenomena and processes, such as the distribution of urban flows, cohesion and segregation, spatial inequalities or the development of local markets. The interfaces between the different scales and nested spatial structures is a common theme that will be investigated across all clusters. That includes interfaces and structural transitions between local and global, private and public, indoor-outdoor, as well as between user groups and social roles and activities. What will also be studied is the communicative and pedagogic power of spatial form that through structuring embodied spatial experience constructs narratives, social roles, behavioural norms and relations of bonds and power.
Throughout the course methods to analyse spatial configurations focusing on relations of visibility and accessibility will be presented to the students and digital tools to help their analytic and design explorations in different scales will be provided.
Course design
Each thematic cluster includes lectures, seminars, exercises and reflective texts, through which relevant theories and methods are presented, tested, discussed, and applied. The course is exploratory including both short analytic and design investigations/exercises, as well as reading exercises. Laboratories of analogue and digital tools will be provided to the students to assist with their explorative analytic and design work.
Comparative reading of relevant texts (provided at the start of the course) will complement the lectures and form the basis of seminars. Comparative study of layouts and plans (specified at the start of the course) will comprise the main analytic investigations. Comparative structural interventions in existing, well-known or familiar layouts to the students will comprise the main design explorations.
The teaching and learning activities include:
- 9 lectures
- 3 Analytic, 3 Reading and 3 Design exercises
- 4 laboratories / tutorials of digital tools laboratory work
- parallel presentations of the exercise results in the form of seminars
Formative feedback is given during weekly supervisions as well as group presentations to the drawing rooms.
The students will work in groups of 3 students.
Detailed description of the course organisation, all weekly activities, lectures and assignments is found in the Course Description (pdf).
Communication
All information is shared via Canvas, including the schedule, description of lectures, exercises and assignments, submissions, file sharing. All communications between teachers and students are done via Canvas email and Announcements.
Changes made since the last occasion
ACE 615 is a new course
Learning objectives and syllabus
- Describe and compare buildings and urban layouts, as well as typologies, in terms of their underlying spatial structures.
- Investigate the relative location of a place in multiple scales and spatial hierarchies and identify its configurational and systemic properties.
- Use analogue and digital tools to represent and analyse spatial layouts in terms of visibility and accessibility and discuss the implications for the patterns of movement, co-presence, experience and function.
- Make structural interventions to a spatial layout with a design intent and evaluate the design outcome using different analogue and digital tools.
- Reflect on their own creative design process by identifying the role of spatial structure and spatial organisation in different design phases and iterations.
Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.
Examination form
Examination takes place through a series of compulsory presentations or hand-ins of the short exercises/assignments:
- Two presentations of the two analytic investigations (LOs 1,2,3)
- Two presentations of the two design explorations (LO 2,3,4)
- Two presentations of the two reading assignments (LOs 1,2,3)
- One reflective text (LO 5)
- Final hand-in compiling the 7 assignments
Grading: UG - Pass, Fail
A student who is not approved in the course after the regular examination must be given the opportunity to be examined through supplementation after the end of the course. If, after two attempts at completion, the student still cannot be approved, the student must retake the course. Assessment of completions takes place during Chalmers' re-examination periods. It is the student's responsibility to check reported study results in Ladok after each study period and to contact the course examiner for instructions on supplementation if an approved result is missing.
The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.
Course summary:
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