Course syllabus
BUILDING ON BUILDING
BEFORE AND AFTER BUILDING // ACE525 Building on building lp4 VT25 (15 hp)
Course is offered by the department of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Contact details
Naima Callenberg – examiner, course leader, supervisor
naima@chalmers.se
Peter Christensson – supervisor
peter@chalmers.se
Daniel Norell – studio faculty, critic
norelld@chalmers.se
Course purpose
This is the second studio in a sequence of three that revolve around the theme Before and After Building. It continues an on-going exploration of architecture that departs from existing environments, buildings, and materials. This involves extending the architect’s engagement with “a project” to include a longer time span and untypical responsibilities, ranging from what happens before building, such as ways of investigating a context or the sourcing of materials, to what happens after building, such as occupancy, transformation, and reuse. Rather than dismissing these issues as mundane or relegating them to other disciplines, the studio will consider them as architectural and designerly problems.
Within this framework, the studio will explore the after-aspect of architecture through a study of, and an architectural as well as a programmatic transformation of Skeppsbron 4, located on Skeppsbron in Gothenburg. To explore how transformation can be done, we will consider the infrastructure of/in the building as a point of departure. Infrastructure is that which is often hidden away, while it is essential for a building to function. It is what enables and supports the use of the building. We want to address transformation that has a long-term perspective and flexibility, that does not only occur as an aesthetic intervention to accommodate a particular programme, but rather as a practice and approach that works to create the conditions for the building to live a long and versatile life. If design is based on a desire to enable, like infrastructure does, what kind of design do we create? What strategies for design can we adopt by understanding a building’s (inner) system (of use), and how do we design in resonance with them? The studio, as a critical environment, will be a site-specific and hands-on exploration of how to develop architecture which is made with notions of care and time in mind – enabled through infrastructure. Infrastructure, as the embedded operating system of the building, the ins and outs, movements, pathways and directions, connections and that which supports and facilitates.
For further details, please see course-PM pdf under module General Course Information.
Schedule
Please see PDF/Canvas calendar function. We do not use TimeEdit
Course literature
Please see Course-pm document under module General Course Information
Course design
The outcome of the studio will be a body of work of three parts, correlating to the three phases of the course: documentation/mapping, design, booklet. Through these phases, instead of just designing for transformation based on initial readings and valuations, we intend to extend the process of design, to read the building as a set of scenarios or embedded strategies to design from. We will speculate on, reflect on, how transformation may be made in relation to an extended reading of the site, seen through the lens of both history, present and future, and specifically through the lens of infrastructure. This becomes a way of interrogating how we may inform the outcome of design, its effects, and the circumstances of design, in untypical ways.
The studio emphasizes a design research approach in which artistic development of each student and the development of common knowledge and discourse in the studio is pursued in tandem. Projects are developed through focused and informed experimentation and an iterative process that evolves through phases articulated in the brief. The artefacts and media that are the outcome of the studio embody artistic and disciplinary approaches, and through their process of making, they also generate methods and know- how.
The studio investigates the role of architectural representation in the conception and production of architecture. Architects do not build, we design through drawings, models, descriptions as well as through an ever-expanding assortment of techniques such as collage, videos, photographs, scanning, simulations, and mock-ups. Means of representation are explored as design mediums and transfers between those mediums are explored as design opportunities. We expect students to critically expand and develop their repertoire of architectural representation, from early explorations to articulation of design.
The studio revolves around a diverse set of learning activities, such as lectures, seminars, presentations, critique, field work, workshops, exhibition etc. The studio itself should be seen as a collective endeavour, where we invite all students to actively participate in creating a lively and open studio culture.
This year´s course will be partly conducted on-site, outside of campus. Students are asked to view and treat the site´s facilities with the same respect and care as they treat campus facilities.
Through-out the course, design work is assessed in weekly supervision sessions. The studio cannot offer any online supervision on students’ request.
The course includes a number of days for self-studies, which does not allow for on-campus scheduled activities. Instead, there will be appointed readings to be done during these days. Further information will be specified at a later stage during the course.
Canvas is used for all communication within the course. Please see to that your email is updated to receive notifications from Canvas when both “announcements” and “messages” are sent out and make yourself familiar with the content uploaded. The Canvas-schedule will be actively used throughout the course, as well as the module-system and notifications/announcements where updates, changes and detailed schedule will be communicated. We will not use time edit.
All necessary resources for the course, such as site information and documents will be made available on Canvas.
We expect all students to, besides being on site, use the studio spaces on the fifth floor to construct an active studio culture. Tutorials will be held both on site and in the studio space.
For further details, please see course-PM pdf under module General Course Information.
Learning objectives and syllabus
Learning objectives:
Knowledge and understanding
- Define an architectural design process that departs from an extended investigation of an existing building through representation.
- Define notions of architectural reuse in relation to current practice and theory.
- Discuss their own design work in relation to the above.
Competence and skills
- Use and synthesize common as well as alternative techniques of architectural representation such as drawing, modelling, and scanning to analyse and explore an existing building or situation.
- Design a medium scale architecture project that responds to and/or intervenes in an existing building.
- Use an iterative and speculative method to design a project.
- Demonstrate the capacity for teamwork and collaboration with various constellations.
Judgement and approach
- Integrate design, representation, and theory into a coherent argument for their design work.
- Reflect on the agencies of representation on how the use of representations influences the development and communication of the project.
- Show intention, commitment, and ability to identify needs for further knowledge and undertake on-going development of their skills, especially with regards to architectural representation.
Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen.
Examination form
Participation at a minimum of 80% attendance to all teacher led activities, including supervision sessions, seminars, and reviews is required to pass the course. Examination and grading are cumulative across the duration of the course, and they take material presented at presentations, final reviews, booklet, week-to-week development, as well as degree of participation in seminars/studio seminars into account. The final grade thus takes progress during the entire studio into account, as well as the quantity and quality of the work presented at the final review and in the booklet. The work is in addition assessed for its level of effort, engagement with the agenda of the course, as well as for graphic and verbal presentation.
Cumulative grading
20% Material presented at the presentations and pinpups
50% Material presented at the final review and submission.
20% Development of the work across the semester, as assessed in supervision sessions.
10% Degree of participation in seminars.
Grades are Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail. In case of a fail grade, the student will receive a written list of complimentary material to complete, but no further supervision.
The reviews will be accompanied by a list of required material to be presented verbally by the student / team. They require students to hand in the material as a pdf on Canvas, to be further assessed after the review. Failure to hand-in material will result in a fail grade, with no possibility of receiving a complimentary task. Examination of complimentary material will be done by the examiner no later than the next re-examination period.
Absence
Students are expected to make up for lost time in connection to any absence from the working hours of the studio, even if the accumulated absence is less than 20%. Absence from pin-up, review, lectures, or seminars may result in a complimentary task. The studio applies a Chalmers´ standard 45 work hours/week (8am-6pm) where students are asked to individually plan their work outside of scheduled sessions accordingly.
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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