Course syllabus

ACE415 ACE415 Media and representations lp3 VT26 (10 hp)

Course is offered by the  Master's Programme in Architecture and Urban Design (MPARC)
at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering (ACE)

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen:  ACE475 Course Program 2026/2027

Contact details

Jonas Lundberg (Examiner, Supervisor) jonas.lundberg@chalmers.se

Samuel Norberg (Teacher, Supervisor) samuel.norberg@chalmers.se  
tel: 031-772 17 12

Markus Gustafsson (Teacher, Supervisor) markus.gustafsson@chalmers.se

Toste Skånberg Dahlstedt (Teacher, Supervisor) toste@chalmers.se

Course purpose

This course immerses students in diverse representational strategies to amplify their understanding of architectural and urban design. Spanning virtual, material, and prototyping processes, it equips students with specific techniques and methods rooted in relevant research and discourse. Through an iterative and explorative approach, the course hones students' abilities to design and analyze effectively.

Furthermore, the course investigates the burgeoning landscape of new media technologies and representational techniques. Students critically examine how these tools might reshape architectural design and production in the immediate and distant future. This dual focus aims to cultivate both proficiency in applying current digital media, representation, and urban design approaches within architecture and a grounding in the historical, theoretical, and methodological underpinnings of emergent media and representation in contemporary practice.

The course fosters a cyclical exploration of design and drawing studies through a diversified array of software, mediums, and machines, each possessing its own distinctive logic. It harnesses production tools and techniques like 3D modeling, AI image generation, digital fabrication, digital found objects, photogrammetry, rendering, and VR to investigate how the interplay of media and representation can unlock unforeseen opportunities for design and representation.
The course is exploring news forms of collaborate design and development work exploiting emerging forms of 1st person digital design media and representation techniques including design modelling, simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality to blur the boundaries between the ideal and the real, going from the point cloud of a digital object to the ethereal of its representation to its ideal physical manifestation through digital fabrication.

Architects does not tend to physically engage with the act of building, but ever since the renaissance architecture has primarily been preoccupied with representation of building and communication of complex information to other artisans and experts carrying out our instructions (Carpo). The representation of architecture remains an ideal in this sense, and it is real on its own term, but there is gulf between the ideal of what is drawn and the reality of what is built and this we propose can be navigated by harnessing emergent media.

Course content

Drawing inspiration from the monumentality, endlessness, multi-scalarity, and sublime grandeur of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's "Carceri d'Invenzione," we embark on an exploration of the potential that lies in the combination of varied media and representation techniques. Our objective is to design and articulate highly complex and evocative interior spaces, born from the loose superimposition of gigantic and intricately detailed building elements.

The representation of architecture remains an ideal in this sense and it is real on its own term, but there is gulf between the ideal of what is drawn and the reality of what is built. This distance effectively means that there can be paper architecture without buildings and buildings without architecture. Design and Communication Tools aims to mediate this paradox and schism with the experimental deployment of collaborative digital design tools, 1st person design tools, 3D scanning. AI and possibly extended reality using this new ‘Virtuality’ as an opportunity for design and agency of architecture.

Schedule

TimeEdit

Course design

The course is based on Studio-Based Learning (SBL) related to group and individually based project work. The design of the course aims to facilitate independent learning and the transformation of tacit knowledge into technical and design skills and abilities. Most course content is made available as self-study material, and tutorial time is spent on application, discussion, tutorials, and technical support. All information regarding the course is found here on Canvas, so please check the page daily. Any communication with the tutors should primarily be sent using Canvas. The course sessions include tutorials, demos, and self-study guides accompanied by a text seminar where students read, present, and discuss theory texts that interrogate current issues of representation, aesthetics, imagery, drawings, technology, etc. The course concludes with a final review with invited guests and a possible exhibition. To learn new techniques, it is paramount to practice what has been shown in demonstrations on your own.

Tools

+  3D Modeling (Rhinoceros 3D, Blender)
+  AI Image Generation
+  Desktop Publishing (Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher)
+  Photogrammetry (3DF Zephyr)
+  Raster Editing (Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo)
+  Sandbox Game (Minecraft*, Mineways)
+  Vector Editing (Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer)
+  Visual Programming (Grasshopper)
+  Visualization, moving images, VR (Adobe Premier, Twinmotion, Unreal)

*  Minecraft (Java Edition) is purchased individually by each student.

Course Communication & Resources

The primary communication channel for the course is Canvas. Announcements and all other formal course communication will be sent through Canvas, so please use this platform to communicate with your tutors.

The course will be held in the studio spaces on the top floor (Level 5) of the SB1 building. Computers are available on Level 5 and in the basement labs, and all lab computers are accessible remotely through Appsanywhere.

Some of the work is also conducted in the ACE workshop on the ground floor in SB1 or in the ACE Robot Lab in the Fuse area at SB3. There are no academic penalties for late submissions in the MPARC Program but please arrange with your examiner for a review when the work is complete and submitted.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Knowledge & Understanding

1. Demonstrate a deepened understanding of digital as well as analogue methods, techniques and processes required to handle complex design issues within the field of architecture and urban design.

2. Conceive, analyze and/or realize architectural ideas through representations, prototypes and/or digital or material processes.

Skills & Abilities

1. Make advanced use of design media (e.g., drawings, diagrams, mapping, geometry, models, mock-ups, video, virtual reality, 3D scanning, etc.) to inform and drive their design process.

2. Use the above in order to develop a design project of limited scope.

3. Analyze and communicate one's design through various modes of representation.

4. Appropriately devise refined types of representation to highlight specific conceptual issues and/or sensory qualities.

Evaluation Ability & Approach

1. Promote the value (and joy!) of refined means of representation and prototyping in architecture.

2. Critically relate their one's work in the course to a broader issue or question of representation in architecture, as outlined in the course description.

Examination form

Student project work is presented and evaluated during design internal formative design reviews and a final summative review with external invited guests. These reviews follow the submission requirements outlined in the course program and the assignments as specified here on Canvas. Completion of all expected assignment output is mandatory for passing the course. Grading is based on both the novelty and the quality of the work presented.

The course subject is also developed via lectures and text seminars with a few simple assignments to build the discourse of the course. Attendance and participation during lectures and seminars is compulsory.

Regular attendance and participation in lectures, seminars, reviews, demos, and visits (at least 80%) are also required for passing. The course examiner may choose to assess individual students differently under special circumstances, such as when a student has documented learning support needs from Chalmers due to a disability.

Course literature

An updated bibliography is an integral part of the annual course program, depending on the material and technology chosen for the year. Only the reference literature is listed below.

+  ArchDaily. (n.d.). Trends in Architectural Representation: Understanding the Techniques. Retrieved from https://www.archdaily.com/867060/trends-in-architectural-representation-understanding-the-techniquesLinks to an external site.

+  ArchDaily. (2012). Venice Biennale 2012: The Piranesi Variations. Peter Eisenman. Retrieved from https://www.archdaily.com/268507/venice-biennale-2012-the-piranesivariationspeter-eisenmanLinks to an external site.

+  Architectural Review. (n.d.). Editorial View: Architectural Representation. Retrieved from https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/editorial-view-architectural-representation/8647155.articleLinks to an external site.

+  Bricken, M. (1991). Virtual Reality Learning Environments.

+  Farinella, C., & Greco, L. (Year). Dynamically Sublime, Vision, and Image in Architecture: The Relationship between 3D Graphics and Physiology of Vision in the Construction of Rendering Images.

+  Girón, J. (Year). Drawing and Construction Analysis: From Piranesi to Choisy.

+  Marshall, D. R. (2015). Piranesi’s Creative Imagination: The Capriccio the Carceri. In Piranesi Effect (Chapter 7). New South Wales.

+  Reiser, J., & Umemoto, N. (2006). Geometry and Matter. In Atlas of Novel Tectonics. Princeton Architectural Press.

+  Reiser, J., & Umemoto, N. (2006). Intensive and Extensive. In Atlas of Novel Tectonics. Princeton Architectural Press.

+  Rowe, C., & Slutzky, R. (1971). Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal.

+  Stone, K. (2015). Piranesi Effect. In The Piranesi Effect Exhibition Publication. New South Wales.

+  Testa, P. (2014). Autonomous Translations. In Fabrication and Fabrication. SCI-Arc Press.

Changes made since the last occasion

A summary of changes made since the last occasion.

The assignment has been updated with more focus on individual work and specialization and less emphasis on the group work. There is also more focus on the reintegration of  more Parametric Design in the course content.