Aim
Architecture is a form of art involving a delicate balance between emotions and rationality. The aim of the course is to initiate work on experimental design with a view toward exploring new forms of architectural expression, to endeavor to go beyond traditional conceptions of what architecture is and how it can come about, and to discover new functions and forms of architecture based on the special character and background of the location involved. So as to gain a better understanding of a given location, the relationship between form, construction and function during different historical periods is examined and is analyzed. This is followed by allowing one’s own personal conceptions regarding the location and one’s attitudes toward it, together with one’s ideas regarding future developments there to unfold.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• to create under supervision an architectural design based on analysis of a large and complex area that is analyzed.

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to adequately describe and discuss the design one has created and the designing process involved, and.

• be able to present the ideas contained in the design in a readily communicated way in terms of a model and a picture of it.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to able to adequately evaluate the relevance of the information presented in analyzing the design, and

• be able to assess the consequences of an architectural conception arrived at.

Contents
The Urban Experiment project consists of two parts, or workshops, dealing respectively with the matters of art and of construction involved:

The Poetry of Construction, concerning how problems are analyzed and the decisions required are made, as well as the dialectical relationship between human beings, objects and the landscape or urban environment in which they act or are located.

The Poetry of Drawing, concerned with the sources of inspiration, the experimentation, the intuitive processes, the geometries and the abstractions involved. Contemporary architectural currents are also considered and analyzed with the aim of achieving a better understanding of two- and three-dimensional relationships in space.

The project can be seen as an attempt to combine these two complementary aspects of architectural creativity, with the aim of creating a rich and dynamic entity. The aim is to produce innovative architecture appropriate both to the location it is in and conditions in the world at present through a thorough analysis of the city space involved, its spatial relations and its urban characteristics, and a study of contemporary architectural theories and design. Students are to experiment with different approaches to dealing with space and with different methods of presenting spatial constructions pictorially. Work with models is regarded as essential in analyzing the spatial relationships to be dealt with and for clarifying the quality of the solutions arrived at.

Part of the course involves a study tour to Berlin, Dresden and Dessau students are free to take, The aim is to study urban developments there and the relation of the architecture there to the space in which it stands and the overall scale of things. Berlin provides the visitor a comprehensive impression of urban phenomena and their background and development, displaying a progressive urbanism involving a complex combination of problems within architecture and city planning that unfolded during the 19th and 20th century, at the same time as there is a continuity of development there continuing on into the present century. The trip to Berlin is combined with a visit to BAUHAUS in Dessau and a chance to study the complex urban developments in Dresden.

Approach

The project involves an educational process, each stage of which takes place under the direction of an invited guest-teacher. Students receive in this way continuous inspiration and are confronted during the term with a variety of architectural approaches. The invited teachers and lecturers initiate intensive and concentrated work filled with ideas and questions of a sort dealt with in the world’s leading architectural schools. The workshops, beginning with an introductory lecture and closing with a discussion of the work done, provide the outer framework for the project.

The course is presented as being one dealing basically with the creation and handling of architectural space. The locations and spaces that are analyzed serve as the point of departure for the work conducted.

Literature
The literature is to be selected by guest-teachers who have invited to participate.