Aim
The course aims to give students a basic orientation of a civil engineer’s area of work, with particular emphasis on this work’s significance for the form and tectonics of architecture seen both in a Swedish and an international perspective. The course shall introduce the concepts of architecture, the interplay between human beings on the one hand and the environment and social and cultural values on the other. The workplace-studies aim to associate the course to the application of building-workers’ skills on a building site.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• have a knowledge about architectural terms and concepts

• have an acceptable understanding of what technology signifies for architecture and the building industry

• have a perception of the influence on building technology of aesthetics and design

• be able to competent and to understand how the influence of civil engineers and architects on one another at the planning stage can affect the quality of the planning process and the completed building

• understand the different parts of the planning process, for example, planning and building

• know what the building industry demands in the way of energy and also on national considerations of resources

Contents
The course gives an orientation of what technology signifies for building and for architecture. An account of architecture as a cultural inheritance and basic of culture-historical values provide the background against which are addressed the parts and the whole of architectural gestalt work. Exemplified in Swedish and international contexts, the different parts of the planning process for building are considered in turn. How civil engineers and architects influence one another, as well as the qualitative results of the planning process, are studied particularly closely. Emphasis is given to how aesthetics and design influence building technology, and building industry energy demands. How human beings relate to the environment is studied in a long-term social perspective.

Architecture can be regarded as an aesthetic organization of practical reality. Evolving an optimal architectural result depends on considering technology and design at the earliest stages of working on it. The lectures mediate the width of the area of knowledge in question.

The main parts of the course can be described briefly as follows. The quality of architecture: forms of work for investigating and evaluating architectural characteristics, in which this quality is exemplified by selected instances of works of 20th- and 21st century architects. Theory of form: addresses gestalt aspects of form and what a practical workshop has taught in creating the details and entirety of a building. The influence of building technology on the theory of form is addressed in a temporal and social perspective. Examples are given of how questions of technology and architecture have been addressed in Sweden and internationally and, further, what they signify for the quality of the completed building is discussed. The interplay of questions of technology with a building’s functions is presented by way of examples.

Literature
Waern, R. Guide till Sveriges arkitektur – Byggnadskonst under 1000 år Arkitektur förlag AB 2001. ISBN: 91-86-05055-9
Ahlstrand, J-T. Arkitekturtermer Studentlitteratur 1976. Andra uppl. ISBN: 91-44-02852-0
Boverket BBR BFS 1993:5 med ändringar (2006-09-13)
Caldenby, C. & Nilsson, F. (red.) Om arkitektur - en antologi Arkus 2005. ISBN: 91-973626-3-8