Syllabus 2010/2011 AFO125

Syllabus academic year 2010/2011
(Created 2010-07-25.)

LABORATORY FOR SPATIAL EXPERIMENTS (CONTEMPORARY DESIGN PROCESS IN ARCHITECTURE)

AFO125

Credits: 6. Grading scale: UG. Cycle: A (Second Cycle). Main field: Architecture. Language of instruction: The course will be given in English on demand. Optional for: A4. Course coordinator: Professor Christer Malmström, christer.malmstrom@arkitektur.lth.se, Architecture and Built Environment. Prerequisites: At least three years approved full time education at university level (or a Bachelor degree) in architecture, or equivalent. The course might be cancelled if the number of applicants is less than 10. Assessment: The tasks carried out being judged to be completed satisfactorily and at least 80% attendance in lectures and classwork, at seminars and during paricipants presentation of their results. Written exams: 0. Further information: If less than 10 students apply for the course, it might be cancelled.

Aim
The aim is to provide a deeper understanding of the development of contemporary architecture and to furthering a both open and critical view regarding current theories of design. Also to learn how best to describe design processes in picture and text form.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

have an adequate understanding of the processes that current forms of experimental architecture involve and of theories regarding them.
have carried out an individual investigation of an architectural objects and have completed a paper concerning it.

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

demonstrate the ability to describe the design process in an adequate way.

Judgement and approach
For a passing grade the student must

be able to describe in approximate terms the complexity that a given building process involves.

Contents
The course, which requires critical and analytic reading of relevant literature, aims at providing an understanding of changes that have occurred in contemporary architecture as based on an understanding of the design processes within architecture that are being followed today.
These design processes are of both linguistic and visual character. Different types of texts and pictures are to be used as a means of representing the design processes employed by a variety of different contemporary architects. The course is to involve a discussion of problems that architects today need to contend with in their designing work. Each student is also to carry out an individual investigation to be reorted in a short paper. The overarching idea the course takes up is that of developing an open definition of the design process. The openness here relates to certain contemporary philosophical ideas that upon which the theoretical foundations of the course are based.

Literature
Each participant will be provided a list of literature appropriate to the investigation he/she is to carry out, together with a list including literature of relevance to all of the participants.