Studio course

2010

The Means of Architectural Production 5
Course code	V10AS5
Department	Institute of Architecture
Professor in charge	Associate professor Neven Fuchs-Mikac
Additional staff	Visiting professor Kumiko Inui Teaching staff: Jonas Norsted, Ines Almeida, Joana Sa Lima, Dagfinn Sagen
Prerequisities	Passed the 6th semester.
Instruction language	Norwegian and English
Max no. of students	24
ECTS credits	24

Course description

The Studio offers a project-oriented Visiting Professor course in advanced architectural Design. The guest teacher through H09 will be Japanese architect Kumiko Inui from Tokyo.

The assignmentwill be to make design for a complex urban public programof medium size (max 4.000 m2). The themes for the assignment are under preparation. The site will be in Tokyo.

See project brief (pdf)

In working with architecture architects work with various themes. Construction, space, program, site, context, form and materiality are just some of them. The choice of themes and the way of working with them varies from one project to another. Sometimes the themes are more recognizable identities, sometimes less. Developing one’s own clear, consistent and creative attitude towards the chosen themes is what studying architecture is all about. In Spring semester 2010 the focus will be on the relation between the concept, image materiality and space, including the themes that clearly characterise the architecture coming fromoffice of Kuniko Inui.

The underlying theme of the course will focus on the development of the individual working methods through what one calls “the project-oriented architectural research”. That means that in parallel to the main project another “project” would go on: the investigation of means and processes necessary for its production. By organizing the semester work in a matrix-like structure that combines both the conceptual and intuitive approach to architecture, the Studio would like to disclose the potential that usually remains hidden behind the end-result of the architectural project. By pursuing the exploration within partly self-defined, partly given framework, the Studio wishes to question the preconceived images and norms of the

project-work and to initiate a process that is permanently revised by new cognitions, opened to unexpected architectural reactions.

Learning outcomes

After finishing the course, the students should:

have developed their clear, consistent and creative attitude
toward the architectural themes the Studio was working with (concept, image, materiality, program and space)
understand better the potential of larger and more complex programs by defining own interpretative scenarios in order to be able to use the architectural scenario as a tool in the design process.
understand better their own working process, both through the individual studies and as the architectural whole in a working situation where the real architectural task is actively combined with the architecturalresearch.
be able to develop the principles for structuring the complex architectural material into a project
be able topreciselyelaborate an architectural project in scale 1/200 and1/100
be able to understand the relationship between the physical presence, materiality and image by working with the large architectural models that fuse the architectural representation and its spatial qualities
benefit from the work with the foreign guest-teacher, from the confrontation with her architectural thinking, knowledge and experience, with her intuition.

Contents and teaching methods

The studio-work during the semester will be structured in 3-4 singular steps. Each step will be discussed both independently, as infiltrated into each other and connected into the projected whole. Each of the chosen themes during the small assignments will hopefully leave the traces onto the final project. Weaving the research on the different themes in and around the main project would lead the students to make visible another story – the story about their own making of architecture.

The small assignments will be investigated, developed and presented by means of architectural drawings, diagrams, models, photos, collages, renderings etc. The final project will be in drawings and large models.

The form of teaching will consist of the studio-work, the individual discussions and guidance, lectures, seminaries, with 4 common reviews/ critiques during the semester.

The study-trip will be to Tokyo.

Exams and assessment methods

The active working-presence in the studio during the semester

The studens are assessed on basis of:

Presence at 3 individual reviews, in weeks 7, 12 and 18 / 2010
Delivered project-material for 3 small assignments
Delivered complete project-material for the final project. Date: 10 June 2010
Presence at the exhibition AHO Works 07 – 11. June 2010
Passing the final critique.

The course is assessed as pass/fail, subject to the Regulations for Master's degree programmes at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, § 6-14.

Literature

Ábalos, I. (2001). The good life: a guided visit to the houses of modernity. Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili.

Barthes, R. (1983). Empire of signs. London: Jonathan Cape.

Berkel, B. v., & Bos, C. (2006). UN Studio: design models : architecture urbanism infrastructure. London: Thames & Hudson.

Calvino, I. (1974). Invisible cities. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Calvino, I., & Stender Clausen, J. (1982). Usynlige byer. Oslo: Aschehoug.

Caruso St, J., Ursprung, P., & Ursprung, P. (2008). Caruso St John: almost everything. Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa.

Certeau, M. d. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Connah, R. (1998). Welcome to the hotel architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Deplazes, A. (2008). Constructing architecture: materials processes structures : a handbook. Basel: Birkhauser.

Frampton, K., & Cava, J. (1995). Studies in tectonic culture: the poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Graphic anatomy. (2007). Tokyo: Toto.