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40 555 Subject Matter: Rocks + Thoughts
Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
Part of course series: Subject Matter
The course is open to students from: Architecture and Landscape Architecture
What should we be thinking about today?
This course will examine time in architecture and care in the extraction of material, to address sustainability as a basis of value. If we grasp the limitation of our time in relation to the eternity of the rock as a material, we might be able to design with a greater care for our environment.
At the cusp of the Anthropocene, we have begun to think differently about how materials are extracted and refined, and how they might repurposed in the future. With the growth of the idea of circularity and reuse, buildings can be seen as a ‘pause’ in the circulation of materials from the sites of their extraction to further future use whose conditions are unknown. As allied with the Provenance Projected project, this studio will study the origins of materials and their potential use as poetic markers of our time.
The students will be asked to design a space that questions how we think about our time. The project should deal with rock as a material, either extracted and transformed or in a natural state. In juxtaposition to this, the students will be asked to pair this material with one that addresses a different perspective of time: something fluid, transformable, shifting or immaterial.
Our teaching method aims to see each individual in their search for meaning and purpose in their development of professional core values. We see education as a time when students are able to develop ideas and meaning about their work and pay attention to what kind of architect and human being they would like to be. This requires independent thought, but also a sensitivity towards the fact that nothing is singular, but plural. For this reason, we see the studio as a whole group, and each project as a contribution to a larger discussion. We require the students to be involved in that common discussion.
Knowledge:
- Knowledge of how a particular material comes about
- Knowledge of the historical uses of a particular material
- Knowledge of the environmental impact of a particular material
Skills:
- The ability to conduct research
- The ability to work with a particular material
- The ability to design with and specify a particular material
General competence:
- Competence in presenting ideas in word, image and artifact
The course is organized as collaborative studio in which student participation is essential. A weekly schedule includes lectures, tutorials and plenum discussions.
Excursion:
We believe that the study trip is an essential part of architectural education and see it as integral to the development of spatial awareness. There are several options for a destination. A final choice will be made by the course as a whole at the start of the semester.
Course literature will be available in Leganto.
| Mandatory coursework | Courseworks required | Presence required | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presence required | Required | Students are required to attend tutorials and plenum discussions no less than 80%. Attendance at reviews (3 per semester) is mandatory. Students are required to present new work at each weekly meeting. |
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project assignment | - | Pass / fail | The students work on a given/selected project throughout the course and the assessment is based on an assignment that counts for 100% of the grade. The students present the final project work orally to the examiners and the oral presentation itself is part of the assessment. |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Excursion | Those who do not have the opportunity to participate in an excursion will be given an assignment/a project that replaces this. |