Start semester
60 533 Mediterranean Botanical Garden
Autocad. Adobe suite. 3d modelling. Model making skills.
The course is open for Landscape architecture students and Architecture students.
The studio will engage with the design of a botanical garden (the landscapes and its main associated buildings) in a high altitude tropical location in the middle of the Colombian Andes.
The studio will challenge the botanical garden as a museum of plants, by attempting to return to the origins of the typology, which was about a space for botanical research rather than a space for hosting collections brought from exotic locations.
The studio is part of the "International studio series" and focuses on the implementation of the tools and techniques developed through studios in the past six years, which allow students to address the design of remote locations by creatively working with constructed site surveys. These techniques empower students to use landscape as media for design that can also inform architecture.
The studio has the support of the newly founded Rionegro Botanical garden.
Expenses are conmesurate with regular studios at AHO (model making materials, a study trip to be discussed with teachers, regular supplies) there will be a collective model to be made as a group.
Knowledge:
Advanced design competence in preparation to undertake independent projects such as landscape architecture and architecture diploma at AHO.
Different landscape architecture's spatial principles applied to the task of designing a botanical garden (landscape, gardens and associate buildings and structures)
Capacity to translate cartographic and geographic material into formal principles
Form making at different scales. And capacity to establish links between formal decision taken at different scales.
Detailed design and capacity to design details that embody the discursive aspect of the project.
Organising botanic collections according to formal principles
Architecture in relation to landscape architecture and their shared botanic tropes
History of tropical architecture and landscape architecture
Knowledge on the history of the spatial decisions and principles behind canonical botanical gardens, their approach to museography, large scale landscapes and associated buildings with botanical themes.
Knowledge on the history and evolution of landscape and architecture aesthetic codes that have emerged from the study of plants, mainly thought the aesthetic view on herbarium and different ways to collect and classify botanic material
Knowledge on the history of how botanical tropes have informed and continue informing architecture.
Knowedge on the evolution of tropical architecture through references and application of principles in buildings that do not require tight thermal insulation.
Knowledge and capacity to apply the specify aesthetic that emerge when working in a context without seasons and stable year around climate, which contribute towards the blurring of distinctions between inside and outside and the distinctions between landscape architecture and architecture.
Skills:
Capacity to solve complex landscape and architectural programs with a high degree of creativity and inventiveness. Pattern recognition in high resolution surveys, pattern development, composition.
Spatial composition for landscape architecture and architecture, while exploring which aspects of spatial composition can be shared between both disciplines.
Formulating spatial principles useful for future projects outside the scope of the course
Capacity to manipulate form in order to design both landscapes and buildings simultaneously
Capacity for formulate independent arguments to sustain spatial ideas and relate them to both history and theory.
General competence:
Landscape Architecture and Architecture
The course meets two times per week with deskcrits at least once per week depending on project advancement. There will be lectures organised for some studio session. It is expected that students work independently outside of studio time in order to fulfil 24 ects of design workload typical of studio at AHO.
There will be a mid review with internal guests before the excursion and and a final review with guest critics.
Most of the desk crits will be organised around the advancements in the physical models, with drawings serving as support for what can not be effectively expressed or explore in models.
Students will be evaluated according on the following variables:
- Commitment
- Development/ Synthesis of Concept
- Design Skills
- Verbal Communication
- Graphic Presentation
- Application of Technologies
| Mandatory coursework | Courseworks required | Presence required | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presence required | Required | Wednesday and Thursdays The course is 24 ects, therefore attendance and independent work commensurate with this workload is expected. We will not enforce attendance, but the workload demands presence. It is required to contribute to the collective model and individual / groups must complete at least one large model, one detailed plan, one constructive detail, high quality model photographs and a dossier documenting the process. These different elements will also be evaluated in the mid review in a preliminary state. |
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project assignment | Individual | 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 not included as part of the assessment. |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Excursion | There will be an excursion to visit important botanic spaces in Europe or Latin America. The excursion will be planned with the students when the course starts. The studio is open for different arrangements agreed with the student group. |