70 507 Service of Living
Emnenavn på Norwegian Bokmål:
Service of Living
Credits:
24
Course code:
70 507
Level of study:
Master
Teaching semester:
2023 Spring
Assessment semester:
2023 Spring
Language of instruction:
English
Year:
2023
Required prerequisite knowledge
Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years Bachelor level studies (180 ECTS). The course is open to architecture and design students.
Part of course series: Service of living
Course content
The studio is run by the Institute of Architecture and Institute of Design together with Comte Bureau and in collaboration with OBOS as a cross-disciplinary research exercise to rethink housing in Oslo.
In the 1930s Oslo experienced challenges of inadequate and unhealthy living conditions and lack of affordable housing for families. Oslo Municipality gathered a research group consisting of architects, engineers and sociologists to work together to study and improve this housing situation. Post-war housing standards, housing cooperations, homeownership policies and planned communities were further developments of these efforts – a large part of the Oslo population lives in the resulting homes and neighbourhoods today.
In 2022 the challenges are new. An unregulated housing market means that homeownership in Oslo is becoming increasingly inaccessible. Family structures have changed: single households are becoming the norm and many feel lonely. Emerging technologies and new types of services transform our communities, social lives and neighbourhoods. Not to forget the challenges of adjusting the way we live to the new realities of climate change and environmental issues. These new challenges are reasons to rethink housing.
However, these challenges are far too complex, wide-ranging and interconnected to be addressed by one design field alone. Instead, they require cross-disciplinary problem solvers to work together to craft a new way of thinking and working. Therefore, the course will be run by the Institute of Architecture and Institute of Design together with Comte Bureau, a leading actor in developing projects merging service design and architectural competencies. We will enable architecture and design students to work together as a team and to explore a cross-disciplinary, human-based working process and methodology. The studio research involves defining the needs of target groups, translating those needs into solutions, and finally developing a methodology for testing them.
This exploration will be made in collaboration with OBOS, a housing developer that was fundamental in the post-war efforts towards good, affordable housing. The studio will rethink the broader themes defined by OBOS Living lab; an experimental living arena that aims to enable quality in affordable living today. The studio sets out to investigate how we, by combining tools and methods available from social sciences, service design and architecture may address the many factors that influence the way we live. We will investigate living today and design the living of tomorrow. We will research how decisions makers, developers, architects and designers can develop housing and neighbourhoods more fitted to present-day challenges.
Learning outcome
KNOWLEDGE
- Knowledge of the history of housing and housing politics.
- Knowledge of the cultures and uses of design methods and approaches to research in the fields of service design and architecture.
- Understanding of human-centred approaches to design and architecture practice.
SKILLS
- Skills of observation, analysis, and design methods that lead to architectural solutions based on human needs.
- Skills in working in a cross-disciplinary space that combines design thinking with architectural methods.
- Visualisation skills to communicate human needs, lived experiences and possible future experiences.
- Skills in full-scale testing of architectural designs (prototypes).
- Skills in communicating research findings.
- Collaborative skills for working in cross-disciplinary teams.
GENERAL COMPETENCE
- Understanding of the role and value of each discipline involved in a cross-disciplinary project.
- Broad methodical insight earned by actively participating in a cross-disciplinary process.
- Relevant professional experience with cooperation in cross-disciplinary teams.
Working and learning activities
The activities will be lectures, studio work (groups and individual), tutoring sessions in the studio, workshops, structured presentations and discussions within the course participants. Furthermore, collaboration and consultation with OBOS and the OBOS Living Lab, various research activities including interviews and other interactions with informants, excursions and on-site surveys, using statistics and other publicly available information, and a main design project in collaboration with external partners.
The student’s progression through both projects will be presented by means of group and individual mid-term deliverables and presentations, workshops, research material and a final full-scale design test (prototype), report or exhibition to communicate results and findings.
Details regarding the calendar, main events, deliverables, and evaluation criteria will be described and detailed at the onset of the course.
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assessment (Vurderingsmappe) | - | Pass / fail | Being a practice-driven course, the student’s progression through the course will be assessed by means of: • Ability to collaborate • Ability to visualize and communicate findings from insight work • Group and individual mid-term deliverables • Presentations • Final prototype/report/exhibition (Main deliverable). The course consists of a main deliverable that will be developed and defined by the students themselves as most appropriate for the dissemination of findings during the semester. The course will also consist of group and individual deliverables throughout, and students will receive qualitative assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses. The project will have a final presentation, that will be assessed in pass or fail by an external sensor and the course leader. The details for each project regarding deliverables and evaluation criteria will be described in the brief for the project at the beginning of the course. |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Attendance | Students are expected to attend at least 90% of the main course events described in the detailed calendar for each project, in order to be able to pass the course. This is an intensive course and it demands consistent and hard work from the participants. Although the project will be developed in groups, individual deliverables will also be required during the projects. Whilst the course draws on the experience of the external partner involved in developing and delivering this course, there will also be a degree of experimentation and iterative development of new methods during the course. |