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80 508 Re-Store: Bodies and Architecture
There are no prerequisites beyond admission to the program.
Growing from the lineage of Re-Store courses, this studio explores how to analyze and transform existing buildings through the lens of social experience. Current techniques for drawing, measuring, and preserving existing structures emphasize architectural and historical value over social value. But the key to sustaining a building is understanding how it has created social interactions in the past and can continue to generate activity in the future.
To probe these questions, the studio will look at the former prison Botsfengselet in Grønland, Oslo. This prison structure is remarkable not only for its grand architecture but also for its social organization, designed to isolate and observe prisoners. The closure of the prison in September 2017 poses a fascinating preservation problem– how can this historical structure be preserved through reuse? How can a prison be converted into another program? The reuse and reprogramming of the site must confront how the prison architecture shaped social and bodily experience. The course will have access to the prison both before and after its closure in September, providing the opportunity to analyze it both as a fully-functioning prison and a vacant structure.
This course will develop techniques for analyzing and drawing the relationship between the architecture and bodily experience. Students will develop experimental drawing techniques for mapping the movement of bodies in relation to the structure. These drawing techniques will be supplemented by research into the social history of the place and into other prison typologies. By analyzing the way the building has guided the movement and interaction of people, students will develop design proposals for how the building can be transformed both through program and new design interventions.
Students will develop individual design proposals for the reuse and redesign of the building, which will be resolved to a high degree of architectural detail. Students will deliver conventional architectural representations of their projects along with experimental drawings that capture social experience.
The course will also develop a public presentation of the work, ideally in the prison itself, which might take the form of an exhibition, event, or design intervention, to foster public dialogue about the site.
The teaching will take place in the form of pin-ups and critiques. Students are expected to be active participants in group conversations, to attend all pin-ups and to keep up with a rigorous level of production.
In combination with the studio meetings, the course will involve numerous trips to the Botsfengselet prison as well as related institutional buildings.
Primary Readings:
Tabula Plena: Forms of Urban Transformation, ed. Bryony Roberts (Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016)
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life” in The Nietzsche Reader (Blackwell, 2006), 124-141.
Otero-Pailos, Jorge, “Creative Agents” in Future Anterior, III/2, Summer 2006: iii-vii
| Mandatory coursework | Courseworks required | Presence required | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presence required | Not required | Attendance: Students are expected to be present and working during all studio meetings, which occur twice a week. Students are also expected to be present during all reviews. Absences from studio meetings and reviews will affect the final grade and multiple unexcused absences will result in course failure. |
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assessment (Vurderingsmappe) | Individual | Pass / fail | The final grade in the course will be given on the basis of: - Attendance and design production for twice-weekly studio meetings: 30% - Midreview presentation: 30% - Final review presentation: 40% Deadlines: Students must complete assignments by the given deadline. |
| Oral presentation | Individual | - | The oral presentation is a part of the portofolio assessment. Midreview and Final Review: Work presented for both the midreview and the final review will be evaluated according to the following criteria: - Conceptual Clarity: Students should demonstrate proactive engagement with the material and self-motivated intellectual pursuits that enhance their own design ambitions. Students are expected to clearly articulate their ambitions and the intellectual underpinnings of their work in pinups and desk crits. - Technique : Students are expected to execute all assignments with care and precision. Assignments will be evaluated not only on the basis of the ideas, but also to a large degree on the quality of the execution. Students are responsible for planning sufficient time for developing appropriate and thorough representation. |
| Workload activity | Comment |
|---|---|
| Individual problem solving | Design production for twice-weekly studio meetings: Students are expected to be self-motivated and ambitious in their development of their design proposals. During each twice-weekly studio meeting, students will discuss their work with the instructors. Students are expected to revise and improve their work for each session in response to earlier feedback from their instructors. |