Master courses for architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture - Spring 2025

Here is an overview of the courses offered in architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture spring 2025.
 

Studio Courses

Introduction

Studio courses are 24 credits. Please note that some courses are offered across study programs. See course descriptions for studio courses in the dropdown menu below.

ACDL: Ruins  

Course responsible:

Søren S. Sørensen
 

Required prerequisite knowledge: 

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
 

Recommended prerequisites: 

Preliminary skills in computational design are advised.  
 

Language of instruction: 

English
 

Course series: 

ACDL (Advanced Computational Design Laboratory) studio series.
 

Who can apply for the course: 

Master level architecture students

Course content:

The ACDL studio is part of a series running since 2014, placing a strong emphasis on computational tools as part of the design process and communication of ideas. The studio is research and practice based, with an experimental approach to environmentally conscious architectural design, design processes and methodologies. Students will delve into the intersection of computation and architecture to develop innovative design solutions for the built environment.  

The project assignment is to design a Museum over the Medieval ruins in Oslo’s old town; “Gamle Oslo Ruinpark.  

Parametric computational modeling will be introduced and used in an iterative manner incorporating design generation and analysis to refine the associative model that defines spatial organization, required building program and activity distribution. Central themes for the studio are performance oriented; site specific climate analysis as part of the research and basis for design, - and various simulations to analyze and optimize design and performance as part of the architectural design process.  

Throughout the course, emphasis will be placed on an iterative design process, encouraging students to experiment with computational tools and analog techniques to refine their architectural proposals. By fostering a collaborative studio environment, participants will have the opportunity to exchange ideas, critique each other's work, and push the boundaries of design innovation.  

The projects should integrate sustainable principles, new materials, and technology in a suitable and innovative manner.

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• of the architectural and computational design themes pursued by the studio
• of parametric design
• of tools for analysis and simulation relating to climate and building performance
• of successful built examples of equivalent projects
• of advanced architectural visualization

 

Skills

• in utilizing associative modeling systems for architectural design
• in utilizing analysis tools, simulations and real-time visualization as part of the design process
• reflective thinking and evaluation as a tool for developing design ideas within the design process

 

General competence

• the ability to develop designs based on specific performative criteria in an integrated manner, from the conceptual stage to the material articulation through computational design
• the ability to set up and follow through a design process that leads to the desired result
• the ability to utilize design as a method of research in architecture that facilitates the conception of novel architectural designs
   

Working and learning activities

Project studio; lectures and studio supervision. Toolbox series of seminars introducing relevant computational analysis, simulation and design systems.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Intermediate deliveries / presentations and attendance at workshops are compulsory.
 

Form of assessment

Individual: A combination of project assignment, presentation, assessment folder and report.
 

Animism in Architecture: Ethnopoetics

Course responsible: 

Rolf Gerstlauer, Wenkai Xu
 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
 

Recommended prerequisites:

The studio allows for its master students to develop their work over two to three semesters - finalizing it in their diploma work.  

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.
 

Course series:

B&SM - Acting and The Collective in a More-Than-Human World
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students

Course content:

Body and Space Morphologies (B&SM) is a research-based teaching program in the Building Art department. Dedicated to Phenomenology in Architecture, the program offers Trans-Disciplinary master studios in explorative – architectural, pre-architectural and post-architectural - making, sensing and thinking.  

We aim at preparing and enabling students to conduct their own interest driven investigation into Architectural Phenomenology - understood as Research Creation; a working mode creating an inspired, process focused and reflective Material Practice. We consider this to be the Artistic Parallel to both Traditional Scholarly Research and Common Architectural Design Practice.

Based on performativity and affordance theories, performance and performance studies, disability and neurodiversity studies as well as phenomenology and perception theories, the B&SM Studio Works investigate primal and/or pre-architectural material/processes/phenomena/conditions and develop or perform a series of experienced distinct objects that behave relational, that inspire imagination, that provide new knowledge, strong architectural interests and/or architectural narratives.  
 

The semester task spring 2025 - Animism in Architecture: Ethnopoetics  

Ethnopoetics is a form of narrative analysis designed, initially, for the analysis of folk stories and based on an ethnographic performance-based understanding of narrative emphasizing that meaning is an effect of performance. It offers opportunities for analyzing `voice'. The ways in which speakers themselves organize stories along indexical patterns of emphasis, focus, super- and subordination and so on. As such, it is a potentially very useful tool for tracking `local' patterns of meaning-making in narrative.  

[…] ethnopoetics could be productively applied to data in which different systems of meaning-making meet — a condition that defines many important service-providing systems in globalizing contexts.  

[…] the potential usefulness of such an applied ethnopoetics stretches into many other types of service encounters in which crosscultural storytelling is crucial.  

Blommaert, Jan. (2006). Applied Ethnopoetics. Narrative Inquiry. 16. 181-190. 10.1075/ni.16.1.23blo.

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Learning outcome:

Knowledge of:

• Ethnopoetics as non-Western and non-canonical poetries introduced as an alternative approach or movement to making, sensing and writing
• the basics in phenomenology of architecture and the various practices that exist within (and that can become part of) architectural phenomenology
• the basics in affordance theory and the theories concerning objecthood and/or object relations as means to fuel and reflect upon a material practice and/or artistic research in the field of architecture.  
• the basics in performance and performance studies that make body & space morphologies: ways of making, looking at, discussing and seeing/understanding qualia and perception in the working of architecture.  
• the basics in disability studies and neurodiversity studies as the necessary activist movements working and re-defining the human condition from “all the world’s a stage” (Shakespeare) towards for all the human spectrum with its diverse behavior dwelling in a more-than-human world.  
• the basics of performativity, language and speech acts as the tools that can add value to the making and a work – but that not necessarily must seek to replace the issues at stake in a work or a thing.  
• the foundational preparations for an advanced haptic visual and experimental artistic research leading to a material practice and/or architectural phenomenology

Skills

• finding, developing and/or embracing initiatives for the making of an inspired, explorative, and imaginative artistic research
• manufacturing physical and/or visual (or otherwise sensible/perceptible) works and gaining a unique expertise in the craft(s) deployed in the making of these artifacts.  
• conducting this artistic research with the desire to make or pursue a material practice containing, or inviting for, reflections in phenomenology of architecture / architectural phenomenology.  
• deploying complementary ways of working and means of creative investigations that make, demonstrate, or narrate a dialogue between the works inherent qualities and how this connects to (or can become) issues, phenomena and/or subjects in the world.  
• maintaining a personal diary of the making that can be worked into documents of the making aiming at a third-party readability.  
• approaching environments, situations, and discussions phenomenological and applying and recognizing performativity in speech and action as productive means from which to provoke and receive social employed knowing in trans-disciplinary teams

General competence in:

• developing distinct initiatives and choosing the craft in which to act or work them to partake in the discourse on the phenomenology of architecture.  
• approaching and acting on impulse with all sorts of material, objects, environments and/or events and gaining valuable experience, artefacts and/or documents from this.  
• conceiving of and presenting/communicating unique architectural content/research through a haptic visual material and the phenomena or conditions contained and experienced in it.  
• understanding the mechanisms and rhetoric of systems of oppression, learned behavior, eugenics and stigma that are un-productive and unsustainable (in the field of architecture as well as in the systems we call architecture).  
• developing and/or pursuing life-long initiatives for a material practice in architectural phenomenology that is independent of, and/or adaptable to, any kind of professional commission.  
• not knowing a thing, but having the passion, dedication, endurance, and imagination to wanting to get to know it.  

 

Working and learning activities

The studio meets for every Wednesday and Thursday from 9:30 to 17.00 for lectures, screenings, reviews, and worktable talks. Fridays from 13:30 – 15:30 are reserved for Studio Commons (student driven events or discussions etc.).  

We have five public mid-term reviews and prepare at the end of the semester a work display. The exhibition allows for the students to display their complete works (all objects and artefacts – found or made) together with a book and/or film or video containing a written and/or otherwise illustrated experience of their making and that what the making had connected to. An external sensor team will study the exhibition and books and/or video/films and then give feedback and critique on the individual work but also on the studio as a whole.  

The Body & Space Morphologies diploma thesis candidates are integrated in the studio and work in the same space. We recommend the master course students to attend the diploma mid-term reviews (between four or five during the semester).
 

Sustainability commons & goals of the B&SM studios:

• The studio shares the responsibility to create an inclusive learning and working environment in which all of us seek to accommodate another, and in which we strive to reduce waste by ways of working circular processes
• Animism in Architecture: Ethnopoetics requires a creative discursive approach and/or advanced experimental architectural design practice that potentially can contribute to all the 17 sustainable development goals
• The students are aware that they take an active stance regarding the above stated two B&SM sustainability commons, thus they focus their design initiative & process according

Excursion

We plan two parallel trips for the excursion week: one group of students travels to the Lista-peninsula in Southern Norway, and the second group will travel to Japan and visit Tokyo, Kyoto, Naoshima, Teshima and Miyajima. The two excursions will interact with each other through online screened performance events.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

20 weeks full-time study. The work must be conducted and performed in the studio - the working material is present at any time.  

You are expected to be present at: weekly talks, lectures, and studio discussions, frequent work reviews, a workshop in book making, the final exhibition and a final review with invited guests-critics.
 

Form of assessment

Project assignment  

The course is assessed based on a semester project; the individual studio work on your own selected project developed throughout the course and critically reflected / presented on a final deliverable. This entails practical and theoretical exercises, visual and verbal project presentations, and the making of a final exhibition including a process book with a text/essay.
 

Architecture and the Archives: Nils Holter’s Stortingsbygning

Course responsible: 

Jørgen Johan Tandberg
 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
 

Language of instruction:

English
 

Course series:

Architecture and the Archives
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

In 2023 Statsbygg presented a report for the possible renovation of the Norwegian parliament building. The report focuses on the spatial requirements of the wing towards Akersgaten. While recommending a comprehensive transformation, the report also admits that the alterations are likely to cause a conflict between preservation interests and the need for upgrades.  

The original parliament building was designed by Emil Langlet and completed in 1866. In 1949, after the institution had struggled with lack of space for decades, an architecture competition was held, looking at the possibility of solving the parliament’s growing spatial requirements within existing property lines. The competition caused intense public debate. Nils Holter’s renovation and extension was completed in 1959. While both Einar Gerhardsen and a young Kåre Willoch announced that Holter’s proposal would give Norway “the world’s ugliest parliament building”, architecture critics and historians have been appreciative, as the project successfully manages to combine old and new.  

With Statsbygg’s report and the anticipation of another transformation as a backdrop, the studio will investigate the archives of Nils Holter, previously unexplored. By staging an investigative exhibition, we will bring new attention to a little studied masterpiece of transformation, and an important piece of modernist heritage.

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

Increased knowledge about the building methods and design strategies of 20th century Norwegian modernism, as well as insight into a passionate public architectural debate.

Skills

• Archival work as a method for writing architectural history and understanding design processes
• Architectural detailing as a research method
• Modelmaking as representational tools

General competence

Students attending the course will be better equipped to handle historical complexity and making evidence operative within a research and design project.
 

Working and learning activities

The semester is divided into four phases, each with its own submission requirements.  

Phase 1 - The 1949 architecture competition and the public debate on modernizing a monument

Outcome of phase 1: Scale models, plans and sections of the competition proposals, as well as a variety of documents that display the heated discussion on what a postwar modern parliament could look like. Oral/visual presentation.

Phase 2 - The parliament building in context: Modernist plans for Karl Johans gate, Studenterlunden and Kvadraturen

Outcome of phase 2: Maps, timelines, models, drawings, films and (beautiful) diagrams. Oral/visual presentation.
 

Phase 3 - The details of Nils Holter’s parliament building

In phase 3, will document and discuss material use and building details in the parliament building, focusing on the specific rooms and areas that are most characteristic. The phase will make use of the original drawing archives, combined with site surveys.  

Outcome, phase 3: Large scale printed axonometric detail drawings. Oral/visual presentation.  
 

Phase 4 - Curatorial reflection

The latin cura means to care. Phases 1–3 will together result in an exhibition, Architecture and the Archives: Nils Holters Stortingsbygning, where we will curate the history of the building with an eye to the future.  

The studio is part of the research project “Provenance Projected. Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity” led by Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

A series of research assignments will be submitted on Moodle and presented orally/visually throughout the semester, in addition to the collective work with the exhibitions. Attendance of lectures and presentations is required.  
 

Form of assessment

Assessment folder and presentation. Individual assessment (in the context of the group’s collaborative efforts). 

Results from phases 1–4 will be used in the final exhibition, and will form the basis for assessment.
 

Circular Prototyping: Design for Reassembly

Course responsible:

Ute Groba
 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
 

Language of instruction:

Norwegian or English, depending on the student group
 

Course series:

Circular Prototyping / Timber Studio (merged) 
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

The Circular Prototyping studio offers students a comprehensive understanding of architecture within the context of environmental sustainability. The curriculum centres on the principles of circular building practices, with a specific focus on building materials and construction techniques that substantially mitigate environmental impact. These principles are investigated within a design-build studio format, equipping students with vital tools to guide form-finding processes and facilitate critical evaluation of sustainability measures as an integral part of the design process.  

The studio’s core activities revolve around collaborative design-build projects that mirror architectural practice. The hands-on experience with building allows students to apply theoretical knowledge in a practical manner and foster a deeper understanding of possibilities and challenges at hand as we move forward into a future with circular material economy and ecological awareness. Each studio semester focuses on in-depth investigations of different regenerative materials, building techniques or components in relation to utilizing their inherent properties and environmental potentials. 

During the spring semester 2025, the focus will be on “Design for Reassembly” – asking how regenerative materials can be coupled with construction details for repeated cycles of prefabrication, instalment, use, dismantlement, transport, storage, repair and reassembly. Focussing on the architecture of a modular pavilion, the design-build task will investigate how temporary structures can achieve extended and/or repeated lifespans, how the choice of construction systems and materials can minimize the environmental footprint, and how different design choices influence the adaptability to various spatial configurations, aesthetic expressions, and contextual or programmatic needs. 

The semester will culminate in the construction of two pavilion structures, both built at AHO in May. The first one, a Landscape Laboratory, will support landscape architecture students’ fieldwork as a storage unit, in addition to occasionally hosting cultural “pop-up” events linked to AHO activities, such as the school’s 80th anniversary. The second one, a music performance pavilion serving the Ultima Festival program, will be prefabricated at AHO in May, re-erected at Oslo Central Station (Tigerplassen) in September, and further transported to a new location to host the Oslo Triennale Program in October (TBD). Both structures will aim for extending their primary use by contributing to the public spaces they are located in, for example by serving as outdoor furniture for social gatherings. Both pavilion structures will be based on the same modular load-bearing system made from reclaimed wood, and its joining principles. The design will also include additional exterior and interior layers as needed, based on context and function, such as weather protection, acoustic performance, flooring and roofing, as well as theft protection. Here, regenerative resources and various related techniques may complement the wooden structure, such as hemp, straw, wood shingles, sand, and clay. The concurrent material explorations and program development will involve key partners such as AHO’s Landscape Architecture Program and Ultima in collaboration with the Norwegian Academy of Music. 

Throughout the semester, the students will conduct in-depth research on regenerative materials, timber construction techniques, design-for-reassembly principles, and programmatic analysis. A foundational understanding of the constructive elements will feed into the conceptual ideas and the full-scale prototyping of a modular, transportable and storable pavilion construction system. Through different stages of a design competition and in varying group constellations, the students will explore the potential of different ideas and develop them further. The course’s final assignment is a comprehensive report (individual or group work) that summarizes and reflects upon the findings from the design-build process in order to uncover barriers and opportunities for future circular practices. Together with an exhibition of the competition entries (individual or group work) and the built prototypes (common studio efforts), these reports will set the agenda for discussions with invited guests from academia and the industry at the studio’s final review. 
 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• of climate mitigation strategies relating to construction 
• of circular construction principles, specifically the constructive logic of design for reassembly,  
• of timber properties, construction systems, products and timber-specific detailing. 
• of a range of different regenerative materials, their inherent properties and potential use in the construction industry 
• of evaluating the environmental impact of choices through quantification 
   

Skills

• In techniques and tools to build with regenerative materials in various ways 
• In circular design development from concept to finalized built project (from sketch to building manual and final assembly) 
• In practical and constructive detailing when working with regenerative materials 
• In critical thinking upon standard practice and to reflect on future circular design possibilities and strategies
   

General competence

• Ability to design and assess our making from a circular perspective. 
• Assessing environmentally sound design results, learning to integrate in-depth material investigations in the form-finding process. 
• In being able to understand possibilities of using wood as a structural material 
• In understanding the complexity of a building process and construction site (resource availability, time, economy, transportation) 
• An awareness of the political agenda in relation to climate mitigation and adaption – nationally and internationally. 
• Design-build competence from conceptual models and drawings, physical models to scale, drawings in 1:100 – 1:10, to 1:1 construction drawings and building processes. 
• Composing a report on findings and related wider reflections, targeting barriers and opportunities in future circular practices. 
   

Working and learning activities

Course Organization:

The course is divided into 3 phases:  

1. Material investigation  
2. Design-build 
3. Design Report 

Each phase consists of different tasks, relevant lectures and readings, feed-back sessions, and pin-ups. The students’ presence is expected at all common activities. We use Outlook calendar for sharing information about teaching activities and other communication.
 

1. Material investigations 

• Getting to know to the principles of design for reassembly, and important regenerative materials 
• Visiting relevant buildings, practices and industries 
• Studies of relevant built references 
• Introduction to technical properties of materials (GWP, hygroscopic qualities, durability in exposed situations, acoustic qualities, etc.) 
• Introduction to lifecycle methodology (LCA), global warming potential (GWP), measures for assessing resource depletion and waste production (quantitative method). 
   

2. Design-build 

• Analysis of site-specific conditions at AHO’s outdoor area and Oslo S; understanding relevant functions regarding the program of a Landscape Laboratory (storage unit), an outdoor furniture, an event installation and a music pavilion; understanding the building materials together with the building technique and principles of design for reassembly.  
• Design competition. Students are asked to develop a clear architectural concept based on the site, program and reference study. This will be organized as an internal competition with an external jury. 
• Construction drawings. Similar to an architectural practice, the studio will work collaboratively to develop the winning proposal(s) through relevant construction drawings in 2D and physical 3D models. 
• Mock-ups in 1:1 will be worked on as an integral part of this phase.  
• A booklet called “Building Manual” will be developed and printed, describing each step of the coming building phase.  
• Construction phase. A ca. 2-week intensive building period at AHO. The work will be organized in smaller groups, each responsible for different tasks and processes according to the Building Manual. 
   

3. Design report 

• A theoretical assignment with individual, concluding papers is running throughout the semester and will be presented at the Final Review with an external examiner.  
   

Excursion

• Local day trip(s) to see relevant architectural projects, meet architects in practice and industry partners 
• study trip to a European city / region (TBD) 

 Those who do not have the opportunity to participate in the excursion will receive a task that replaces this.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Passing the course requires the active participation in lectures, workshops, group  meetings and desk crits, as well as handing in the partial assignments. The steady development of the project with regular supervision meetings throughout the semester is important, and a general presence at the AHO studio space of at least of 80% of the time is desirable. 
It is mandatory to attend and meet the requirements of Midterm and Final Review.
 

Form of assessment

Bi-weekly pin-ups in plenum, weekly individual and group supervision, student-to-student feedback sessions, internal and external censor present at Midterm and Final Review.

Final delivery:

• Design competition entries 
• Built project 
• Building Manual 
• A report on a focused topic and associated method will be part of the Final Review in addition to an evaluation of the student’s design efforts and building activities
   

Housing Exhibition Studio 01 – Minimum Dwelling & The First-Time Buyer

Course responsible: 

Jonas Løland og Kim Pløhn

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English

Course series:

HES – Housing Exhibition Studio

Who can apply for the course:

Arcitecture master level students
 

Course content:

Housing Exhibition Studio 01 aims to understand the minimum dwelling and first-time buyer homes (“førstegangskjøp”) in Oslo. We will question the lower limit of housing quality and the mechanisms that secure our basic human needs in the built environment, while at the same time explore possibilities for the Norwegian ideal of universal home ownership.  

The studio will address urgent housing issues through the research and design of state of the art minimal dwellings in Oslo. The final output of the semester will be a publicly accessible housing exhibition. We will engage actively with the politics and finance of housing, its design methodology and the architectural quality of housing in different situations, ranging from the scale of the city to the scale of furniture. A hundred years after CIAM’s Existenzminimum, we again ask what density of life might achieve ecological, social and economic sustainability.  

The liberalization of the market during the past four decades has fundamentally altered housing architecture. This has occurred in parallel throughout Europe, but the sharp contrast between the housing policies of the post war welfare state, and the market that succeeded it, has made this development perhaps most readable in Norway. In just a few years, housing went from being developed by cooperatives on municipal plots of land with money loaned from the State, to becoming a commodity built speculatively by a few, large housing developers. Today it is clear that the quality of our housing has subsequently decreased, meanwhile the cost of housing has skyrocketed. Recently the new municipal plan of Oslo proposed a reduction of the smallest permissible dwelling unit from 35 m2 to 30 m2, seemingly against all professional advice. Following widespread public outcry, the Housing Question is back on the political agenda, pressuring both the architectural profession and its educational institutions.  

How can we live small, yet acceptable? What is the role of the architect in regards to the Housing Question in 2024? How do we as a profession advocate publicly for quality in our built environment? Could the tradition of the Housing Exhibition still serve as a useful tool in the discussion on how to achieve affordable high-quality homes in Norway?  

The studio is done in connection with Ny Boligplan, an association and architectural journal working to promote a critical and constructive dialogue on a housing policy for our time.
 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• History of housing design and the minimum dwelling
• History of housing exhibitions
• Debates and issues of present-day housing construction in Norway and abroad
• Design methodology
   

Skills

• Architectural surveys  
• Model building and architectural representation  
• Systematically explore the functional, social and symbolic effect of architectural components in a dwelling  
• Develop present-day forms of minimum dwellings  
• Navigate and write requirements and regulatory framework for housing  
• Curate a large exhibition
   

General competence

The students will be encouraged to engage in a creative and critical way with urgent societal and architectural issues, to develop a sense for qualities within the domestic, and to communicate these to a wider public.

 

Working and learning activities

Housing Exhibition Studio 01 is organized towards the shared goal of producing a housing exhibition accessible to the public. The course is divided into three phases followed by an exhibition showing the collected work of the studio.  

Each week of the course consists of a pre-planned schedule combining workshops and seminars, desk-crits and pin-ups. Students will be supported and instructed in the neccesary tools.
 

Phase 1: Survey  
Survey of First-Time Buyer Apartments in Oslo / Boligundersøkelse av Førstegangskjøp i Oslo.  

Starting from an existing plan atlas of 196 small apartments in Oslo, published in the journal NY BOLIGPLAN issue nr. 1, the first phase deals with surveying small first-time buyer apartments in Oslo through fieldwork, user questionnaires and large scale plan drawings/models, including exact furniture layouts.  
 

Phase 2: Laboratory  
Minimum Dwelling Lab / Minstekravets Laboratorium.  

The second phase will study various aspects of minimal dwelling requirements in groups through methodically documented experiments using models, mockups, drawings and diagrams. These studies will be contextualized critically through reading seminars on the historical discourse on the minimal dwelling.  
 

Phase 3: Proposal  
Small, yet acceptable / Høvelig Førstegangskjøp.  

The third phase will focus on developing concrete proposals for state of the art minimal dwellings in Oslo, addressing the relationship with site, apartment organization within the building complex and shared facilities, down to the spatial qualities of the individual dwelling. Proposals will be communicated through large scale plan drawings, models and perspectives.  
 

Final Exhibition  
Housing Exhibition 01: Minimum Dwelling & The First-Time Buyer / Boligutstilling 01: Minstekrav og Førstegangskjøpet.  

The studio ends with the curation and production of a public housing exhibition made up of the collected work of the semester, as well as additional material related to the history of the housing question.
 

Excursion

We will arrange a study trip to Copenhagen to visit relevant examples of historical building projects and to speak with professionals working at the forefront of the housing issue today.  
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Program two days per week. Lectures and study trips at other times during the semester. Independent or group work outside these hours needed to complete the requirements for each phase. Physical attendance at classes, supervision and other teaching activities is expected and necessary to fulfil the learning outcomes.
 

Form of assessment

Combination of individual and group assessment. Assessment folder and presentations at the end of each phase.
 

Final delivery:

• Plans and physical models of the dwellings analyzed in phase 1
• Process diagrams, drawings, models or other material used in exploring minimum dwelling requirements in phase 2
• Plans and physical models of the proposed minimum dwellings
• Perspectives of the proposed minimum dwellings
• The minimum requirements and/or pre-accepted solutions in written form along with system drawings, schedules or diagram

Re-Store: Energy

Course responsible: 

Erik Langdalen and Nicholas Coates
 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS). 
 

Language of instruction:

Norwegian or English, depending on the student group.
 

Course series: 

Re-Store: Energy
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Arcitecture master level students
 

Course content:

Energy and architecture are inseparable phenomena. Throughout history, the manufacturing of buildings has been governed by the human-, horse- or machine-power available at the time of conception. The question of heating and cooling of interior environments has continually resulted in spatial innovations. Energy, in the form of speed and flight, has spurred architects´ imaginations since the industrial revolution. 

Energy production has resulted in spectacular buildings and infrastructure that are today considered an essential part of our built heritage. Today, buildings are measured as “embodied energy”, manifested as energy consumed when sourcing and transporting the material to site and energy spent during construction, through operation and maintenance, and through recycling, transformation, and demolition. Knowing that buildings represent 30% of the world´s total material consumption, 35% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 42% of total energy consumption, an intense focus on energy is inevitable. 

However, to tackle today´s climate crises require not only quantitative considerations; it demands serious qualitative examinations of how architecture will be affected in regard to its historical, aesthetical, and ethical sides. This studio aims to develop wholistic alternatives for how to tackle our time´s climate crises through, innovative and radical architectural propositions. 

Taking the “Dampsentralen” building in Oslo as a point of departure, students will undertake a broad examination of the relationship between energy and architecture, spanning from studies on how energy has affected architectural form through time, how the operations of energy production and distribution have evolved, how energy is manifested through networks and shifting ownership, and how energy is handled in popular culture and society at large. The building in question will be thoroughly examined through archival studies, on-site surveys, and qualitative explorations. Students will develop concrete design projects proposing how to transform the building for the future. The course has a strong emphasis on form and tectonics, and encourages the students to conduct architectural investigations and develop their own architectural language through model-making, drawing, and 1:1 experiments throughout the whole semester. 

The studio is part of the research project Provenance Projected. Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity. 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

Students will be familiarized with the phenomenon of energy, the history of energy extraction, the production and consumption of energy, as well as the relationship between energy and architecture in the form of environments, buildings, and infrastructure. The course will introduce students to the current discourse on climate adaption and mitigation, and give an overview over the factors that govern architectural production today, through laws, regulations, and organizational structures. Students will be introduced to core texts in the fields of environmental philosophy and preservation of architecture. 

Skills

The course will introduce students to the practice of preservation, transformation, and reuse of architecture. Students will be trained in survey techniques such as 3D-scanning and on-site investigations, learn how to conduct archival work and the handling of data via a digital database, introduced to methods for value assessment and life-cycle assessment, and be trained to develop an architectural project. 

General competence

The students will be encouraged to take a critical and experimental approach towards the discipline. 
 

Working and learning activities

The teaching methods reflect the learning objectives and the form of assessment. The teaching is a combination of desk crits, pin ups/reviews, lectures and excursions. The studio has normally two teaching days a week. There will be both a midterm and a final review with guest critics. 
 

Excursion

Western part of Norway
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Delivery of all assignment during the semester and a minimum of 80% attendance.
 

Form of assessment

Combination of group and individual work.
 

Final delivery:

Research material from first phase, assignments throughout the semester and final project delivery. 
 

Speculative futures #4: Houses in times of climate change – Living with the river

Course responsible: 

Matthew Anderson and Lisbeth Funck

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
 

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.

Course series:

Speculative futures #4
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

The course is integrated with Studio Positions´ongoing BIP/Erasmus+ teaching collaboration, “Rural areas facing climate change”. This Blended intensive program aims to exchange views on the remote territories facing the challenges of climate change and the realities of new rurality and sustainability. The program focuses on the mutation of the built types and unbuilt spaces with regard to upheavals in uses and practices, climate change or new materials and construction techniques, cultural or political revolutions.  

The semester-task titled “Houses in times of climate change – Living with the river”, is to develop a prototype for housing somewhere along the river Glomma.  

Through architectural projects, Studio Positions continues to critically discuss and investigate how architecture reflects on, contributes to, and provides for dwelling in our contemporary diverse society. Projects will investigate architectural (structural, material, spatial) responses to identified climatic circumstances, in a Nordic context.

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Practice knowledge of building in areas faced by climate change
• Knowledge of historic and contemporary discussion and theory of climate change
• Critical knowledge of design parameters of human dwelling

Spatial, material and structural knowledge through architectural design (semester project).
 

Skills

• punktliste
• Work based, artistic and theoretical research skills
• Conceptual architectural thinking
• Programming
• Use of architects' tools

Defend an innovative project by argumentation communicated in drawing, physical spatial structures, written and oral speech.
 

General competence

• Ability to develop an architectural project from a conceptual position
• To be able to reflect on the problems of the equilibrium between ecology & economy, built and un-built spaces
• New and fundamental approaches to architecture that facilitate more livable (sustainable) futures

 

Working and learning activities

The semester is organized in three phases, where projects are developed continuously with the following progression:

• Development of an architectural concept: spatial and constructive principles
• Introduction of scale, materiality, structure, and activity.
• An architectural project

The weekly schedule is organized as following:

• Mondays: Lectures, reading together, discussions, film screenings etc.
• Wednesdays: Tabletalks, reviews
• Thursdays: Tabletalks, reviews.  

Excursion /BIP workshop, 8 days international workshop in Belgium.
BIP/Erasmus+ teaching collaboration, Rural areas facing climate change.
 

Excursion

Belgium
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

• The students are required to take part in the studio teaching program
• Project assignment

 

Form of assessment

Project assignment.
 

Subject Matter: Material Intelligence

Course responsible: 

Thomas McQuillan
 

 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level.
 

 

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.
 

Course series:

Subject Matter
 

 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

Material intelligence is the practice of approaching materials as active components of architecture, rather than as passive substances. Materials offer inherent properties — strength, flexibility, texture, durability, thermal capacity — that shape their use in building. But materials need first to be extracted for our use, whether from the lithosphere, in quarrying and mining; the biosphere, through forestry and harvesting, or the technosphere, in the practice of salvaging and circularity, and each of these displacements has its own challenges. Material intelligence studies these practices with an eye to understanding the implications of the built world and our intervention into it. In previous semesters, we have focused the entire class on a single material. This process has given rise to a method of investigation which we now believe is the real substance of the subject matter series. This method includes a study of a material’s provenance, the formal organization that a material suggests, and a hands-on, model based exploration of its use in building: 

• Material provenance studies 
• Formal representations in drawings and models 
• Architectural ideas 

This semester, we invite students to pursue an individual or collective investigation of material(s) of their choice. In this way, the course’s ethical dimension is student-driven.
 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge of:

• Knowledge of how material is sourced 
• Knowledge of its historical use 
• Knowledge of its environmental impact 

Skills

• Ability to conduct research
• Ability to model materials 
• Ability to represent ideas through drawing 

General competence

Competence in presenting ideas in word, image and artifact.
 

Working and learning activities

The course is organized as a collaborative studio in which student participation is essential. The weekly schedule includes a Monday forum, in which we discuss architecture and attend lectures, and a Thursday plenum, in which we discuss the ongoing design work.
 

Excursion

Will be discussed with the students at the beginning of the semester 
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Attend and present work each week.
 

Form of assessment

Project assignment. Both individual and group assessment is possible.
 

Studio Daylight & Structure: Saaremaa S25

Course responsible:

Kathrine Næss

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS). 
 

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.
 

Course series:

Nordic Light in Architecture (Elective course)
 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

Creating a responsible architecture requires a deep understanding of daylight—its nature and behaviour as it interacts with a room, its structures and material surfaces. This understanding enables a more conscious use of daylight — an available, free, constant energy source, that is essential for our health and well-being.   

This course investigates how relationship between proportions of space, order of the structure, material surfaces, geometry and placement of light-openings affect daylight conditions in architectural spaces at high latitudes.  

The objective is to raise awareness of local specificity when it comes to climate and context — and to explore the potential of using daylight and structure as the main generator for architectural investigations.  

At the Northern Latitudes, we live and build under similar daylight conditions. While the climate changes, daylight remains largely constant over time on the same latitude. In this region we build in a unique climatic condition and share a cultural heritage and building tradition that has been shaped by the nature of the place itself. 

How can both the measurable and intangible aspects of Daylight and Structure contribute to defining a responsible architecture that belong to a Place? 

Students will be introduced to both analogue and digital tools, encouraging students to do spatial explorations with daylight and structure as the starting point of their spatial explorations:

The site: Kurresaare, Saaremaa (Island) in the Baltic Sea (Estonia)
The program: Educational Center (Louis I. Kahn Estonia Foundation) 
Material: Wood and local stone (from the local Dolomite Quarry)

The studio is part of an international collaboration with TalTech Tallin, ETH Zürich, Studio Boltshauser, UPenn and a Nordic collaboration on a research-based teaching in daylight (and is an extension to the Elective “Nordic Light in Architecture”).

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• of daylight quantity and quality: What daylight is and how it works 
• of structural elements and how they work 
• of cultural heritage in the Nordic region (building culture) 
• of climate changes within the Nordic region and meteorology 
• of local building culture in Estonia 
• of using stone (limestone) and wood as main material.  
• of Louis I. Kahn´s work 

Skills

• in measuring daylight — representing daylight
• in assessing quantity and quality of daylight, using both analogue and digital tools in the process of Making
• in building physical models and using the Daylight LAB to assess qualities (Heliodon)
• in sketching daylight
• in climate studio, measuring quantity of daylight. 

General competence

• Develop an architectural proposal with daylight and structure as main elements
• Conduct architectural explorations with a precise relationship between daylight, structure, material, program — and place
• Investigate how proportions of a room, placement of light opening, structure and material surfaces affect daylight conditions in the interior
• Assess daylight quantity and quality of daylight in the process of Making, using both digital and analogue tools
• Integrate meteorology and climate on high latitudes in architectural investigations
• To embed research and scientific aspects of daylight and structure in a creative process

 

Working and learning activities

The course is built up in four Modules

Module 1: Tools & Method: Daylight LAB (1:1) + Case study
Module 2: Daylight & Structure 20 m2: Unclimatized — Architectural investigations using the Daylight-Lab
Module 3: Atlas (Mapping: Local building culture, weather, sun-paths, geology, flod-area, vegetation, history) 
Survey: Study-trip to Estonia (Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Saaremaa) 
Module 4: Architectural Proposal “Educational Center”, 2000 m2 — Climatized 

To emphasize the importance of the relationship between Daylight, structure and place, the initial studies will be conducted in a small scale using local materials, focusing on foundational strategies, testing structural elements that meet the local climate and daylight conditions at the site in a non-climatized space. These investigations will be done using our 1:1 Daylight LAB, made in Module 1.  

These initial studies will further inform the more complex program of 2000 m2, discussing the relation between the structure, material, the program— and the envelope (Light-Opening vs. Wall).  

The course is structured with 1 day Studio Talk / Input, 1 day feed-back, peer-to-peer, Pin-Up, reviews. There will be 1 review from Phase 1 and 1 final review Phase 4, with international guest crit (from international collaborators).
 

Excursion

8 days study trip to Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn (with workshop with students in Tallinn) and Saaremaa.

Estonia (Train to Stockholm, boat to Helsinki, Boat to Tallinn, Saaremaa) — Nordic region, cultural heritage, common climate changes, share same daylight conditions.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Project assignment + 80% attendance in the course.
 

Form of assessment

Assignment phase 1, Research material Phase 2, Project assignment phase 4.
Students are assessed on a final deliverable of phase 1, 2 and 4.
 

SWIM CITY

Course responsible: 

Gro Bonesmo + Halvor Weider Ellefsen

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Recommended prerequisites:

Mastercourse(s)

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

Historically, public baths have served not only as places for hygiene and exercise but also as centres of community life. Since antiquity, baths have been essential to cities, providing recreational and social spaces. In Norway, most indoor swimming pools were built in the 1960s and 1970s, part of a national push to promote swimming education and public health. However, due to insufficient maintenance, many of these facilities are now outdated and at risk of closure. Today, there is renewed interest in bathing culture in Norway, as seen in the thriving sauna scene along harbor fronts, the refurbishment of coastal and lakeside swimming facilities, and the development of large-scale pool complexes in urban areas. This calls for reassessing the public bath as a program and public interior. 

Swim City examines the public bath as a civic structure and urban interior, viewing it as a critical piece of social infrastructure that can provide sport- and recreational facilities as well as care-services and other community related programs. It explores locations on the west-side of Oslo that until now lacks the investments in social infrastructure like public baths that in the last decade have been installed in the city’s eastern boroughs.  

The studio will focus on the architectural and structural demands of swimming complexes, that balance technical and structural performance with spatial organization and programmatic complexity within an often-complex urban context. Its overarching goal is to create a high performance, high quality urban building that contributes to its location in terms of both functions, spaces and infrastructure.

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Learn to analyze quantitative and qualitative data an utilize them in design processes towards the conceptualization and articulation of complex architectural designs
• Knowledge of approaches and techniques for the design of public infrastructure architecture with focus on “public interiors” and added value in complex urban contexts
• Learn how to articulate multiple design scenarios and selecting specific design approaches within a realistic framework in dialogue with stakeholders
• Knowledge of how architectural designs can be utilized as a strategic tool in urban transformation processes

 

Skills

• Navigating complex urban conditions and technical, environmental knowledge into precise and resilient design proposals
• Critical Thinking; Programming and design of a complex public building
• Comparative studies of relevant public baths and swimming pools
• Design skills related to transformation, extension, and conservation
• Analytical skills related to architectural and urban mapping and analysis
• Discourse skills related to addressing urban transformation, development, and architectural performance

 

General competence

Utilize comparative studies of relevant public baths and waterfront structures and design of a complex building, a contemporary indoor swimming pool facility in selected locations in Oslo
 

Working and learning activities

Studio teaching & Project Development - with Pin Ups, Mid Term, Finals. 

Research, workshops, lectures & study trip. The course is organized in several modules, with individual hand ins, where reference studies and urban analysis frames the development of concepts that are developed into concrete and precise architectural designs. The projects are generally developed by students in pairs.  
 

Excursion

TBA
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Compulsory work and attendance include individual hand ins throughout the semester and presence for pin-ups, midterm and final reviews.  Assignment deliveries and final project.  
 

Form of assessment

Assessment folder 

 

The Architectural Project - Building from Content

Course responsible: 

Beate Hølmebakk & Chris Engh

 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS). 

 

Language of instruction:

English

 

Course series:

TAP – The Architectural Project

 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students

Course content:

In the TAP studio we teach building design with an emphasis on conceptual clarity, constructional logic and architectural form. The studio is oriented towards professional practice, giving students architectural training as well as design skills by focusing on architectural design of a given brief on a specific site. 

Students develop their work individually based on individual programs. Collectively the studio production will be an exploration of a specific building category. 

The brief for the spring 2025 semester will be to design a medium sized venue for a specific sport. The programs will vary from individual to combat and team sports. Formal, spatial, structural, material and tectonic responses to the program will be explored and cultivated. 

The studio discussions will be based on the acknowledgement that architectural quality depends on our care for the tangible and measurable requirements, as well as for the emotional and immeasurable dimensions of the program.
 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Responsible building production 
• Architectural detailing 
• Design methodology 

Skills

• Architectural conceptualization
• Architectural logic 
• Architectural representation 

General competence

• Definition of design criteria 
• Curation of architectural process 
• Communication of architectural proposal 

Working and learning activities

The teaching methods reflect the learning objectives and the form of assessment. 

There will be a set semester schedule and a detailed program every week: 
Mondays: Lecture and plenum discussions based on relevant texts. 
Wednesdays: Individual desk crit according to schedule. 
Fridays: Pin-up where students are encouraged to engage in each other’s work. 

The projects will be reviewed collectively with an international practicing architect two times during the process and at the end of the semester. 
 

Excursion

TBA.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Students will be assessed on the progress and architectural quality of their building proposal, the final curation and presentation of their project. Participation in lectures, reviews and discussions are required. 
 

Form of assessment

Project assignment

 

Elective courses

Introduction

Elective courses are 6 credits. Please note that some courses are offered across study programs. See course descriptions for specialization courses in the dropdown menu below.

Decoding

Course responsible: 

Kristian Edwards and Tine Hegli

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

 

Language of instruction:

English

 

Course series:

Spring semester seminars, Technology and practice

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
Design master level students

Course content:

The seminar introduces advancements in digitalization, computation and machine learning technologies relevant to design practices. Looking beyond the immediate sphere of the creative disciplines, “Decoding” aims to demystify and open discussion, opportunities and development pathways for computation and Machine Learning (ML) technologies at a pivotal moment in the design fields.  

During the Spring Semester 2025 we will hear from leading voices across numerous fields, on computation, automation, algorithms, machine learning and AI – broad scaling, pathways and projections.  

The course is built up around a series of lectures, both live and recorded. 

Weekly group and/or individual assignments will be connected to lectures either in retrospective or a preparational context.  

Elective week will be used to complete a final report.
 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Have insight into the practice-applicable methods used in digitalization, computation and machine-learning (ML)
• Have knowledge of the historical development of the field and differentiation between branches of computation
• Participate in critical discussions regarding pathways to practice
• Contribute to the opportunity space occupied by the blend of practice and ML
• Have knowledge of basic philosophical and ethical issues related to the development and application of ML in multiple forms to engage in broader discourse among peers

Skills

• Framework, vocabulary and references relating to computation, digitalization and ML relevant to design disciplines and beyond
• Use of prompts for visualization

General competence

• Identify opportunities for ML methods for problem solving applications

 

Working and learning activities

• Working and learning activities Weekly lectures and related practical or theoretical assignments
• Plenum discussions on lecture/reading content
• Creative workshop on image making

Excursion

TBA
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

The course consists of two main assignments: 

1. Oral presentation of case study 
2. Hand in- Interview based reflective report assignment for external censor 
 

Form of assessment

Written report to be evaluated by external censor.

 

Digital cities and platform urbanism

Course responsible: 

Digital cities and platform urbanism

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

Engelsk

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students

Course content:

How does digital technologies impact cities and urban living? This course aims to examine how digital platform services work and operate in urban settings, and how they it affect urban public cultures and everyday living. 

Today cities work both as an inspiration and a testing ground for a range of digital platform services, within fields such as transport, food and goods delivery, and specialized service provision. This contributes to an ongoing digital reshaping of urban public cultures and everyday living. To handle this development there’s a need to develop more specific knowledge about how urban cultures and social relations are affected by the continuously evolving world of digital platform services. This is the main topic of this course. 

The course will consist of a series of fieldwork studies and exercises related to mapping digital service platforms and how they work, both in relation to its online and offline dimensions. 

The theoretical component of the course will consist of readings on issues of platform urbanism, both understood as a technological phenomenon and as a specific mode of urban service provision. Furthermore, we will look into the world of urban theory, as a background for discussing how digital platform technologies affect urban cultures and social life. 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

The students will acquire theoretical and practical knowledge about the emerging world of platform urbanism, both as a technological and social feature.

Skills

The students will acquire skills in a set of research tools for exploring platform urbanism, both along technological and social dimensions.

General competence

The students will acquire competence on the technological, digital, and social dimensions of platform urbanism. This will prepare them for conducting an in-depth case study of their own (of theoretical or more practical kinds), which is to be presented in a final essay.
 

Working and learning activities

The course will be organized as a combination of seminars (first part of the day), and individual / group work (second part of the day) focusing on readings and various field work assignments (both online and offline). The seminar sessions will consist of a series of lectures, discussion of (weekly) readings (in which students in turn are responsible for text presentation), and report on ongoing fieldwork assignments. In the last part of the semester the students will write an report/essay based on a self-defined study on platform urbanism. 
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Students are expected to join in on weekly seminars. Presentations and assignments are compulsory.
 

Form of assessment

Individual project assignment: The students are expected to write a final paper/essay (8 – 10 pages) on an optional theme within the overall topic of platform urbanism. 

 

Experimental Construction: In-situ – 1:1

Course responsible:

Matthew Anderson

 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

Norwegian or English, depending on the student group

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students

Course content:

The course offers experienced based in-depth learning of a complete construction process, developing students conceptual and practical skills in the areas of construction, material flows, circularity, relevant building regulations and organizational models through 1:1 implementation of a specific social typology – a public sauna.  

To develop students’ familiarity with construction processes, the course focusses on materials and techniques related to building art and the production of a spatial structure for a specific social use and appropriation on a given site in Oslo. Students will also consider design and use of water and energy with regard to the given site.  
 

Materials:  

The course focuses on the responsible and sustainable sourcing, processing and use of materials, and investigates the possibilities and limitations of circular principles including end of life deconstruction and reuse.  
 

Techniques:  

The course builds on experimental construction techniques developed in Chile’s Ciudad Abierta/Open City, with a specific focus on craft and the hand-processing of materials.  

The practical work is complemented by historical and theoretical content as well as ongoing reflection on the social, cultural, ethical and poetic aspects of building.  

This course is the second in an Erasmus+ funded international exchange between AHO – building art and the International Master of Architecture (IMA) at UCLouvain-LOCI, Brussels. External partners include Oslo badstuforening and architect Nico Ibaceta (Ciudad Abierta/Open City). In the spring of 2024, the course (hosted by IMA) resulted in a public sauna in Anderlecht, Brussels – delivered to the non-profit organization FLOW/Pool is cool. The sauna was opened in June 2024 by the Norwegian ambassador to Belgium.  

This course will result in a public sauna for Oslo badstuforening, on a given site in Oslo.
 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Students will develop knowledge in construction, material flows, circularity, water and energy, relevant building regulations and organizational models
• Historical, conceptual and practical knowledge of a specific social typology (sauna)  

Skills

• Design and construction of a small-scale social building (sauna)
• Experimental construction techniques, craft and the hand-processing of materials
• International and interdisciplinary collaboration.  

General competence

• Sustainable sourcing, processing and use of materials, water, and energy
• Possibilities and limitations of circular principles
• Social, cultural, ethical and poetic aspects of building

Working and learning activities

Course work:  

• Historical and theoretical input through lectures and invited guests
• Design, specification and procurement of materials, primary structure, architectural details, water and energy systems
• Prefabrication of relevant building elements.  

Workshop 1 / Elective Course Week:  

• Construction in-situ

Possible workshop 2 with students from IMA:  

• Completion and testing / delivery

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Compulsory attendance:  

• Coursework
• Workshop 1 / elective course week  

Optional attendance:  

• Workshop 2 (with students from IMA)

Form of assessment

Course participation

 

Regenerative Composites

Course responsible: 

Andrea Pinochet

 

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

A composite, is a generic name that refers to a group of granules held together by a binding agent. The course will focus on regenerative and recycled composites as an alternative to traditional Portland-based concrete and other construction materials, such as fibre-glass insulation, foam or plastic-based membranes.  

Architecture is an exploitative design practice that consumes a great deal of natural resources. We construct structures and form space through the extraction, displacement and processing of fossil fuel derivates, lime stone, clay, iron and aluminium ores, and wooded forests, among others. A material casually employed in production of space, from the concrete cores of a building or the laminated beams of a sports hall, to the insulated walls of a house, the vinyl flooring in our bathroom or the metal handles of our doors, today all these choices have a global knock-on effect of exploitation, transformation and displacement of matter.  

Therefore, of all the areas of technical expertise that give architects agency, the specification of construction details and materials are one the most significant tools we have to influence social, economic, and environmental aspects. This course will then examine the material supply chain of the building industry, trying to get an overview of how it works and reflect on its culture and environmental impact.  
 
Learning from traditional building techniques and material science, we will experiment with a range of composite materials —such as concrete, adobe, rammed earth, hempcrete and mycelium, as well as other composites based on natural fibres, industrial waste streams and low impact binders.  

We will discuss the potential of these materials to be used not only as primary building materials, but also their application in restoration and transformation projects.  

The course will run in close collaboration with the studio Circular Prototyping: Design for Reassembly and be linked to ongoing industrial initiatives. We will discuss FutureBuilt guildelines as boundary conditions for emissions reduction aligned with the UN 1.5-degree target and possibly involve directly in actual pilot projects. The course theoretical set-up and associated assignments will provide an opportunity for in-depth investigation that can further lead to innovative results across studio environments and institutes.
 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Develop a scientific understanding of material properties and performance
• Better understanding of how human relationship with building and the environment has changed over time
• Knowledge of building culture and local industry practice
• Knowledge on climate mitigation strategies as resulting policies applicable for the building industry – nationally and internationally
• Knowledge on design strategies to lower up-front carbon emissions; assessment of material properties and environmental impacts, circular design strategies and use of lifecycle methodology as guideline to assess environmentally sound result (LCAs)

Skills

• Framework, vocabulary and references relating to the LCA methodology
• Articulation of tactics regarding chosen materials in a work of architecture

General competence

• Able to comprehend and explain material properties and structural qualities
• Demonstrate how new building practices can be implemented in innovative ways
• Assessment of material properties and environmental footprint as an integrated part of design development across disciplines

Working and learning activities

This seminar is organised around hands-on material investigations, analysis and critical readings. The seminar will start with a brief scientific history of material measure and innovation, laying down the foundation for a material discourse. We will investigate materials and their inherent properties, examining their full life cycle from the extraction, production of elements, building application and potential for reuse.  

Throughout the course, students will explore the impact of material use, the potential of regenerative and recycled composites and their role in today's practice.  

There will be several characterization workshops and students will develop a collective library. We will engage in discussions with different actors in the construction industry.
 

Excursion

Short visits in the Oslo region.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Throughout the semester participants can expect weekly reading and exercises working in couples and/or individually. In addition there will be a series of assignments adding up to the execution of a class project.
 

Form of assessment

Final assessment of work carried out in several stages throughout the semester.

 

Material and Cultural Ecologies: Frescoes

Course responsible:

Tim Anstey  

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.

Course series:

OCCAS/CA: Material and Cultural Ecologies 

 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
Design master level students
 

Course content:

In this seminar students are taught about the cultural and material aspects of frescoes. Bothing painting and architecture, frescoes have been central to the development of architectural thinking since it began to be theorised. The fresco lies at the centre of Vitruvius treatise on architecture; frescoes form the surfaces of many iconic architectural copositions across time; and frescoes have been a central part of negotiating the meeting between the real and the projective that any architectural commission, necessarily encompasses. But what are frescoes? How are they made and how do they differ from other kinds of surface treatment or artistic composition? This elective charts some of the central themes that link architectural theory and frescoes through time, provides a technical training in how frescoes are made, and offers the chance of a one week workshop to produce a piece of fresco work.  

The practical part of the course will be based in the Italian fresco tradition. To understand what distinguishes fresco painting from other forms of painting, one can think of the lime-plaster as both the substrate for the painting and the binder, which means that it is not paint on a substrate (e.g. oil on canvas), but that painting and substrate are one. This insight becomes evident through practical experience.
 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Reflected on the significance of frescoes for architectural history and theory
• Understood the technique of making frescoes through practice based assignments

Skills

• Aquired practical and technical knowledge of the creation of frescoes and murals
• Demonstrated the ability to write a short text describing a canonical example of fresco technique

General competence

• Demonstrated the ability to organise and work in groups  

Working and learning activities

The semester will alternate between lectures in the history of the fresco in relation to architecture (from a cultural and technical point of view) and lecture/workshop assignments on the technical aspects of fresco history and production. The course will visit modern and contemporary frescoes in the Oslo area. 

During the elective week a workshop will take place at xxx in which students demonstrate and develop knowledge acquired in previous sessions through creating a fresco on site.  

The week concludes with a discussion of the fresco work completed by the student group and an individual presentation (10 minutes) based on a submitted short text (1200 words) on the canonical example of fresco technique explored.  

During the course, we will prepare the wall/substrate, mix the plaster, apply plaster to the wall, grind pigments and paint on wet, freshly applied plaster. We will go through which materials are suitable for the traditional fresco craft, including type of limestone, sand and pigments. We will investigate how pigments behave in relation to each other and in relation to the texture of the plaster wall.  

In addition to fresco, we may also try out other related mural techniques.  

Materials and site for the creation of the fresco are provided by the course.  

Practice based work may be done in groups or as a group, depending on the design for this evolved during the course.  

Written work should be invidiual.
 

Excursion

The workshop activity will take place on AHO campus or off-site in Oslo. Materials for the workshop are provided by the course.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Attendance is mandatory at all course events except in the case of documented sickness.
 

Form of assessment

The course will be assessed through:  

1. A judgement about the student’s contribution to the discussions throughout the course.
2. An oral presentation of practice-based work by the student group at the end of the elective week, with individual contributions from each student.  
3. An assessment of a 1200 word text submitted immediately before the elective week.

 

Rethinking Development and Sustainable Futures

Course responsible:

Håkan Edeholt

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).  

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
Design master level students
 

 

Course content:

The elective course “Rethinking Development and Sustainable Futures” is a reading course that takes a critical stance by scrutinizing how the fundamental concepts of “Development” and “Sustainability” are understood.

With growing concerns of climate change, loss of ecosystems, forced migration, urbanization, and increasing social and economic disparities, these are concepts of global importance to the fields of design, architecture, urbanism, and landscape architecture; concepts that are partially interrelated, sometimes conflicting, and often prey to sectoral or profession-based interpretations. In this course, we will be stepping outside our “defined” professions to critically rethink the future of both development and sustainability through interdisciplinary readings, discussions, and writing.

The goal is to reveal and deliberate the kind of paradigms such assumed conceptions and discourses typically hold and what they try to sustain. The course will also explore if there are other alternatives to be found that also could be engaged with, promoted, and acted upon. Informed by these dialogues, Students will produce articles or essays based on their reading on a topic of interest. They will also be tasked with critiquing each other's texts as a part of the production.  
 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Improved knowledge about "Development" and "Sustainability "
• Knowledge about and experience in critical readings of texts.  

Skills

• Developed their skills to write their own texts
• Developed their skills to describe and discuss their own and others´ texts in an academic seminar setting

General competence

• Developed a critical and reflective stance towards society, trends, and development

Working and learning activities

The content of the class spans from practical work with texts, lectures, discussions, student reviews, and the compilation of a reader. Typically, students are expected to produce an academically oriented essay based on curriculum readings and related readings sourced by the students. They will also have the opportunity to act as editors of each other’s work.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Presence and active participation in class is expected, as well as involvement in the production of the final delivery.
 

Form of assessment

Individual assessment folder.

What is evaluated: taking part in class discussions, peer student assessment, student presentations, and final delivery of an academically oriented essay based on curriculum readings.

Transformation in Practice

Course responsible: 

Amandine Kastler and Erlend Skjeseth  

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English or Norwegian, depending on the student group.

Course series:

Transformation in Practic

 

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

The field of preservation and transformation has long been consigned to the fringes of contemporary architecture, but a paradigm shift is occurring across the discipline. In the age of climate change and circular economy the value of everything that already exists increases, and the need for a more sustainable building industry is orientating architectural practice towards the reuse and renewal of our existing building stock.  

This course will provide a framework for general practice as an architect, with a focus on working with existing buildings. Students will be introduced to practitioners that work with our existing building stock, both in Norway and internationally, from the restoration of listed buildings to the transformation of existing buildings, to the reuse of building elements.  

The building industry and the laws that govern it have traditionally been geared towards the construction of new buildings, but in this seminar, students will also learn about the regulatory and legal frameworks that govern the reuse of existing buildings. Gaining a knowledge of these frameworks is integral to general practice and key to the realization of an architectural project.
 

 

Learning outcome:

Introductory knowledge of:

• The role of regional cultural heritage authorities
• Building regulations, particularly in relation to existing buildings
• Drawing scales and types in relation to project stages  

Basic skills in:

• Documenting and surveying existing buildings
• Assessing historic significance
• Locating and understanding planning documents
• Writing planning dispensations  

General competence

Students will be introduced to the processes required to work with existing buildings in general practice and encouraged to situate the emerging field of building transformation in relation to their own aspirations for future practice.
 

Working and learning activities

The course will be organized in modules covering the topics listed in the learning outcomes guided by lectures and discussions with professionals from the field. Students will produce a report speculating on the potential future transformation of a case study. Coursework will include survey work and resolving fictional scenarios drawn from real situations in practice.  

The course is not only relevant for students wanting to work with existing buildings but also those wanting to gain knowledge of general practice. During the duration of the semester students will engage with contemporary architects, conservation architects, planning authorities, heritage authorities, and others working within the building industry. Lectures and excursions will support and supplement students' individual case study analysis.  

The Transformation in Practice (TIP) electives and studios are run by Amandine Kastler and Erlend Skjeseth.  

Transformation in Practice courses are part of the research project “Provenance Projected. Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity”, directed by Mari Lending.
 

Excursion

Some visits will be planned in Oslo.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

The course will meet every Tuesday. The course requires a full day of attendance on Tuesdays and a full week of attendance during the elective week. In addition, students are required work on independent research and complete assignments in their own time. Students are expected to attend all course days and be active participants in the course activities. Completing assignments and attendance at reviews is mandatory.
 

Form of assessment

Group project assignment and presentation.

When assessing projects carried out in a group, the group work must initially be assessed equally for the whole group. If one or more students do not fulfill their obligations during group work, individual students' work may be extracted from the rest of the group and assessed separately.  
 

 

Final delivery:

Working in groups, students are assigned a case study site to survey and make a simple schematic proposal for according to perimeters suggested in the syllabus. Working with the case study, groups present and deliver a report that mimics some of the requirements of a typical planning application. The report includes:  
 

• Cover letter and description of project (1-2 pages)
• Statement of significance (1 – 2 pages)  
• One written dispensation, illustrated (if relevant)  
• Situation plan, 1:500  
• Existing drawings of exterior elevations, 1:100  
• Existing textured elevation 1:100  
• Demolition drawings of exterior elevations, 1:100  
• Proposed drawings of exterior elevations, 1:100  

Students are expected to execute the assignment with care, precision and professionality. Assignments will be evaluated on the level of research and quality of the execution, as well as an ability to synthesize knowledge gained in the seminar and apply it to a case study. In preparation for the final submission, students will be required to submit several shorter assignments during the semester. Each submission will contribute to the final report and assessment.

 

Landscapes in print

Course responsible:

Luis Callejas

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

When we discuss landscape as a medium for design at school, what kind of visual materials in print form do we reference and treasure in our library? What do we own and archive that contributes to making our school distinctive in fostering the intimate relationship between architecture and landscape architecture? This course seeks to explore those questions. Additionally, it will introduce students to methods for discerning, evaluating, comparing, and cataloging drawings and visual material in print as a form of design scholarship, providing valuable methods for diploma work. 

This elective course meets in the library every Tuesday at 11:00 AM. Each session begins with students spending one hour exploring drawings and photographs based on suggestions generated at the end of the previous class. The remaining time is dedicated to discussing the relevance of the findings. The focus will be on visual material that directly addresses the concept of vegetated enclosures and forest clearings, building on the most relevant discoveries from previous iterations of the course. The course will also introduce students to publishing culture through the foundational steps in preparing an authoritative visual publication on forest clearings. 

We will conclude the semester by proposing a wish list for library acquisitions. 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Research methods that introduce students to notions of impact and quality applied to visual material as opposed to text-based scholarship
• Learning about drawings and graphic representations as meaningful intellectual contributions
• Learning to compare different printed sources and understand the nature of design publishing, including the endurance of ideas in print
• Basic techniques for discerning and organizing graphic material found in print sources
• The students will acquire the knowledge necessary to effectively engage in historic graphic research with a focus on landscape architecture and landscape representation 

Skills

• Research techniques
• Organizing print material
• Critically discussing the work of other designers 

General competence

• Research

Working and learning activities

Weekly meetings in the AHO library around the printed material that the students find in each session. The meetings are open discussions indented to find more material and expand the sources to be discussed in the following session. 
 

Excursion

Visits to other archives in Oslo. 
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Weekly attendance is compulsory.
 

Form of assessment

Individual report.

Course attendance and participation 50%, final report 50% 

 

Systems: Hydropolis – All you can store – water and more!

Course responsible:

Sabine Muller

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS) in Architecture or Landscape Architecture.

Experience with use of CAD 2D and 3D (Rhino), Adobe Suite, hand drawing, and analogue model making.  

Recommended prerequisites:

Experience with GIS and digital model fabrication. Interest in urbanism and landscape “materials” such as landform, water, soil, plants.

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Landscape Architecture master level students (mandatory)
Architecture master level students (open for course admission)

Course content:

As part of Oslo Hydropolis studio sequence the studio explores landscape-based, water-sensitive urbanism within the Oslo Metropolitan Region. In face of climate change with its increasing risks of draught and flooding, and continuing urbanisation pressure, the studio proposes a complementary approach to the current paradigm of compact city development –with all its blind spots, such as the relocation of production and commerce into areas “out of sight”. The studio sequence engages with the functional requirements of climate adaptation as much as spatial aesthetics and possible everyday practices. 

The course takes the infrastructural back-end of urbanism –the storage and distribution of goods and water– to the fore and actively explores its potential spatiality and sociality. 

Specifically, the studio will design a cross-scalar landscape framework as the basis for development. It will re-consider one of the “out of debate“ sites and propose a counter-proposal to existing or planned expansion of commercial areas in the Oslo region. While accepting, albeit in the short term, the need of large warehouses accelerated by online retailing, the studio will propose concepts for better embedding the program better into the wider landscape and hydrological context. It aims to harness the dynamics of property development linked to the global economy to regenerate and spatially qualify the emerging landscape for both non-human and human use - if not enjoyment.  

The planning and architecture of space-consuming buildings often fails to pronounce material, spatial and environmental values. The conviction of this studio is that the scope, the frame, the dimensions, the performance, and atmospheres inherent to water-sensitive planning and landscape architecture can provide a long-term transformative perspective to urban development, opening up the frame to a more sustainable future. 

The methodology of the studio is based on merging planning and design, on oscillating between bird’s eye and eye-level view and shifts continuously between digital and analogue tools.

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

The studio will provide students with the conceptual categories to address adaptation to climate change in an urbanising regional context through a landscape architectural perspective. The studio will enter design through the scales of hydrology, and enforce the understanding of landscape as infrastructure as well as a mode of perception. Form will be discussed in relation to performance as well as to space and place.

• Acquaintance of notions of watershed and sustainable water management
• Acquaintance of cultural landscape as a spatial product of geological and climatic forces as well as cultural, political and economic interests and practices layered in time
• Basic knowledge of landscape as a productive, performative layer in human systems: ecological infrastructure, ecosystem services, and regenerative agriculture
• Advanced knowledge of landscape patterns, form and urban structure: application of landscape ecology’s structural concepts and environmental psychology to shape spaces and places. 

Skills

Students develop skills to envision urban projects as embedded within cultural landscapes with the goal to ensure adaptability to climate change. Research-driven, multi-layered and multi-scalar in its scope, the studio builds the capacity to conduct a layered and visual analysis of the territorial/regional context, the ability to reference precedents, to fuse technical and aesthetic aspects of form giving, and finally to frame and argue for a well-resolved design proposal anchored within the scale of the territory.

• Research: Capacity to select and sort, and evaluate data from greater information quantities; ability to conduct precedent analysis and transfer
• Analysis: ability to carry out landscape analysis based on map work (GIS and morphological analysis) and field work (photography)
• Strategy: capability to develop scenarios for a watershed, development of propositions related to water flows and cycles for concrete case areas
• Iterative design process: trial and error to find adequate solutions, successive and iterative usage of drawings, plans, sections, physical and digital models, as well as texts variants, to test and develop proposals, in favour for “unsafe” experimental approaches
• Interrogative design: explicit discussion of a formal question to organize a spatial field and site design
• Design resolution: ability to work out a territorial approach on a detailed level, including grading, planting, surface textures
• Representation: capability to illustrate design through compelling plans, sections, as well as digital and physical models and model photography
• Communication: problem definition, framing of a task within the given context of the studio; skill to verbally and visually argue for a project through telling of a well-argued narrative. 

General competence

The studio’s underlying thesis will encourage the rethinking of urban and environmental challenges as opportunities to develop place-specific and social spaces for the future. The studio’s main competence goal is to equip students with the ability to frame their projects in a larger socially and environmentally relevant context, state ideas, translate these into form, and to apply theoretical and technical background in project work, as well as to use the project as an investigative vehicle to address professional and disciplinary questions. Both individual and group work will be trained.
 

Working and learning activities

Group work (2-3 students) and individual work is organised around 5 phases. The phases will be supported by input lectures to facilitate familiarization with discourse and workshops to kick-off design. 

1. FOUNDATION 1:1 / 1:50.000/ 1:7500 – Portrait of a Landscape. Uncovering the deep structure and dynamic character of the watershed as context of planning and design. 

• “Journalistic" research
• Scape Map: Morphological Analysis GIS, CAD, PSD
• Tracing of landform, water structure and land use pattern, hand drawing
• Writing of a story 

2. FRAMEWORK Strategy scale 1:7500 /1:5000 – Development of a Landscape Framework for a logistic park along different scenarios regarding the degree of transformation and political ambition. 

• “Transplant” of large-scale landscape architectures and regenerative principles onto the site resulting in a physical strategy model (with topography, vegetation as mass and void)
• Laser-cut “Paper lace" of Landscape Framework, resp. its spatial figure
• Diagrammatic plans of ground modification (“cut and fill”), water flows and planting 

FRAMEWORK Detail Scale 1: Eye-level / Eye-level / 1: 50 / 1:20 – Development of the spatial and material qualities of the Landscape Framework through a “Scene“.  

• Documentary Site Photography
• Scenographic model photography of a spatial scene with vegetation, ground and water at eye-level
• Detail plan and section of a typical part of the Landscape Framework 

INFILL 1:1000/ 1:500, 1:200 – Elaboration of the relationship between long-term landscape framework and short-term architecture, water management and planting  

• (Digitally fabricated) physical model
• Section and plan of selected space  

 
COMMUNICATION – Visualization and “telling” the proposals to communicate to a broader audience.  

• Writing of a project description (abstract)
• Production of explanatory drawings
• Oral and visual presentation of the whole project
• Curation and production of an exhibition (AHO works or off-campus) 

Excursion

The studio will travel within Europe to study landscape frameworks and public space materialisations. Transport (flight), accommodation, and food will be on the expense of students. Entrance fees will eventually be covered by the studio. Those who cannot/do not wish to join the trip will study the visited projects through drawing.
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Physical attendance for teaching, guidance, reviews, and other educational activities is expected and necessary to achieve the learning outcomes. Students are expected to attend class on studio teaching days throughout the semester and participate in weekly desk-crits. These desk-crits, held either in studio or via Zoom, will involve presenting and discussing new research or design work. 
 

Form of assessment

Group portfolio assessment.

Students will be assessed through oral, model and graphic presentations, as well as digital submissions at the end of each studio phase. Additionally, there will be a final presentation.  

The final grade will be based on an assessment of all submissions, with a strong emphasis on design work (70%). 

 

Metropolitan Gardens

Course responsible: 

Giambattista Zaccariotto

Required prerequisite knowledge:

Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).

Language of instruction:

English

Who can apply for the course:

Architecture master level students
Landscape Architecture master level students
 

Course content:

The course explores the spatial concepts embedded in exemplary garden projects, past and present, with an emphasis on water. The term spatial concept refers to ideas and procedures of spatial configuration and coherence. As other forms of knowledge, architecture and landscape architecture invent concepts about the the world we live in and materialize them, turning concepts into inhabited artefacts, concrete forms and spaces. The term garden is used both to indicate a finite space formally marked off and designed and other kinds of designed landscapes, constitutive components of the contemporary territories in which they are situated, places everybody can live in and care for daily, therefore named metropolitan gardens.  

Historians of the garden have emphasized the crucial importance of water, and selected case study gardens are points of convergence of landscape architecture, architecture and water management, functionally and symbolically tied to the territory. The project of these gardens is marked by design concepts that integrate the utilitarian, ecological and aesthetical values of water and are embedded in the constitutive forms and spaces of the garden. Through the study of the case study project, the course objective is double. First, critically describe and discuss the concrete consequences of spatial ideas underpinning the selected projects; in other words, forms, spaces and sequences that relate architecture, landscape architecture and water management. Second, reflect on the relevance of a repertoire of design concepts for the recomposition of contemporary urban landscapes.
 

 

Learning outcome:

Knowledge

• Knowledge of projects exemplary of the landscape architecture-architecture-urban planning continuum
• Understanding the relation between design concepts (ideas and procedures of spatial configuration), content (intended purpose, program or challenges), context (existing social, cultural and geographic settings)
• Understand comprehensive frames of interpretation that integrate architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and water management.  

Skills

• Ability to examine texts and visual sources
• Ability to critically discuss the project´s foundational spatial ideas in relation to the project's content and context
• Ability to use methods and techniques of observation and documentation (e.g. `topographic´ photography), analysis (e.g. analytical drawings ) and synthesis (e.g. models)
• Enhance visual literacy in constructing visual representations as forms of interpretation
• Develop explicit criteria to discuss research outcomes
• Ability to think and integrate knowledge from architecture and landscape architecture.  

General competence

• Planning a short research project
• Communication of outcomes combining different media (verbal, written, and visual) and making use of different formats (seminar, exhibition, etc.)
• Teamwork and collaboration 

Working and learning activities

Case study projects are selected and communicated to the student at the start of the course. The projects´ context varies (historical, geographical, cultural, social and economic premises), with physical settings as key factors for the invention of the design concept (gardens in a plain, along a river and lake, at the sea edge, etc.). The course comprises in-class activities (design-based descriptions, oral and visual presentations, talks) and out-of-class activities (field works). The analysis of case study projects is carried out through drawing/modelling, using primary visual and written sources and direct observations through documentary photography when possible. The outcome is a book as a collective form of knowledge. 
 

Compulsory work or attendance requirements

Physical attendance for teaching, guidance, reviews, and other educational activities is expected and necessary to achieve the learning outcomes.
 

Form of assessment

Individual assessment folder.

The final assessment of work is carried out in several stages throughout the semester. At the start of the course, a written communication will specify which elements are included in the folder, when they must be delivered, and what is required to approve them. One overall grade is assigned to the folder. 
 

Final delivery:

Final folder content (to be communicated) and print in a given format.  

 

 

Resources for the Spring 2025 course admission

• Program for course presentations can be found here
• Practical information about course admission can be found here