2020 Høst

Printed Architecture: Treasures from the AHO Library offers an introduction to the history of the architectural publication. Based on the “uncharted” treasures in the AHO library, the course is structured around the research and presentation of a select number of items from the collection. Choosing one or two items each – a book, map, or journal – the students will investigate the content of the publication and also the origin and history of the specific copy in the library. An end of term exhibition and anthology with student texts will highlight not only key works in the collection, but also the history of the library itself.

The Advanced Computational Design Laboratory (ACDL) studio will in the fall semester of 2020 focus on Time, following the present studio on Space and the previous on Place.

Our ambition is to investigate fundamental architectural topics by means of analog and computational tools in an iterative way. Time, space and place can fuse together to allow for great architecture and deep human experiences.

Architects and other designers are beginning to move away from seeking permanence and a finished discrete object that resists the test of time, towards a more open, creative use of what time has to offer. The traditional values of architecture associated with its monumental and enduring qualities seem to be changing. Architecture is challenged to allow for a continuous state of reinvention.

The studio aim is the development of experimental building structures that explore the concept of “Time-Based Architecture”. An architecture that is not finished when the design is materialized. This would be an architecture in which adaptability and transformation is just as important as form. This architecture would adopt the process of becoming as part of its meaning.

The studio is also concerned with the influence of space on the experience of time passage and the importance of time for the subjective experience of architecture. The aim is to create an architectural project that creates the right atmosphere and conditions for fostering deep meaningful experiences.

The ACDL studio foregrounds research by design with strong emphasis on computational design.

As such the students will use computational tools to explore the “experienced time” through time-related process tools:

• simulations and analysis
• associative modeling
• real-time rendering
• animation
• virtual reality

The topics of the studio narrow the focus, while allowing the students to do in-depth investigations simultaneously.  The intention is to help the students to develop their own design methodology while bridging analog processes and digital tools. While architects traditionally rely on intuition and experience to solve design problems, computational design aims to enhance that process. Our aim is to equip the students with the knowledge, skills and tools to achieve their architectural design.

Studio description:

The studio is project-based and the assignment is to design a medium-scale public structure.

Following a series of workshops and short assignments exploring concepts of time in architecture, the students are encouraged to formalize the programmatic focus of the design.

The studio will focus on an iterative design process to test and evaluate performative aspects of designs in relation to changing spatial and functional demands. This is done through a range of computational methods and tools based on the focus of each design project in the studio.

Pedagogy:

The learning approach is project-based. The students develop architectural projects, with tasks given and advised by the staff through studio supervision. Lectures and workshops focusing on selected themes and computational tools will contribute to knowledge and skills relevant for the project.

The ACDL studio places a strong emphasis on the computational tools as part of the design process and communication of ideas. Therefore, all material produced by the students during the semester will be considered in the final evaluation. This focus on process and methodology throughout the semester allows the analogue and digital to be considered together as part of a holistic approach.

In the studio, students will work independently and at times in small teams through workshops to enable lateral exchange of knowledge and skills.

Studio Positions provides an arena for students to concentrate and develop their own position in relation to architecture, inspiring them to delve into the social and cultural challenges that mark our time, and reflect on how these challenges have influenced our relationship to architectural space and how we use it.

COEXISTENCE III: RE-PRODUCTION

            How do we define an individual position as architects in relation to the       history of architecture – on what to continue and what to leave behind?
            What kinds of values do we want to take with us into the future?

To embody history within the new

Reaction, Reintroduction, Relation, Reproduction, Resonance, Recurrence, Repetition, Recombination…

Course content
In the fall semester 2020 the studio will continue to investigate coexistence. This time the focus of the discussion will be on the notion of the “new” in architecture.

The confrontation with and interpretation of existing architecture, and discussions on the relation between architecture and contemporary culture, will inform the study of how ideas of structural and material assembly are inseparable from the formation of characteristic and “new” spaces. 

A series of selected buildings act as a starting point for the investigations. The students are to study architectural drawings as well as visit and sensually experience the buildings. Inspired by these subjective experiences and analyses, the students are asked to develop an architectural project and position themselves in relation to the new.

Task
The semester task is to develop one, or several, autonomous spatial structures based on the notion of the “new” in architecture. The selected buildings’ substructures (historical, political, philosophical, typological), their construction, materiality, surface ornament,and spaces will serve both as an immediate inspiration, and as case studies to be analysed according to the given task. 

An individual architectural program is to be developed, framed by each student’s findings/interests in the building/s.  Relevant topics to be discussed throughout the semester will be; to alter, to renew, to remain, to repeat, to substitute, recurrence or recombination.

The projects will be develop in large physical spatial structures, that will be studied in photo, film and architectural drawings (in scale 1:1, 1:10, 1:20, 1:50, 1:100, 1:200)

PHASE 1. PREPROJECT
Introductory task
                        To develop a new spatial structure in reaction to a given building

Posit 1. Choose that what you find interesting and characteristic about the given                           building, that being; the organisation of the plan, the window-frame, the                        handrail, the overall proportions, the surface treatment, the construction                         principle, etc.
Posit 2.                  Investigations:     To alter, to renew
Posit 3. Investigations:     To remain, to repeat
Posit 4. Investigations:     To substitute/replacements: Discussing the new
Posit 5. Investigations:     Recurrence or recombination

PHASE 2. END PROJECT
Posit 6. Investigations:     Internal boundaries, privacy, community
Posit 7. Investigations:     External boundaries, privacy, community
Posit 8.                  Writing task

ARCHITECTURE & CULTURE_STUDIO POSITIONS
 

Studio Positions offers in depth studies of the structures that make up architecture and how these structures relate to their environment. The studio aims at investigating new approaches to the making of architecture by change of position, facilitating movement and different viewpoints, as the spatial term position indicates. The studio draws on established knowledge but also challenges our understanding and knowledge of existing buildings and the environment. We are preoccupied with not only how architecture is made but also the presence of architecture and the affect (aesthetic experience) it produces.

1. Making as culture: architecture and the production of presence - Architecture as autonomous structures.

2. Architecture as culture: Architecture understood related to contemporary and historical culture: architecture, sociology, philosophy, literature, and art. - Architecture as carrier of traditions and architecture as challenger of the established culture.

Pedagogy: Artistic research in architecture

Studio Positions provides an arena for students to concentrate and develop their own position in relation to architecture, inspiring them to delve into the social and cultural challenges that mark our time, and reflect on how these challenges have influenced our relationship to architectural space and how we use it.

The studio has a research-based teaching, were the student is encouraged to

1.      Develop an individual formal/architectural language through both a research-informed and sensuous approach, and through different media investigate architectural issues/questions based on the given topic and

2.     Place/position their project within a larger cultural context, and to develop a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of architecture.

1. What Is At Stake

The studio will operate within two converging, highly pressing concerns: the advent of sustainability as a major force within architectural discourse, and the planning of the Norwegian small town.

As both national politicians and local municipalities are adjusting their attitudes to the climate crisis in response to a popular awakening, rethinking the fundamentals of our own profession is paramount. Rather than passively submitting to technical performance-criteria becoming policy, it is urgent that we provide a credible basis for the radical changes that are happening, from within our own discourse. Architects need to be proactive in exploring environmentally sound planning strategies and building techniques in a manner that can simultaneously further humanistic and cultural values - bringing these into a higher unity - rather than relying on techno-engineering fixes alone.

The studio proposes that architecture and urbanism should in this context not be considered separate discourses. Buildings are environmentally determined objects, their raison d'aitre - economic, social, political - necessarily expressed in their physical form.

Our aim is to develop strategic building projects that can serve as exemplars of a new "aesthetics of sustainability" for the Norwegian small town. The proposals should be defined by a clear strategic purpose on a regional level, a defined programme that is in actual, realistic demand, a rational, sustainable and economic means of construction, and a seductive public image. In being of and about our time they will by nature also be "modern" – and hopefully, pointing to another future.

2. Strategic Goal

The aim of the studio is to develop strategies for environmentally conscious urban developments in small Norwegian towns (”bærekraftig tettstedsutvikling”), and consequently over time, to increase awareness in Norwegian local municipalities of the value of high-quality and sustainable architecture. Due to the seriousness of the undertaking, the studio considers this a long-term strategic goal, to be explored in a series of singular, experimental student proposals. 

Each semester, we will engage with a Norwegian town in need of a new urban strategy and direction for its local centre, building up a catalogue of knowledge and ideas. Many local municipalities are interested in working with architects, but the attention of the architects lies elsewhere. Similarly, students are rarely asked to engage with sites that are neither proper "city" nor "nature", but that exist in the ubiquitous, architecturally unfashionable limbo between the two. Arguably, most Norwegian towns are not the results of cultural continuity, but of sudden, modern breaks. These breaks are by nature not heroic or based in ideas of architectural autonomy, but practical - architectural form determined by economic and politcal change. The small towns in Norway of a similar size and function have developed in phases that carry characteristics of contemporary political projects. Common determining factors usually include: industrial settlement (1870s), civic-center development (1970s), increased commercial activities (2000s). Recognizing these commonalities – a place’s specific, but rarely unique history – will also help us determine how best to engage with our study area, establishing new projects among the remnants of past ideals. This does not mean that ”weak”, mallable architectural form is what is needed now: perhaps rather the opposite.

3. (Semester)

We will create projects in a small industrial town in need of a new strategy for its urban centre. Programme and site area will have been determined prior to the commencement of the course, but students can expect a medium-large scale building programme with the ability to redefine the area’s identity.

The students will start the term by producing simple maps that analyze the study area and site area in question, in order to make realistic assessments as to where their project can have the most impact, and what local urban design strategies can accomodate their proposals and ensure they are succesfully integrated in their context. The course will each term focus on a set of quite specific means of sustainable construction - not as a correct answer for sustainable building in general and in every situation – but rather as subjects worth studying for one term, in order to reveal some of its potential benefits and limitations, for our common cause. 

The projects will be drawn to a high level of detail, and evaluated based on their urban and architectural qualities, equally. The proposals need to be site-specific and realistic, precisely as a means of exploring general strategies that can be applicable to a range of similar small towns. They should be read as points in a wider discussion about sustainability and small town urbanism, but should also be justifiable based on their own architectural merit. It is selfevident that we cannot change the world with one architectural project in a local setting, and ’economy of means’ will become an important term for the studio. But we can produce experimental examples that in their finite form suggests an alternative urban and architectural direction.