Objective
The objective of the course is to discuss and experiment with categories, operational tools and strategies to describe and transform the urban context and to define an autonomous architectural form that is able to express meaning and identity of the place.
No special prerequisites are required.
Didactical structure
Theoretical lectures that discuss, starting from basic morphological elements, the question of the role of the architectural project in the contemporary city.
Operational presentations which – using a repertoire of images – provide the necessary instruments for description, interpretation and transformation of the project site and propose architectural precedents as base for a typological research of the student.
Design exercises during which the student will be guided to experiment with the project and the interpretation of the place leading to its transformation by defining the architectural object. The studio vehicle will be a large public building that occupies a strategic position in the urban context of Berlin.
Assessment method
Assessment (group or individual) of the activities performed in the project workshop in accordance with the following 5 Dublin descriptors: 1 Knowledge and understanding, 2 Applying knowledge and understanding, 3 Making judgements, 4 Communication skills and 5 Learning skills.
Projects will be evaluated after a final presentation and discussion based on the contents of the lectures (specific citerias: general quality of the architectural design, project development, presentation of the final design project).
Contents
The studio addresses the construction of architectural form within a specific urban context, beginning from the discussion of the current state of the European city, with its character of randomness, fragmentation and stratification.
The teaching is based on a morphological research of architecture understood as Baukunst (art of construction) than an affirmation of architecture as mere image. From this point of view architecture results from a multidimensional dialectical process that, within its location, is capable of producing new ordinances for the built environment and, at the same time, providing an architectural theme to its specific identity.
In the process of concretization of the architectural form, the relation between formal logic and sustainable construction takes a central role.
