Course syllabus for Hybrid practice of architecture

Course syllabus adopted 2023-02-13 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).

Overview

  • Swedish nameArkitekturens hybrida praktik
  • CodeACE365
  • Credits5 Credits
  • OwnerMPARC
  • Education cycleSecond-cycle
  • Main field of studyArchitecture
  • DepartmentARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING
  • GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail

Course round 1

  • Teaching language English
  • Application code 05136
  • Maximum participants26 (at least 10% of the seats are reserved for exchange students)
  • Minimum participants8
  • Open for exchange studentsYes
  • Only students with the course round in the programme overview.

Credit distribution

0123 Written and oral assignments 5 c
Grading: TH		 5 c

In programmes

Examiner

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Eligibility

General entry requirements for Master's level (second cycle)
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Specific entry requirements

English 6 (or by other approved means with the equivalent proficiency level)
Applicants enrolled in a programme at Chalmers where the course is included in the study programme are exempted from fulfilling the requirements above.

Course specific prerequisites


Aim

Architecture’s hybrid nature, often expressed as the bridging of intuition of the artistic practice with the pragmatism of technological thinking, is widely known and acknowledged. However, in the environmentally, culturally and socially sensitive role of an architect, acknowledging this hybridity is only the first step towards professional success. To define one’s own position in the design and materialization of liveable spaces and cities of tomorrow, it is important to start shaping one’s own critical and reflective understanding of why and how the particular elements from the arts, crafts and modern digital technology could impact one’s own practice. How one shapes this attitude already during the architectural studies is key for establishing a personal stance in the later professional career.

To facilitate this shaping of a personal understanding and approach towards the hybrid architectural practice, the course will introduce students to various discourses, research and experimental projects in the hybrid domain of art, craft, design and architecture. Those will be selected in the context of architectural history, theory and method. By analysing, comparing and critically evaluating the past and present activity within the field and beyond, the students will gradually formulate their own attitude towards the hybrid practice of architecture, taking their own prior design experiences as a context for this highly reflective, critical and introspective exercise.

In inspiration lectures, literature seminars and student peer-review sessions, the students will explore and critically reflect on specific theoretical trajectories at the crossing of art, craft, design and technology that shape current issues in the field. The final outcome – an academic essay – will embody their individual attempt to connect their own work in the design experiment to these issues through the genre of argumentative and reflective academic writing. With this, the course trains the students' ability to use source texts as a basis for formulating a position, argument and/or research query in relation to an architectural design process and its creative outcomes.

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)

Knowledge and understanding

  • Define and explain, using analysed texts and design precedents as a basis for argumentation, a personal understanding of the opportunities and challenges of exercising the hybrid practice of architecture, integrating issues of art, design, craft and digital technology as part of the contemporary architectural profession.

Competence and skills

  • Analyse and critically evaluate arguments laid out in theoretical texts, positioning them against the backdrop of the contemporary architectural practice.
  • Use theoretical texts and design precedent analyses as bases for contextualizing and positioning own design approaches, methods and design outcomes, appropriately using citation, references and bibliography.

Judgement and approach

  • Explain and provide arguments for the value and relevance of the hybrid practice in architecture.
  • Critically relate your own writing and arguments in the course to larger issues or questions in architecture and urban design, such as digitalization and sustainability.

Content

The course extends the student’s knowledge on contemporary architectural discourses, theories and research concerning architecture as a hybrid practice combining art, craft, design and digital technology. The content comprises of texts, case projects and other relevant sources, some provided in the course seminars and others identified by the student through own course investigations, which support the student’s reflection and argumentative narrative on the personal creative design process and the state of the architectural practice at large.

Organisation

The course is based on lectures, seminars, readings, own design reflections and experiments, individual literature investigations and submissions of written assignments. As the final deliverable, each student will write and submit a short academic text, based on the recommended readings and individual findings and reflections, tied to their own experimental design process or project of choice. A part of communicating one’s own vision in writing will also be to include at least one drawing, diagram, graphic or photograph of own authorship, to support the message of the text.

The course examination is based on active participation in lectures, seminars and tutorials, submission of written partial assignments and the final submission of a written academic essay based on individual readings, analyses and feedback from student peers and tutors.

Literature

To be announced in a bibliography in each course description.

Examination including compulsory elements

The course examination is based on active participation in lectures, seminars and tutorials, submission of four written assignments and the final submission of an academic text, created based on individual readings, reflections, investigations, and design experimentation. The text should be of minimum 2000 words (ca. 5 pages in A4 format), complete with references, bibliography and minimum one illustration made by the student.

The course examiner may assess individual students in other ways than what is stated above if there are special reasons for doing so, for example if a student has a decision from Chalmers on educational support due to disability.