Course syllabus for Media and representations

Course syllabus adopted 2024-02-02 by Head of Programme (or corresponding).

Overview

  • Swedish nameMedier och representationer
  • CodeACE415
  • Credits10 Credits
  • OwnerMPARC
  • Education cycleSecond-cycle
  • Main field of studyArchitecture
  • ThemeArchitectural design project 7.5 c
  • DepartmentARCHITECTURE AND CIVIL ENGINEERING
  • GradingTH - Pass with distinction (5), Pass with credit (4), Pass (3), Fail

Course round 1

  • Teaching language English
  • Application code 05130
  • Maximum participants28 (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 10 c
Grading: TH		0 c0 c10 c0 c0 c0 c

In programmes

Examiner

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

The course facilitates the student’s exploration of various media and representation techniques, composed into a personal design, materialization and communication toolkit, situated in a contemporary context of design work and discourse. The explored design media and the architectural representations that they enable, will be presented not only as means of architectural project communication, but, more importantly, as drivers of the design and ideation process, leading to creative discoveries and enabling deepened explorations of unanticipated aspects of the student’s architectural design project.

By working with a limited design task, defined based on the student’s studio project, across multiple media, the student will learn how to devise architectural representations as both technical artifacts for digital fabrication and as creative repositories of design options for architectural purposes. The emphasis will be placed on how concepts and qualities are developed through translations between media, and on what a specific, intentionally composed media combination can bring into an architect’s creative and communicative process. Traditional modes of representation like plan, section and physical model will complemented with more refined, three-dimensional as well as temporal representation types that selectively highlight geometry, passage of time, multisensory qualities and/or fabrication processes.

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

Knowledge and understanding

  1. Demonstrate the capacity to apply digital design, fabrication, and other new media as facilitators of a creative architectural design process and enablers of conceptual communication of design ideas.
  2. Critically assess the limitations and values of each design medium.
  3. Relate one’s own work in the course to contemporary discourses on digital representation and new media in architecture, art, craft and/or design.

Competence and skills

  1. Demonstrate the ability to use shifts between design media and representations to inform, propel and enrich the scope and insight in the design process.
  2. Use the above in order to develop specific aspects of the student’s existing design project.
  3. Communicate the design ideas through various modes of representation, including, but not limited to, orthographic drawings, analytical drawings, collages, composite drawings, diagrams, images, machined models or mock-ups and analogue models.
  4. Appropriately and intentionally apply selected types of representation to highlight specific conceptual issues and/or sensory qualities of the project, and to support the exploration and/or implementation of sustainable design principles.

Judgement and approach

  1. Explain and provide arguments for the value and relevance of combining various media and representation techniques in the architectural design process, beyond mere project drafting and technical documentation.
  2. Critically relate the personal design, materialization and communication toolkit composed during the course to larger issues or questions in architecture and urban design, including digitalization and relevant aspects of sustainable development.

Content

This course introduces students to the use of advanced means of ideation, design, representation and materialization of architecture. The work develops through explorative studies of specific aspects of the student’s prior studio project, using a specific range of carefully selected design media, such as software and digital fabrication machines. The course brief is formulated to target a current issue or debate on media and/or representation in architecture and urban design. Students are required to critically relate their work in the course to larger issues outlined in the course brief.

Organisation

The course brief and its theoretical and discursive context are introduced in an introductory lecture. Learning is structured around a weekly set of software and hardware demonstrations, tutoring sessions and pin-ups. Deliverables are defined at the outset of the course and submitted through assignments and through the student’s presentation in the final review. The students work individually on their design project while also belonging to a support team comprising 3-4 members. The role of the team is to provide mutual support and feedback on the media and representations common to individuals in the group. The students will explore their own team-specific techniques and media in relation to the course brief.

Literature

To be announced in each course description.

Examination including compulsory elements

Student projects will be presented verbally and graphically according to the requirements (e.g. drawings, models, media, text) outlined in the course brief and assessed in a summative project review. Each student project is further edited based on the feedback from the review and delivered in the final version as the final submission. A minimum of 80% active attendance/ participation in lectures, demos and pin-ups is required in order to pass the course. Participation in the final review is mandatory.

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.