Course syllabus for Emergency architecture and resilient design

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

Overview

  • Swedish nameArkitektur för krissituationer och resilient design
  • CodeACE450
  • Credits10 Credits
  • OwnerMPDSD
  • 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 17119
  • 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 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 unprecedented emergencies – e.g. climate change, natural and man-made disasters, war and conflicts, ecological damage, socio-economic inequity, public health crisis - the world faces today, and will face in the future, urge for a more radical and responsive approach in architecture and urban design that moves beyond sustainability. Through critical and future oriented design including scenario making techniques, students will investigate design strategies that consider the built and the natural environment, as well as their inter-relationships, in emergency situations. The course aims to train students for pre-emptive and resilient design approaches that provide cities, communities, and individuals to effectively prepare for, cope with, and anticipate rapid change in emergency-prone or emergency affected contexts.

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

This course builds up an innovative professional profile for architects, planners and designers providing students with skills and tools in the field of recovery, adaptation and transformation of spaces in consequence or in anticipation of ecological, social and economic crises.

Knowledge and understanding

1. Demonstrate a deepened understanding of methods, techniques and processes required to handle emergency and post-emergency resilience through design.
2. Gain knowledge on designing for the future e.g. speculative, fictional, and critical design methods.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of resilience as a powerful tool for architects to tackle societal, environmental and economic emergencies.
4. Describe and demonstrate an understanding of the roles, relationships and needs relating to and dealing with human (people) and non-human elements (e.g. natural elements such as water, flora, fauna and physical elements of the built environment such as buildings, infrastructures, public spaces and their components) in emergency-responsive and/or resilient design

Competence and skills

5. Conceive, analyze and/or realize architectural ideas through future-oriented and/or emergency and post-emergency scenario-making
6. Make advanced use of design media (e.g. drawings, diagrams, mapping, AI, narrative building, collages, storyboarding, video, etc.) to inform and drive the scenario-making and design.
7. Communicating and presenting their designs through appropriate and effective modes of representation.

Judgement and approach

8. Critically relate their own work in the course to a larger issue or question in architecture, addressing the challenges that the global society is facing today and will face in the future. This ensures a connection not only to sustainability, but even beyond, through the concept of resilience.
9. Reflecting on the new professional opportunities and role of architects as change makers related to emergency-responsive and resilient design.

Content

Various methods and design approaches related to emergency architecture and resilient design will be addressed in lectures and workshops helping student to understand and grasp the concepts related to the course. The work develops through explorative studies within a specific range of design media and through a design project of limited scope. The design is formulated so that it targets a current issue or debate in the field of architecture and urban design around the notion of resilience beyond the sustainability norm. Students are required to critically relate their work to larger societal issues outlined in the course description.

Organisation

The course structure is introduced in an introductory lecture. Learning is organized around a pedagogical trajectory which includes the conceptual and theoretical framework to understand the challenges (emergencies) and correspondent resilient design approaches, but also an application of concepts and development of design proposals on identified/created case studies. The students will diagnose the case study and apply their design approaches in order to adapt the chosen site through design strategies aiming to create a more resilient community/site. Deliverables are defined at the outset of the course through assignments and through the final review. Students work individually or in teams.

Literature

A comprehensive literature list will be available on Canvas when the course starts as part of the course description.

Examination including compulsory elements

Student projects will be presented verbally according to requirements outlined in the course description, which will also include information on grading. A minimum of 80% active attendance / participation is required in order to pass the course.

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.