Studio BA3 (Gay et Menzel)

AR-201(r) / 10 credits

Teacher(s): Gay Menzel Catherine Odile, Menzel Götz

Language: English

Withdrawal: It is not allowed to withdraw from this subject after the registration deadline.

Remark: Inscription faite par la section

Summary

The studio focusses on contextual imaginary. Developing narratives, inspired both by the site and by the student's imagination leads to a theme sustaining the project. The narrative helps the student to develop an architectural project in a given context.

Content

Urban Legends Porto

The Gay Menzel Studio addresses the context as a source of development of a narrative linked to the site itself. This highlighting tool reveals the inherent qualities of the place and integrates projections or personalaspirations into it, with the broad ambition of reconnection to the environment. Students will develop housing projects in Lausanne and Porto.

 

The making of sense
In this time of crisis a reassessment of our way of life is essential. The quality of our relationship with nature, with the territory, with our way of living is questioned. Maybe a solution would be «resonance», of which the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa speaks, proposing to us to redefine our relationship with the world, to create what he calls the axes of resonance?

 

Unveiling narratives
The development of a project strategy is addressed through the narrative, as a crystallization of a specific site vision (understanding) and personal imagination. How does the architect, as a person, as a user, influences and generates anchor points to make places legible, porous and appropriable in order to give them meaning?

 


Transpositions
Porto, perched along the northwest coast of Portugal, commands the banks of the Douro River and stretches inland toward the scenic hills of vineyards.
Since the Celtic era, the city has thrived as a significant port, acting as an important gateway to the maritime commerce of the Peninsula. Its location has fostered a vibrant environment, encouraging commerce, culture exchange, and the arts, making it a city of great historical importance. Porto leverages a unique urban composition that allowed a specific and opportunistic growth.
Porto will provide us with the opportunity to explore architecture. Throughout the semester, fragments of the city history, embodied in its courtyards and backyards, will serve as a foundation for analysis and inspiration. These spaces, with their intricate designs, historical and communcal significance , will be studied.
They will become starting points for the development of ideas that will be transposed in Lausanne.

 

Keywords

Urban Legends, contextual imaginary, narrative, transposition, survey, double exposure, stairs, housing, Lausanne, Trieste, the city as a common project, evocation, making of sense, reconnection, collective, social, transformation, new construction, architectural languages, ecology, sustainability, film, models, words

 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

  • Develop and verbalise own needs
  • Analyze a site with a survey and documentation
  • Define a desire through the project and make transmittable to others
  • Present the project adequately
  • Develop a narrative from contextual elements and personal imagination
  • Use a narrative as main guideline through all scales of the project
  • Elaborate a coherent discourse
  • Demonstrate consistency throughout the project

Transversal skills

  • Continue to work through difficulties or initial failure to find optimal solutions.
  • Manage priorities.
  • Take feedback (critique) and respond in an appropriate manner.
  • Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.
  • Use a work methodology appropriate to the task.

Teaching methods

The first semester will start with the site(s) visit. The site of retrieval (Porto) and the site of transposition (Lausanne). Students will receive one of the various staircases selected in Porto. The specific revealed qualities of these spaces will be transposed to a site in Lausanne in order to develop housing projects in similar environment. In the second semester a project of larger scale (clubs and gardens) will be developed for Porto. Projects will be developed both individually and in groups of two.

The average cost for the whole year will be roughly 2000.- swiss francs. (Study trip 1 : 800.- / Printings : 200.- / Models : 200.- / Study trip 2 : 800.-)

Assessment methods

During intermediate and final reviews, a guest jury will be appointed.


Table critics will take place at the Studio Gay Menzel.


Review 1 20%, Review 2 35%, Final review 45%

 

Supervision

Office hours Yes
Assistants Yes
Forum No

Resources

Notes/Handbook

Each student will receive a digital version of the course booklet.

 

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Exam form: During the semester (summer session)
  • Subject examined: Studio BA3, BA4 (Gay et Menzel)
  • Courses: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory

Reference week

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