Summary

This year we will be focusing on timber; its physical material qualities, the infrastructure of skill, labour and technology around its contemporary and historical uses. We will take a critical look at the politics of its production, distribution, and use as a sustainable building material.

Content

Learning Outcomes

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

• Design spaces, structures, models, drawings, prototypes, buildings
• Assemble materials
• Formulate ideas, analysis, intention, questions
• Explore timber as a building material, skills, design iterations, materials
• Realize complete assignments, complete models, drawings and 1-1 prototypes

Transversal skills

• Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.
• Give feedback (critique) in an appropriate fashion.
• Take responsibility for environmental impacts of her/ his actions and decisions.
• Take feedback (critique) and respond in an appropriate manner.

Teaching methods

We will be teaching through a range of methods, which merge practical skills and critical thinking about architecture and spatial design. We have prepared a series of Assignments and workshops which cover these.

Material understanding : At the begining of the semester each student group work with one part of a tree to make a material or an object, gaining an intimate understanding of the historical and contemporary uses for each part of the tree.

Place : An exploratory walk through a multi use forest will provide the spatial, social, cultural and political context for the material experiments.

Precedent Study : Large scale models of timber precedents will allow for the connection between culture, place, and construction to be investigated.

Translation : The concepts explored during the place, precedent and material tests will be developed into design proposals in groups of two, situating the methods learned within a swiss context.

Final Exhibition : All of the work will be curated into a final group exhibition of the research and proposals. Guests and advisors from the semester will be invited back to comment on the studio's work as a whole.

Supervision