Architectural anthropology

AR-405 / 3 crédits

Enseignant: Baumgardt Laurin Paul Rudolf

Langue: Anglais

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

Summary

This course introduces key anthropological debates and methodological approaches that are concerned with architectural productions, knowledge, and design practices.

Content

This course explores how anthropology has cultivated a distinct field of interest and expertise in architectural knowledge and built environments. It functions both as an introduction to how anthropology has engaged with architectural questions and thematics, and as an exploration of how anthropological perspectives and methods can be applied to architectural practice and research. Using ethnographic methods and approaches, anthropology can offer new and valuable insights into how design practitioners and urban dwellers worldwide are rethinking the critical potential of architectural knowledge and building practices amid ecological and political crises. More than just a supplementary method for related disciplines, ethnography can be understood as a genre and sensibility in its own right.

Thematically, this course will engage in discussions related to themes and concerns of great relevance to architecture, such as construction and design politics, studio cultures, place-making, city-making, material agency and economy, socio-spatial justice, ethics and positionality, repair, maintenance, housing and critical public infrastructure. The central aim and goal of this course is to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of architecture's dispositions, object worlds, and tools, while inquiring and reflecting on how design and construction practices are embedded in and shaped by political, ecological, and socio-economic contexts.

The course is, ultimately, an invitation to examine how architects and architecture practices have responded to, mitigated, or reinforced these broader socio-economic and political conditions.

 

Keywords

anthropology, ethnography, ethics, positionality, relationality, knowledge, material culture, justice, urbanism, qualitative interviews, creative writing and drawing, political economy

Learning Outcomes

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

  • apply anthropological perspectives
  • work with ethnographic methods
  • familiarize themselves with ethnography as a distinct genre
  • reflect on the culture of architectural productions
  • engage in interdisciplinary discussions

Transversal skills

  • Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
  • Communicate effectively, being understood, including across different languages and cultures.
  • Demonstrate a capacity for creativity.
  • Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.
  • Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.

Teaching methods

The course is primarily designed as a writing- and reading-intensive class. The course is run as a discussion class but also as a type of ethnographic studio with "weekly creations" in the form of writing experiments and ethnographic applications.

Assessment methods

Course assessments will involve creative exercises and assignments, such as writing fieldnotes, producing ethnographic drawings and concept maps, documenting a sound- and walkscape, analyzing ethnographic observations, and conducting one qualitative interview. The final outputs will be assembled in a small portfolio that course participants present toward the end of the course.

 

 

Resources

Websites

Moodle Link

Dans les plans d'études

  • Semestre: Printemps
  • Nombre de places: 24
  • Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'été)
  • Matière examinée: Architectural anthropology
  • Cours: 2 Heure(s) hebdo x 12 semaines
  • Type: facultatif
  • Semestre: Printemps
  • Nombre de places: 24
  • Forme de l'examen: Pendant le semestre (session d'été)
  • Matière examinée: Architectural anthropology
  • Cours: 2 Heure(s) hebdo x 12 semaines
  • Type: facultatif

Semaine de référence

Cours connexes

Résultats de graphsearch.epfl.ch.