Théorie et critique du projet MA1 (Malterre-Barthes)

Summary

"To be useful, helpful, of assistance to someone:" The "In Service of: Berre" studio reflects on the architectural and territorial project as a form of public service. It explores how architecture and design tools can engage in spatial struggles in the context of toxic, petrochemical territories.

Content

Keywords

Territory, Urbanism, Architecture, Labor, Political Economy, Public Service, Étang de Berre

Learning Outcomes

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

• Critique a specific project brief and a specific context and respond with a meaningful data-driven design concept.
• Translate a data-driven design concept into meaningful architectural and/or urban propositions at appropriate scales and levels of granularity.
• Produce coherent architectural representations and models at sufficient levels of detail.
• Formulate the morphogenetic narrative and create convincing arguments for the design propositions.
• Develop Develop convincing final diagrams, drawings, renderings, simulations, physical and digital models.

Teaching methods

Structure/Method:

Note: The structure and method of this studio follows prior RIOT-led design studios. As such, we do not recommend students to take studio with us more than once.

Through a comprehensive exploration of the forces (i.e., social, legal, political, economic, cultural, environmental) that generate, use, and control space to first expose how, why, and by whom the built and unbuilt environment is shaped, done and undone, we seek to gain a deeper understanding of what affects and is affected by communities at large. The studio is structured around episodes that take us from research, to exploration, to design. In parallel, the studio also conducts a self-critical reflection on its format to question architecture attachment to solutionism, the expectation to 'fix problems,' and other tropes that have led to socially and spatially unjust situations. It also acknowledges the limitations of seeking engagements with communities within the given format of the studio. By focusing on the idea of being helpful without idealizing the task, this design studio hopes to articulate an agenda for a self-critical architecture and territorial practice with a heightened sense of responsibility and a commitment to creating spaces that truly serve the needs of the people.

Assessment methods

The grading will be based on the consistent engagement and learning/unlearning curve of the students with each episode in the Studio. The grades will be proportionately distributed over the episodes listed as follows. The studio relies on a self-assessment questionnaire to help the grading.

• Episode 01: 10%
• Episode 02: 20 %
• Episode 03: Phase 01 > 20 %
• Episode 03: Phase 02 > 50 %

Supervision

Resources

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

No

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