Under construction

Summary

This theory course considers the building as a material thing, focusing on the process and matter of architecture to examine how buildings come into being and stay (or don't) in place: through discourse, through their site, through industries, and through the labor of workers.

Content

Learning Outcomes

• Describe architecture's relation to a larger culture of construction
• Assess / Evaluate assess the implications and politics of a building's material assembly
• Contextualise assumptions about construction and materiality in contemporary practice today within the discourse history of the discipline
• Explain the historiography of the role of the architect in relation to construction

Transversal skills

• Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
• Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.
• Take account of the social and human dimensions of the engineering profession.
• Summarize an article or a technical report.

Assessment methods

Performance in the course is continually assessed on a basis of exercises completed at home before class and a semester project. There is no final exam.

Reading responses, written (10 weeks, 4% each)   40%

Glossary Project, glossary entries + justification statement 60%

Supervision