11278 Architectural Studio 6

Description

Within the creative framework of the design studio, students explore a diverse set of performative criteria to inform the designed intervention. In architecture, there is the need to balance a diverse range of parameters to arrive at a resolved outcome. Parameters such as social interactions, programmatic requirements and organisational strategies, environmental and urban conditions, material and structural systems, and the technical specifications of the project brief need to be resolved in concert with one another.

This studio, the capstone subject for the Bachelor of Design in Architecture (C10004), allows students to demonstrate the full extent of their learning. The subject supports this opportunity by teaching students how to integrate architectural ideas and technical systems to enrich the architectural experience. Students produce a coherent architectural proposal using a critical, disciplinary-based design thinking to frame and direct an integrated systems approach to architectural design. Drawing on the techniques developed in previous design studios, students are expected to investigate the qualitative and quantitative conditions that sponsor a sustainable built environment and support integrated building services.

The summative nature of this capstone project asks students to apply both the critical disciplinary learning developed in the 'architectural history and theory' subjects and the technical knowledge fostered throughout the degree. Students are required to demonstrate their capacity to synthesise these different knowledge sets by integrating issues such as spatial and programmatic organisation, architectural experience, formal and tectonic expression, urbanism, construction systems, thermal comfort and environmental performance, lighting, and building services.

Valuing a practice-based learning method, the subject mirrors how a professional office might work through a consulting brief. This process follows the format of a conceptual design phase through to the final design proposal. Relying on successive design transformations, students are required to achieve a comprehensive, integrated design and systems solution that responds to a divergent and competing set of design parameters.