11366 Elective Heritage

Warning: The information on this page is indicative. The subject outline for a particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.

Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.

UTS: Design, Architecture and Building: Architecture
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade and marks

Requisite(s): 144 credit points of completed study in spk(s): C10413 Bachelor of Design Architecture Master of Architecture
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Description

This elective unpacks the definition of an architectural ‘atmosphere’, not as a generalised ‘tone’ or ‘feeling’, but as an intentional and choreographed spatial and visual experience.

We will look to the aesthetic infrastructure, material culture, and mechanical operation of the ‘Magic Show’, and its role in constructing a narrative of illusion.

‘Magic’ implies a special relationship to space and time. Magicians, in a tradition of devising and performing their tricks and illusions, are experts in understanding and exploiting human attention and awareness.

The magician, the stage, and its props generate an experience for onlookers, which unfolds, in a controlled sequence of causes and effects, to bemuse and engage the magical subject. This is no different from the approach that architects must use when creating sensorial spaces within a spatial, formal and material environment.

As a magic trick to its audience, Architecture can be transformative, by reconditioning its environment to disrupt, defamiliarise and redirect behaviours.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1.	Demonstrate an understanding of learned and innovated technique applied to writing/fabrication/or design.
2.	Demonstrate an ability to synthesise ideas through iterative methods and processes, in response to a complex brief.
3.	Research and set up conceptual framing.
4.	Situate within the broader Profession in order to innovate.
5.	Participate and collaborate.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

This subject also contributes to the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes:

Establish and develop an informed and ethical position towards social, technical and environmental issues and practices (A.1)
Work cooperatively and professionally as part of a team, initiate partnerships with others, take a leadership role when required, and constructively contribute to peer learning (C.1)
Communicate ideas professionally and effectively through a variety of mediums: oral, written, visual, physical and digital (C.2)
Produce inspirational responses that demonstrate the successful integration of sub-disciplinary areas of knowledge: history, theory, tectonics and/or practice (I.1)
Understand and challenge disciplinary conventions through an engagement with emergent forms of architectural practice, technologies and modes of production (P.1)
Independently analyse, synthesise and formulate complex ideas, arguments and rationales and use initiative to explore alternatives (R.3)

Contribution to the development of graduate attributes

The term CAPRI is used for the five Design, Architecture and Building faculty graduate attribute categories where:

C = communication and groupwork

A = attitudes and values

P = practical and professional

R = research and critique

I = innovation and creativity

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs) are linked to these categories using codes (e.g. C-1, A-3, P-4, etc.).

Teaching and learning strategies

Students will engage with invited Industry Professionals who are niched in their field for innovation across the categories of research + theory, fabrication, material technology or practice models. Engaging in collaborative exchange, Students will be introduced to new ways of working in response to an assigned, complex brief and iterate responses across mediums, but not limited to – writing/prototyping/exhibition/drawing/documentation.

Content (topics)

Spatial atmospheres
Space and time relativies
Reconditioning environments
Constructed experiences
Architecture + Urbanism

Assessment

Assessment task 1: The Magic Show & Magical Building

Intent:

Refer to Elective Briefing Document

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

This task also addresses the following course intended learning outcomes that are linked with a code to indicate one of the five CAPRI graduate attribute categories (e.g. C.1, A.3, P.4, etc.):

A.1, C.1, C.2, P.1 and R.3

Type:

Design/drawing/plan/sketch

Groupwork:

Individual

Weight:

60%

Criteria linkages:

Criteria	Weight (%)	SLOs	CILOs
Research / Precedent study	15	4	A.1
Conceptual Framing	15	3	R.3
Design Response	30	2	P.1
Communication + representation	30	1	C.2
Participation + contribution	10	5	C.1

SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Analytic Atmospheric Mash-up