University of Technology Sydney

86114 Communication and Construction: Material Futures

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): 86009 Communication and Construction: Generative Methods AND 86008 Communication and Construction: Representation
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.

Recommended studies:

Active participation in Orientation weeks activities is highly recommended, as it is when students are inducted in software management and model making workshops.

Description

This subject builds on the previous two semesters of learning in the Interior Architecture degree. It is one of the key skill-based communication and construction subjects in the Interior Architecture curriculum. 86114 Communication and Construction: Material Futures is a milestone in bolstering learning in technical, graphic and construction representation techniques and developing an understanding of materials, structure, digital fabrication, and modes of assembly and representation.

Students are required to first dissect an existing object through a series of 3D drawing exercises. The outcome of this study is to explore the object's material, structural, and organisational systems and its relationship to human interactions. Building on the understanding of the existing object, students are to design a performative installation that spatialises an interior condition. Students explore and re-interpret the human-to-object to a human-to-space relationship of their designated object through reimagining the object's material future.

Centred on recursive feedback between making, testing, drawing and fabrication, the outcome of the subject is a rigorous engagement with materials paired with fabrication, assembly and representation techniques. Skills developed in this subject include detailed 3D modelling to assist in the production of measured drawings, material exploration and methods of digital/analogue fabrication and assembly, prototyping, finishing and an engagement with experimental modes of representation.

Subject learning objectives (SLOs)

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

1. Demonstrate a capacity to differentiate the specific role of materials and fabrication technologies within complex systems.
2. Demonstrate a capacity to understand and apply the specific grammars of representation.
3. Demonstrate a capacity to represent constructed entities as a hierarchical relationship between materials, systems and components.
4. Understand the role of digital and analogue techniques of fabrication and assembly.
5. Demonstrate capacity to explore representation techniques through ‘project-specific approaches’.
6. Demonstrate a capacity to design construction solutions that preserve and reinforce a conceptual agenda.
7. Demonstrate a capacity to successfully participate in highly collaborative environments and projects.
8. Demonstrate a capacity to interpret, transform and experiment with materials and corresponding modes of fabrication and assembly.
9. Demonstrate a capacity to produce precise, accurate and highly communicative architectural documentation.

Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)

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

  • Ability to work cooperatively as part of a team, initiate partnerships with others, take a leadership role when required and constructively contribute to peer learning and critique (C.1)
  • Ability to communicate ideas effectively, including oral, written, visual, analogue and digital presentations (2D and 3D) (C.2)
  • Ability to apply experimentation in thinking and practice as a means toward developing an individual design approach (I.1)
  • Ability to apply and utilise appropriate communication techniques, knowledge and understanding to enable practical applications in spatial design (P.1)
  • Ability to rigorously explore, apply and extend multiple representational techniques (P.2)
  • Ability to independently select and apply appropriate research methodologies to carry out investigative study (R.1)
  • Ability to analyse, formulate and synthesise complex ideas, arguments and rationales and use initiative to explore alternatives (R.2)

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

This subject uses problem-based learning strategies that involve students in researching and developing their own solutions to complex design and detailing challenges. A series of lectures will provide foundations for investigations, followed by studio-based tutorial sessions.

Lecture sessions Lectures will introduce specific communication and construction topics relating to assessment tasks and industry-based practice. Lectures will be on campus, and it is mandatory to attend lectures prior to studio/workshop attendance. Students are encouraged to ask questions during the lectures.

Studio sessions
Studio sessions will focus on activities that progress towards the completion of the assigned tasks. Tutors will provide feedback on work developed both during and before the studio time. Students should always bring material to work on in studio sessions. Students are expected to continue working on their projects outside the allocated studio times to complete weekly tasks or deliverables prior to the following studio.

Collaborative learning
Assessments involve group work components to facilitate collaborative learning.

Online coursework

All subject documents, content-specific information and communication will occur through CANVAS.

There are a number of online resources used to support the learning objectives of this subject. There are essential readings available online and a selection of recommended readings and helpful resources.

Feedback
The subject provides a range of formative feedback strategies. There is a "no work, no feedback" policy for all sessions; however, being in the studio even without work will greatly assist in completing the subject. In order to gain the most effective feedback, drawings should be printed for tutors to assist with the completion of the tasks. Formative feedback is designed to help students improve their performance in time for the submission of an assessment item. For this to occur, students need to respond constructively to the feedback provided. This involves critically reflecting on advice given and, in response, altering the approach taken to a given assessment. Formative feedback may also, on occasion, be provided by other students. It is delivered informally, either in conversation during a tutorial or in the course of discussion at the scale of the whole class. It is the student’s responsibility to record any feedback given during meetings or studio sessions.

Students must bring their models to the tutorial sessions for ongoing feedback.

Feedback for submitted assessment tasks will be provided verbally during studio time and through ReView. Tutors are not required to give additional feedback outside studio/workshop time. If there are issues with progress, please email the subject coordinator.

Mobile phones for private use are not permitted during lectures, tutorials and studio sessions.

Content (topics)

This subject addresses the following issues and topics:

1. Material typologies – material properties, types and techniques of fabrication.

2. Principles of hierarchy – fabrication and materiality as a hierarchical relation between systems, subsystems, and components.

3. Digital and analogue fabrication.

4. Shape, form and size as a negotiation between function, stability and assembly.

5. Representation - tools, systems techniques, scales, and grammars relevant to the design and representation of prototyping and assembly.

5. Principles of Tectonics – limitations of materiality, structure, fabrication, and assembly.

Assessment

Assessment task 1: Assessment Task 1 : Dissecting the Object + Digital Twin

Intent:

Dissection of an existing object through a series of 3D drawing exercises. The outcome of this study is to explore the object's material, structural, and organisational systems and its relationship to human interactions.

Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

1, 3, 7 and 9

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.):

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

Type: Presentation
Groupwork: Group, individually assessed
Weight: 30%
Criteria:
  • Layered 3D model of the object to form a digital twin
  • Taxonomy of components
  • Orthographic drawings representing the part-to-whole relationship
  • Orthographic drawings representing the human-to-object relationship
Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
Ability to develop a digital twin of an existing object 40 9 R.2
Ability to document the systems and components of an existing object 20 1 C.2
Ability to represent the human-to-object relationship 10 9 P.1
Ability to document a taxonomy of components 20 3 P.2
Ability to work effectively in a group and participate in tutorial sessions 10 7 C.1
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 2: Assessment Task 2 : Performative Installation | Concept

Intent:

Concept presentation of a performative installation. Students will explore and re-interpret the human-to-object to a human-to-space relationship of their designated object through reimagining the object's material future.
Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

2, 4, 6, 7 and 8

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.):

C.1, C.2, I.1, P.2 and R.1

Type: Presentation
Groupwork: Group, individually assessed
Weight: 40%
Criteria:
  • Physical model
  • Orthographic drawings representing the part-to-whole relationship
  • Orthographic drawings representing the human-to-object and human-to-space relationship
  • Taxonomy of components
Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
Ability to undertake and document material research + exploration that is appropriate to a design brief. 20 8 R.1
Ability to represent the human-to-object and human-to-space relationship. 10 6 P.2
Ability to document a taxonomy of components. 20 2 C.2
Ability to produce a physical model which exhibits multiple analogue and digital fabrication techniques. 40 4 I.1
Ability to work effectively in a group and participate in tutorial sessions. 10 7 C.1
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Assessment task 3: Assessment Task 3 : Performative Installation | Presentation

Intent:

Final presentation of a performative installation. Students will explore and re-interpret the human-to-object to a human-to-space relationship of their designated object through reimagining the object's material future.
Objective(s):

This task addresses the following subject learning objectives:

2, 4, 5, 7 and 9

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.):

C.1, C.2, P.1 and P.2

Type: Presentation
Groupwork: Group, individually assessed
Weight: 30%
Criteria:
  • Physical model
  • Orthographic drawings representing the part-to-whole relationship
  • Orthographic drawings representing the human-to-object and human-to-space relationship
  • Taxonomy of components
Criteria linkages:
Criteria Weight (%) SLOs CILOs
Ability to explore new forms of graphical representations in a hybrid drawing format. 40 5 P.2
Ability to represent the human-to-object and human-to-space relationship. 20 9 P.1
Ability to document a taxonomy of components. 10 2 C.2
Ability to produce a physical model which exhibits multiple analogue and digital fabrication techniques. 20 4 P.1
Ability to work effectively in a group and participate in tutorial sessions. 10 7 C.1
SLOs: subject learning objectives
CILOs: course intended learning outcomes

Minimum requirements

Attendance

The DAB attendance policy requires students to attend no less than 80% of formal teaching sessions (lectures and tutorials) for each class they are enrolled in to remain eligible for assessment.

Pursuant to "UTS Rule 3.8.2", students who do not satisfy attendance requirements may be refused permission by the Responsible Academic Officer to be considered for assessment for this subject. Students can make themselves familiar with all University rules here:

https://www.uts.edu.au/about/uts-governance/rules/uts-student-rules

Students who are unable to attend for personal reasons (e.g. sickness) are to notify the subject's coordinators by email on the day of absence.


Late and Incomplete Assignments

A non-attendance at Assessment Submission Presentations without reasonable, substantiated documented evidence, signed off by the Subject Coordinator, will be an automatic non-assessment.

Digital upload of Assignments submitted after the due time/date will incur the late penalties listed below unless a formal extension of time has been granted by the Subject Coordinator. This should be approved BEFORE the submission deadline where possible. Work submitted more than 5 working days after the stated submission date, will not be accepted for assessment unless a formal extension of time has been granted by the Subject Coordinator on receipt of a Special Consideration Form. (Please refer to the “Exemptions and Absence” and “Special Consideration” sections of the DAB Subject Information Book).

Late digital submissions will incur the following penalties -
Up to 1 day late: 10% late reduction **(24 hours from the specified deadline)
Up to 2 days late: 20% late reduction
Up to 3 days late: 30% late reduction
Up to 4 days late: 40% late reduction
Up to 5 days late: 50% late reduction
Over 5 days late: NOT ACCEPTED
** Where no exact time is specified for a deadline, it will be assumed that the deadline is 9am on the date specified.

References