ARCHITECTURE C U H K N O T E B O O K

Transcription

1 ARCHITECTURE C U H K N O T E B O O K

2 Notebook II This is the second working notebook of the architecture programme. The fi rst book noted the ideas underlying the programme, and described the fundamental structure of the programme and its various parts in terms of studios and courses. It provided a relatively simple description of the programme, the common ground in the department for discourse as well as education and research. The present notebook is an extension, not a repetition, of the fi rst one, and in a sense it refl ects some of the results of the year s experience. It is intended to present the programme from a more direct, specifi c, and operational point of view. In refl ecting the results of the experience of the fi rst year, it shows total changes in some parts, clarifi cation and revisions or reaffi rmation of other parts. In addition, it includes a small selection of the student work as illustration of how the various studios have developed their approaches. The key aspect of the new programme was the approach to the design pedagogy in terms of four studios. This approach was new to most almost all teachers. There was also some concern to see if the fi nite number of studios, while bringing focus to the work, would have a limiting effect on the scope of architectural exploration. The general observation about the operation of the studios and the resulting work is that the four studios seemed to offer suffi cient choice, not to compromise the comprehensive nature of design in general, to offer an effective pedagogical approach, and to encourage depth through greater focus. By and large, the year has led to the view that the programme has served the vision of the department well. It has provided the basis for focused work in design and can serve increasingly greater intensity and quality. In the coming year, the programme will continue fundamentally as it has in the fi rst year, but will refl ect several developments in the light of the experience of the year. All studios will develop a more formal presentation of the theoretical and historical material related to the work to be presented as a supporting module within the studio. This is intended to advance and raise the level of reference to theoretical material during the occasional discussions at the drawing board. 2

3 In the fi rst year, the courses in all areas Humanities, Technology, Communication, and Professional Practice will be closely related to the studio work stressing the unity of the subject of architecture and the importance of direct observation as a fi rst step in studies which advance into separate subjects. They will share the beginning as direct observation and architecture as an undivided whole and proceed to articulated studies in their subject areas. There have been further changes also in the advanced courses in all four areas. In Communication, the course Computer-Aided Architecural Design has been further developed to provide a strong theoretical basis for later studies in computer applications and in design. In Humanities, the fi rst course has been changed to present a more comprehensive culturally inclusive view of architecture. New electives have been introduced dealing with the relationship between architecture and other fi elds, such as art and socio-cultural studies. into courses as a result of direct observation. It is also intended to embrace issues of environmental concern and sustainability right from the start. In Professional Practice, the courses have been revised to take note of changes in the professional practice examination requirements. In addition the year out is integrated into the programme and will be supported through a series of seminars and closer connection between the work outside and the later studies in the master s programme. The scope of independent studies has been increased by allowing students to undertake studies in other locations and institutions, not only as part of formal exchange with other schools, but also on the basis of individually prepared proposals for study approved by the department. In Technology, the change is intended to start with a view of architecture as an undivided whole and lead to articulation 3

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5 Table of Contents Design Education 7 Architecture: The House and the City 9 Programme 11 Studios 12 Primary Studios 13 Types of Study 17 Modes of Study 22 Courses 25 Communication 26 Humanities 27 Technology 28 Professional Practice 29 Research Studies 30 Student Work Foundation 32 Habitation 34 Urbanization 36 Tectonics 38 Technics 40 Thesis 42 Study Schemes 45 A Place for Learning 46 Studio Dates 48 5

6 What a scientist does at his desk or in his laboratory, what a literary critic does in reading a poem, are of the same order as what anybody else does when engaged in like activities if he is to achieve understanding. The difference is in degree, not in kind. Jerome Bruner, The Process of Education 6

7 Design Education The appreciation of the structure of ideas is that side of a cultured mind which can only grow under the infl uence of a special study. I mean that eye for the whole chessboard, for the bearing of one set of ideas on another. Nothing but a special study can give any appreciation for the exact formulation of general ideas, for their relation when formulated, for their service in the comprehension of life. A mind so disciplined should be both more abstract and more concrete. It has been trained in the comprehension of abstract thought and in the analysis of facts. Alfred North Whitehead The Aims of Education Design is widely and validly regarded as the core of architectural education. However, it is not limited to the work in studios. It applies to all studies in the programme. It is a way of thinking; it is a habit of mind towards every action as a fusion of knowledge, reason, and aesthetic intention. It is an approach to education. No single part of the programme is intended intended merely as a source of information or as an isolated and exhaustive presentation of a subject. The entire programme and each signifi cant part of it are points of departure for further study, as well as examples of possible directions and established methods. Here education is a process of acquisition of knowledge through active engagement in its development, exercise of creative imagination and skill through design and refi nement of intellectural focus through a critical approach to every part of the process. 7

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9 Architecture - The House and the City Architecture is the formal extension of the common human instinct for building shelter in search of safety and permanence. Thus it has both a physical and a metaphorical aspect. It embodies both the physical and the meta-physical, the secular and the sacred. It forms and embraces in each single act, each single work, the past, the present, and the potential the future of human culture. The school should become an increasingly active participant in its city Hong Kong. It aims to be actively engaged in the architecture and the evolution of Hong Kong, its particular conditions of time and place. It aspires to bring to this engagement a view of architecture as a fi eld of universal presence and timeless qualities, and to draw energy and vitality from its untamed life and nature. Its history parallels the evolution of society through increasingly complex institutions and buildings from the house to the city. It is integrally bound to all other aspects and human life, since the source of its regeneration lies beyond itself, while its forms develop from within. A school of architecture is a civic and cultural institution as well as a place of professional education. The presence of a school in a city must contribute effectively to the quality of architecture and the awareness of architectural issues in that city. At the same time, a school must relate to architecture as the subject of its own intellectual identity. It must negotiate between the immediate reality of the city of its location and the timeless quality of architecture as a universal presence. 9

10 The study of architecture is ultimately the study of works of architecture. A work of architecture is a fact much like an object in nature. It is complete in itself. It is not an abstraction or formalized thought. Its study requires formalized thought if it is not to be merely a description of the form itself. 10

11 Programme Architecture Design: Theory Practice Process The programme deals with one subject: architecture. The programme is not merely a collection of courses for covering information. It is itself a shaper of ideas about the subject. It is also a structure allowing study of architecture at different levels of complexity and articulation, as a unifi ed whole or in different degrees of detail and different aspects. The structure is essentially a theoretical construct, a theory relating form to our observations about it. Relating our observations to our actions, relating our designs to our observations. At present much of this connecting thought is unstated or unarticulated. It appears as opinion and anecdote and is not explicitly stated in such a way that it can be refi ned with experience, can act as repository of accumulated experience in the form of knowledge. In a way the studios and their conduct afford the beginning of such a process. It consists of two main parts: courses and studios. In general studios focus on DESIGN; the courses deal with THEORETICAL MATERIAL. 11

12 Architecture Design Process, Product, and Language In architecture there is little to teach and much to learn. Students have a limited exposure to the materials they are to learn. How can this exposure be made to count in their thinking for the rest of their lives? The dominant view among men who have been engaged in preparing and teaching new curricula is that the answer to this question lies in giving students an understanding of the fundamental structure of whatever subjects we choose to teach. Jerome Bruner The Process of Education Design pedagogy, if it is not limited to demonstration and apprenticeship, must involve verbal language beyond mere practical instruction. The terms of such language, while rooted in the common language, must be part of theoretical structure of interrelated assumptions, concepts, and operations. They constitute the language we use in the process of design education, make discussion possible beyond mere reference to limited examples, and enable students to advance beyond immediate instruction. The process of design, in terms of cognitive activity, is the same as in any subject. Therefore in order to be useful in teaching design in a particular subject, it needs to be described in a way that relates to the specifi c content of its subject: ARCHITECTURE. In architecture, an important fi rst step in design much like the fi rst step in a journey is a sense of direction. This is not predicated upon any facts within the journey and precedes it. The designer s sense of direction is the position in architecture. They not only provide an approach to the study of design; they also provide examples of an approach, encouraging students to formulate their own ideas and form their own approach from this primary set. Four such positions form the basis of the primary thematic or primary studios: HABITATION, URBANIZATION, TECTONICS, TECH- NICS. 12

13 Design Primary Studios Habitation In the house of every Greek and Roman was an altar; on this altar there had always to be a small quantity of ashes, and a few lighted coals. It was a sacred obligation for the master of every house to keep the fi re up night and day. This in turn was connected with an ancient belief. This altar was called Vesta in Greek and Focus in Latin. Fustel de Coulanges The Ancient City Habitation begins as the routines of life take place and develop signifi cant form. The form becomes signifi cant as its ambiance, its conditions of light, its geometry, its relationship to other forms embody symbolic signifi cance. It is not merely a response to immediate functions but also the embodiment of myths, customs, and beliefs. The distance between two persons in conversation, the seating arrangement around a room or a table, the place of entry into a room, the shape of gathering around an event, a procession. These are captured in art, folklore, literature, and customs in various cultures, and have given timeless signifi cance to art, literature, and architecture. They enable a work of architecture to capture the entire history and culture of a community the past, present, and future in a single act. 13

14 Design Primary Studios Urbanization Every great event has its geographical epicenter - that of the American Revolution was the few city blocks around Carpenters and Independence Halls in Philadelphia; that of the great French Revolution was the Place de la Bastille; that of the Revolution of 1848 was the Luxembourg Gardens. J. K. Galbraith The Age of Uncertainty The studio studies the shaping infl uence of factors beyond the individual building. Although architecture may seem traditionally to have been concerned with individual monuments the ground cover, which make the fabric of the city the relationships, traditions, and common needs that shape the ground cover infl uence the city as a whole and provide a formal context for the design of each part often without individual formal articulation. The context in turn evolves with the building of each building. it in a way one is designing the city with the design of each building. Each building is a variation of the timeless architectural duality of the city and the house. 14

15 Design Primary Studios Tectonics Paper, I understand, was invented by the Chinese, but Western paper is to us no more than something to be used, while the texture of Chinese paper and Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose. Even the same white could as well be one color for Western paper and another for our own. Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a fi rst snowfall. It gives off no sound when is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree. Jun ichiro Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows Tectonics is a manifestation in architecture of the aesthetic imperative as part of human nature. It attends to the potential of building for qualities inherent in the material, economy in their use, potential for elegance in resolution in their juxtaposition, and the total compositional quality of form. It goes beyond necessity and responds to a sensibility of a higher order as mastery and skill. It relates to the sensibility that has characterized all fi ne works of architecture. It has been the quality of all work of architecture. The curvature in the entablature of the Parthenon, the joints between stones at Machu Pichu, the composition of windows in the chapel at Ronchamp are beyond functional necessity. 15

16 Design Primary Studios Technics One of the most obvious problems in building the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore was how to transport heavy building materials such as sandstone beams and slabs of marble several hundred feet above the ground and then place them into position with the accuracy demanded by Filippo s design. The sandstone beam weighed some 1,700 poinds each, and hundreds of them needed to be raised on to the cupola. To solve this problem Filippo was compelled to imagine some unheard-of machine to move and carry tremendous weights to incredible heights. The hoist that he created was to become one of the most celebrated machines of the Renaissance, a device that would be studied and sketched by numerous other architects and engineers, including Leonardo da Vinci. The studio studies and practices the innovative processes and skills to design buildings one might say from fi rst principles, based on specifi c technologies or needs. Architecture owes much to buildings and works designed outside the architectural tradition. New needs, new technologies, or new environments all have led to examples such as the Crystal Palace, the 19 th century railway arches, the viaducts and bridges. They best illustrate the point of exploration in the Technics studio. The bold and innovative approach to their design is no doubt an integral part of any work. But the power of such works is evident in the ready place they fi nd in many derivative designs that seem to follow from them. Ross King Brunelleschi s Dome 16

17 Studios Types of Study Design: Product Form and Content A building is a world within a world. Buildings personify places of worship, or of home, or other institutions of man. Louis I. Kahn The shed and the cathedral are two points in a continuum of evolution, just as the house and the city. There s a shed in every cathedral; a cathedral in every shed. In the face of infi nite variety of particular situations it seems necessary to seek a deep structure in terms of which to understand and act on them. At the same time it is necessary to recognize the unique quality of every work. Design becomes a fusion of the universal and the particular. This is the challenge of the approach to design. Buildings and the functions or institutions they serve, though infi nite in number and boundless in time and place, can be seen in terms of evolution or permutations rooted in a limited number of primary human activities, PLACE OF GATHERING, PLACE OF WORK, PLACE OF SOLITUDE. 17

18 Types of Study Projects Two Types of Study Design is not merely problemsolving. The scope of a solution to a problem is confi ned to its description. Design is an act of creating a new and concrete fact. It is related to needs, limits, potentials, and intentions. But it is not reducible to any such abstraction or produceable in direct response to them. Studio projects are occasions for study and exercise based on the studio as positions, not as dogma. The scope of the projects varies to suit the particular approach and pedagogical strategy of the studio. They provide the possibility of exercises which are particularly suited to the issues in the studio. Beyond the daily and immediate educational objectives, the studies and their results make a cumulative contribution to an implicit discourse between different positions in architecture. However, in all studios the exercises remain as design exercises within the scope of architecture. School projects are formulated independently of the studio positions and are occasions for the application of particular design positions to general designs. As in other parts of the programme they are not only statements of design projects, but are themselves a way of seeing and interpreting building types. At the simplest level three kinds of places seem to defi ne the human world: place of work, place of gathering, and place of solitude. They are the necessary elements of any complete human environment; the house, the school, the factory, the temple. The following list is a second level in the development of primary functions. It provides the basic defi nition of sets of school projects. Each set consists of three projects. These are seen as essentially one project manifested at different levels of complexity which as a nested set inform one another. 18

19 School Project Places Live All places of habitation are places for living. And a place of living must at a basic level provide for all essential routines of habitation. These can be seen in terms of three modes of daily life: gathering, work, and solitude. They are the necessary constituent parts of a dwelling of any size, a oneroom apartment or an extensive house. The study and design of places of living involves the entire scope of architecture at the most fundamental level. It touches on narrowly defi ned functions and embodies timeless and far-reaching customs and beliefs. The house is perhaps the most symbolically signifi cant of any form in architecture. It is the seminal idea in architecture, as the family might be regarded as the seminal unit of human society. The hearth, the altar, the window, the doorway are in the house, more distinctly than in any other work of architecture, routines of life. Projects: Year 2: Individual house Year 3: Hostel Year 4. Housing 19

20 School Project Places Work Learn Worship Much of human life is spent in working, much of human thought is preoccupied with work. Much of human history is the record of working conditions. Much of architecture deals with places of work. Projects for places for working serve two aims. In one way, they serve as occasions for the study of this major aspect of human life: its history, its infl uence in human attitudes, its impact on other aspects of culture, etc. In another way they serve to bring all such study into focus as occasions for study and practice of design. Year 2: A weaving studio for two weavers. Year 3: A factory for industrial production or manufacturing of a group of 50 persons. Year 4: A community of 100 persons working in groups of up to 4 in various lines of work innovative technology, design, etc. Learning as one of the main human activities has been the focus of a major part of human civilization, has led to the development of a distinct line of social institutions, and has occupied a distinct section of architectural history. Despite the extensive development of the institutions and their many forms, the place of the individual student remain central to all such institutions. Year 2: A kindergarten for two groups of 20 children. Year 3: A local library with a collection of books. Year 4: A design school for students. Worship is a fundamental aspect of human life. The places of worship, when not limited to the individual, have had much in common to other places of gathering and performance. Despite many forms and doctrines, the architecture of worship in all cultures has several common underlying characteristics, even while it responds to important symbolic and doctrinal differences. The history of the architecture of worship responds also to ceremony and ritual. In some way it celebrates universal existence by placing the human being in the presence of timeless and constant natural elements: light, earth, water, and air. Yet the essential condition of worship remains solitude. Year 2: Memorial chapel for private worship of up to 10 persons. Year 3: A university college chapel for assemblies of up to 200 persons. Year 4: A temple complex for a rural community. 20

21 Perform Travel Exchange Performance is an integral part of human gathering, communication, and social action. Seen this way, a place of performance is a place of gathering with more or less specifi c requirements. But, like social activity, the form of the place, and of the building giving place to the performance seems to come from the gathering and its symbolic implications as much as from its functional requirements. It is expected that the design of places of performance would offer an occasion for studies at a fundamental level of performance as a part of human civilizing act as well as an exercise in design with functional requirements of design. Year 2: A music teaching studio for up to fi ve musicians, a coach, and 10 listeners. Year 3: A community gathering place suited to various occasions including impromptu theatre for up to 100 persons. Year 4: A performance theatre for live drama for an audience of up to 300 persons. Movement physically moving from one place to another is an abstract human activity pervasive through many human functions. Often it is diffi cult to distinguish from the content of movement and it seems to be the life force of public places relating in an intricate way with the particular function they seem to perform. Places of arrival, departure, promenades, etc. Year 2: A pedestrian bridge providing places of rest and exchange. Year 3: A public promenade providing for a semi-private sailing club (200 members) and public facilities. Year 4: A road/highway passenger facility providing for short periods of rest, break from driving, and public amenities of up to 200 private and 100 public vehicles per hour. Exchange is the predominant mode of social contact in the human community. The market place and the basilica share much in the early social activities and endure to our time in the shape of many public places. The hawkers,the street vendors, the shop keepers, and the shopping centres have long been the hub of social activity and represent more than the material they offer for sale. In subtle ways they act as training posts, as playgrounds, as places of social gathering, and as various parts of a collective forum accommodating and embodying urban life. They accommodate a way of conducting public life. Year 2: A small store for specialized goods. Year 3: A local market 20 small and independent merchants/craftsmen. Year 4: A neghbourhood market including a major supermarket branch and 20 specialized shops. 21

22 Studios Modes of Study Year 1 Years 2, 3, and 4 Design teaching, research, and practice are inseparable. They are conducted in four primary studios each focused on one of four primary positions or themes. To learn to see what exists is the key to creative engagement in the study and design of architecture. The fi rst year deals with the fundamental structure of the programme, its concepts and requisite methods and skills. It provides the ground for later more advanced and more focused studies. The work of the year consists of studies of existing communities, and basic concepts in architecture. These studies are informed by three courses of lectures: architectural theory and history, technology, and communication. In the fi rst year these courses are closely related to the work in the studio while growing more independent and specialized as they advance. Architectural design research, study, and practice is studied in four studios, each focused on one of four themes. Each studio comprises students from all three levels, although the groups are organized in different ways according to the approach in the studio. The internal organization of the studios may vary in response to the particular circumstances of each studio. 22

23 Year 5 Independent Studies Year Out The culmination of the programme is an extended period of self-directed study giving the student the opportunity for focused refl ection, consolidation of various studies in earlier years, and expression of one s position through investigation of selected architectural issues through research and design: the thesis. In a sense, the thesis is a collective manifestation of the work of the school. It provides the grounds for examination of the programme and informs discussion about all levels and aspects. A student enrolled at the department may carry out studies, based on an approved proposal, independently or in any other institution. This applies to students who may take part in exchanges or carry out special studies and fi eld research. A year out of the formal studies in the school separates the undergraduate from the graduate part of the programme. This year is intended as a period of practical experience and essentially independent study. The experience in practice seems to help synthesize the studies up to this point and ground them in more direct understanding through practical application. It is possible for students also to spend all or any part of this year in individually proposed studies or work based on research, working with community groups in developing countries or other architecturally related activities. 23

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25 Architecture Theory Design: Language of Discourse In what terms do we discuss design and works of architecture? It appears that we use the common language. In fact we adopt the common language in developing a special one the terms of which embody specialized meaning and knowledge of architecture and can serve for advancement of architecture through its refi nement. What are the terms of this specialized language? The courses are studied at three levels in each of the following four areas: COMMUNICATIONS, HUMANITIES, TECHNOLOGIES, and PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE. The three levels are: 1. Mandatory courses. The minimum number of courses possible dealing with fundamentals, principles, and premises underlying the area of those courses. These apply to humanities as well as technology. 2. Elective courses. A selective core of courses as further development of the mandatory courses. There is no linear or chronological order between the mandatories and the electives. 3. Research studies. A series of research-based electives offered by every member of faculty. The studies draw continuity from the fi rst level fundamentals depth from the second level, and vitality from the third level. All three levels inform one another and evolve within the balanced form of the programme. 25

26 Courses Communication Required Elective In the immediate world, everything is to be discerned, for him who can discern it, and centrally and simply, without either dissection into science, or digestion into art, but with the whole of consciousness, seeking to perceive it as it stands. James Agee, Walker Evans Now Let Us Praise Famous Men Graphics and Visual Studies Computer-Aided Architectural Design Studies in Selected Topics Visual Design Digital Design Media 26

27 Courses Humanities Required Elective The whole cultural world, in all its forms, exists through tradition. Edmund Husserl Introduction to Architecture Architectural History and Theory I Architectural History and Theory II Architectural History and Theory III Land and City Urban Design and Planning Architectural Theory and Criticism Studies in Selected Topics Issues in Architectural Theory and Design Periods or Works of Architecture Aspects of Asian Architecture 27

28 Courses Technology Required Elective The aim of the architect is to infuse into his works something of this order and method which is to found in nature. Ancient architects rightly maintained that nature, the greatest of all artists in the invention of forms, was always their model. Therefore, they collected the laws according to which she works in her production as far as humanly possible the principle: such qualities as harmony, proportion, symmetry. Leon Battista Alberti Ten e Books on Architecture Introduction to Building Technology Building Technology I Materials and Construction II Building Structure III Environmental Technology Building Systems Integration Advanced Construction Advanced Building Services Studies in Selected Topics Structural Design and Building Structures Materials and Methods of Construction Environmental Systems and Design Building Performance Simulation 28

29 Courses Professional Practice Required Elective In ancient Greece the term architekton originally meant a master carpenter ; building arisans, shipwrights, and temple designers, all of whom worked in wood, were architects. Certain Greek artists also became known as architects for example, Theodoros of Samos, renowned as a sculptor, metalsmith, and architect in the sixth century B.C. Roman architects, too, came from a variety of backgrounds: private training and apprenticeship; military engineering; and the civil service. Although the Emperor Hadrian dabbled in architecture, it was not really, Cicero has written, an appropriate calling for Roman aristocrats. Former slaves, released from imperial service, became architects. Yet Vitruvius, a self-made man with experience in military engineering, tried to dignify architecture, describing it as a learned career in his treatise. The architect alone, he wrote, combined fi rmness and utility with beauty. Mary N. Wods From Craft to Profession Professional Practice Professional Practice and Management Studies in Selected Topics of Professional Practice 29

30 Courses Research Studies Areas of Interest Research studies are based on the current research work of each faculty member. They are occasions for focused collaboration between students and faculty. They offer the students an opportunity to apply and extend their knowledge and develop skills in research through design or analytical methods. Essy Baniassad Design education, community development Vito Bertin Design, geometry, and structure of space Freeman Chan Architecture and spiritual tradition Wallace Chang Community design Kelly Chow Design practice and theory Jeffrey Cody Beaux-Arts architectural infl uences in 1930s China Gu Daqing Strategies of space organization Ho Puay-peng Chinese architectural history Andrew I-kang Li Formal studies in chinese architecture Liu Yuyang Places of learning: campus design and education buildings Bernard V. Lim Architecture for education and the elderly Gladys Masey-Martinez Micro 3d design Edward Ng Daylighting Nancy Sanders Drawing studies podium and groundplane in Hong Kong s new towns Shin Hae-won Urban landscape Tsou Jin-Yeu CFD-based airfl ow simulation for natural ventilation Woo Pui Leng Street studies 30

31 Studios Student Work Here is a sample of the design work in the course of the year. It is intended to provide neither a comprehensive document on the work nor a precise illustration of the programme. But It is clearly related to the programme. It is presented here with no implicit intention of suggesting a strict linear relationship between the theory and the practice in the studios. The relationship between the word and the work is subtle in all instances. It offers rich ground for further refi nement of both as they develop in a reciprocal manner. 31

32 Student Work Foundation Studio Year 1 The house is the seminal form in architecture. It is the signifi cant form in terms of whose transformations and evolution all other forms can be understood. Historically it has been to architecture as the family to society. 32

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34 Student Work Habitation Studio Years 2, 3, and 4 People The expression of the human spirit revealed through the study of the human body, its surface, and its resonance in space. How people activate architecture, from the collective to the private action or event. Place What is the spirit of the place? Its cultural implication of design within specifi c territories of human habitation. 34

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36 Student Work Urbanization Studio Years 2, 3, and 4 In a sense the entire history of architecture is a story of urbanization, from the early adaptation of caves to the modifi cation of land in search of shelter and the creation of entirely artifi cial worlds. 36

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38 Student Work Tectonics Studio Years 2, 3, and 4 What is the relationship between space, surface, and mass? How is the material arranged in a building? Can we distinguish elements, components, and systems? What is the mutual infl uence between structure, material, and space? Can we differentiate structural and spatial types, and are they related? How can space be formed, structured, and defi ned? How does the built order express a conceived order? 38

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40 Student Work Technics Studio Years 2, 3, and 4 Technics has been defi ned as the doctrine of arts in general; such branches of learning as respect the arts ; the method of performance in any art; technical skill; artistic execution ; technical terms or objects; things pertaining to the practice of an art or science ; the theory, principles, or study of an art or a process ; and the science or study of the mechanical and industrial arts. 40

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42 Student Work Thesis Project Model of Variation The thesis marks the intersection between two important states in one s work and, in a way, in one s professional life. It begins as a synthesis of previous studies, a sum total of many questions unanswered, much information assimilated and much more set aside, skills gained and ideas received and developed. As its completion it represents a fact in its own right embodying ideas, interests, aspirations, and the student s sense of direction. It marks a new beginning for the cycle of search beyond the formal studies in the school, with much broader scope and much greater freedom. 42

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45 Study Schemes Bachelor and Master Three plus Two Years Studying is a process of reconstruction of a subject. In the process of such reconstruction the process touches on the principles, the content, and the structure of a subject. The different courses in the programme each deal with the same points while focusing on different contents. The way to study them is to try and understand their internal structure as well as the structure that unifi es them within the programme. Take each course apart and put it back together in other possible ways. Take apart the entire programme and search for alternative orders between the courses. The internal structure of the courses and the order in which they are offered are only a beginning and a most elementary and general one. The only effective study scheme is to approach it with a searching mind and to reconstruct it in your particular way. In the second and third years of the BSSc(AS) programme, students join a different studio each term. In the fi rst year of the MArch programme, students join two studios for a second time. Thesis students can join any of the four studios again. The study schemes for both BSSc(AS) major and MArch full-time programmes defi ne the minimum units of courses required for graduation. The composition of the course groups and the number of units vary according to the entry year. The respective handbooks give the full details. 45

46 A School of Architecture A school of architecture is not a building; it is a school of thought. The school building is like a village of rooms and routes, all leading to a central public place: the market place, the agora, the exhibition room. It provides places for gathering, work and play, public display and solitary refl ection. It is a collection of rooms and places with different qualities but all with the same purpose: supporting study, discourse, and learning. These rooms are equipped differently, but no room has a limited function. The limitations in how we use a room are related less to the room and more to the limitations of our imagination. Design Technology Lab Architecture Library Studio Studio 46

47 School Plan A Place for Learning 7 Information Technology Lab Exhibitions General Office 4 47

48 Studio Dates Fall Term Week Day 1 Studio selection Start studio project Start school project Public holiday Week Day Final review week Last studio day BSSc(AS) Last studio day MArch No classes

49 Studio Dates Spring Term Week Day 1 Studio selection Start studio project Start school project Week Day Final review week Last studio day

50 Essy Baniassad Vito Bertin Freeman Chan Wallace Chang Kelly Chow Jeffrey Cody Gu Daqing Ho Puay-peng Jeff Kan Andrew I-kang Li Liu Yuyang Bernard Lim Gladys Masey-Martinez Edward Ng Nancy Sanders Shin Hae-won Jin-Yeu Tsou Woo Pui Leng Text: Essy Baniassad Images: Students and staff Design: Vito Bertin Department of Architecture The Chinese University of Hong Kong 23 August

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