ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN V

The module is a design studio that emphasizes the idea of ‘place-making for the urban communities. Students will undertake a studio-based exercise that deals with urban blocks within a dense urban environment. The emphasis in this module will be on exploring the notion of ‘place-making’ and architecture that respond to this notion. Developing your design thinking as an architectural narrative, forming proposals that are poetic expressions of ideas. Projects will not promote complex programmatic and organizational problems but will rather allow in-depth exploration and interpretations. The two major parts of the studio are a) urban contextual study and b) architectural design development. The final outcome is an architectural design that is responsive to its urban character. In their preliminary design work, students engage with urban studies and strategy/concept development to develop an appropriate program and massing studies responding to the urban conditions. Subsequently, the major project involves the development of a design scheme that engages with the spirit of urban places and the everyday life of the urban community. The design work explores the plan-section-elevation relationship to achieve an architecture that acts as a vibrant block exploring the maximum potential of the urban space.

Project 1A

Project 1a: Preliminary Studies - ‘Townscape Appraisal’

The first project, Preliminary Studies, is a preparatory task that investigates the character of a place (town or city) and architecture for place-making through the ‘Townscape Assessment’ (see Appendix 1) exercise. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the character, identity, and uniqueness of a town and urban region in order to identify opportunities for producing responsive architecture design within urban context and placemaking led urban space in the given site. Thus, the project introduces students to the fundamentals of urban design by assessing the ‘content’ of the urban context within the proposed site.

Project 1b & 1c

Projects 1b & 1c: Architecture for Place-making

For the rest of the semester, students will concentrate on designing an architecture for place-making within an urban context. This is an individual assignment. The design of the building consists of appropriate and problem-solving architectural responses that address the aspects of the urban context and user behavioural patterns as analysed and synthesised in the Preliminary Studies. The studio employs content-driven design approach Architecture Design V ARC60608/ ARC60306 March 2023 5 in which architecture becomes a solution to relevant issues through research informs approach. The solution is in design as a purposeful narrative to issues identified relevant to the context (Low, 2010).