BA ARCH PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

I am delighted to welcome you, either as new or returning students, to NUS Department of Architecture (DOA). With the pandemic still raging, this new Academic Year (AY) will continue to be disruptive and a great challenge to us all. Renovations of SDE3 are still on-going, and hopefully we will be able to move back to SDE3 towards the end of AY2021/22. In the meantime, our studios will continue to be scattered with hot desking arrangements. I hope we can persevere and adapt to the studio condition with COVID-19 safety guidelines and measures. Regardless of the disruption, we at DOA, pledge to do our best to deliver an excellent learning experience for you, as you journey with us through the year. The pandemic has led us to question a number of the essential values at the heart of how we operate in society, such as gatherings, community, work and living patterns, nature, technology, and digital capacity. These values are, and should be, expressed in spatial terms, which you shall explore this year.

AY2021/22 also marks the beginning of a common curriculum structure for the undergraduate degree, designed for the School of Design and Environment and Faculty of Engineering. This new approach to undergraduate education aims to focus on interdisciplinary learning and allows students to craft multiple pathways in their education and future careers. Architecture education has often been interdisciplinary; however, the new curriculum will usher in a structural approach to undergraduate education to prepare you for a fast-changing world in the future. You will be exposed to fundamental modules that will offer exposure in professional skills, values, methodology and pedagogy in design and engineering. In the upper years, you will also be able to pick up some minors or a second major, which will enhance your career resilience. While the new curriculum is applicable to first year students, we will also take the opportunity to assess our curriculum, and make changes to the structure and learning outcomes of different modules. As we begin this education journey with you, we have worked to achieve better clarity in our studio direction and pedagogy. Our programmes focus on design, which we see as evidence-based problem solving skills that has the potential to transcend the confines of everyday experience. The required modules in our programmes open doors to different domains of knowledge, which in turn inform design decisions. The elective modules further expand and enrich students’ knowledge in their chosen topics of interest. By creating and navigating a path through the entire curriculum, you will then be empowered to pursue your own aspirations and interests in architecture.

The values that we champion in our programmes relate both to architectural and spatial form, and pertain to current social conditions, environmental responsibility, well-being and health, urban liveability, memory and identity, and relationship with nature. At this moment, these issues are particularly relevant, poignant and ripe for reflection, research, re-affirmation, and redefinition. A number of design studios planned for the new academic year are addressing these issues directly, and we await with anticipation the innovative answers and outcomes that they will generate.

We are turning the coming year’s challenges into opportunities for robust spatial responses to future conditions. However, we are also mindful of the mental challenges the coming year might bring to your studies. We care about your well-being and we are open to meet and help you, should you face stressful situations during your studies. I invite you to come talk with me and we can face the issues together. I am confident that we will rise above our challenges and work to create design solutions that will address pertinent issues of importance for current and future communities. My colleagues and I, look forward to working together with you, and bringing our passion, creativity and intelligence together with yours, in this education journey. I wish you an exciting and rewarding new academic year.

HO PUAY PENG Professor and Head of Department Your architectural education might begin at NUS Department of Architecture, but it will not end when you graduate. Those of you who do go on to practise architecture will find this especially true. For the best in our field, the learning never stops.

At the DOA, what we provide our undergraduates is not an exhaustive download of disciplinary knowledge (which would be impossible in any case); but rather, a strong foundation in architectural thinking. Our programme takes students through a different design studio each semester, providing a deep dive into different facets of architecture. Studios cover 18 curated themes—sorted into six levels of three related topics each— selected to build a paradigm, from which allows students the opportunity to see and think like an architect. Learning will be cumulative, experiential, and augmented through a thorough immersion in the culture of the design studio.

Certain fundamental aspects of architecture—such as programme, site and form—will not appear as individual themes, but will instead be explored in all studios, at all levels. Grappling with these fundamental elements will increase in sophistication and complexity as you progress through the years, with an opportunity to synthesise your knowledge and thinking in the final semester’s project. Within each level, tutors will teach design through different methodologies. This is a benefit of membership in a large and diverse school, with many studios per level. You will have a wide exposure to varied modes of thinking and working. You will be encouraged to develop a personal—and intellectually robust—critical position as to what architecture is, what it can and should do, and what you might, as a future architect, contribute to it. We value an exploratory culture, with each studio approaching design via thoughtful and energetic iterative processes.

While we will teach the curriculum detailed in the following pages, you will also be expected to play an active role in your education, and to learn more than what we teach. Our programme requires that you take ownership of your own learning to fully exploit this environment of opportunities. You will be expected to acquire and hone both hard and soft skills along the way through your own effort. Just as you will learn to use technical tools such as AutoCAD or Rhino, you will also develop essential soft skills like collaboration, stamina, grit, and resilience. You will also learn to present, debate and refine your design work, and strengthen a mindset of circumspection beyond simple notions of “right” and “wrong”.

With this, an architectural education at the DOA will not only prepare students for professional practice, but will— perhaps more importantly—foster a generation of critical, creative, and articulate thinkers.

ONG KER-SHING Associate Professor in Practice Bachelor of Arts in Architecture Programme Director