A R 59 5 X X G R A D U AT E L E V E L E L E C T I V E S Modular Credits: 4 Graduate level electives are seminal learning experiences for Master of Architecture students. Taught in a seminar format, electives are aligned with research clusters, as well as faculty members’ specific expertise and research efforts, and provide a wide range of contemporary topics to enrich an architect’s education. Deep dives into specific themes allow students to align their personal interests in architecture with graduate-level research, thinking, making and writing.
SEMESTER 1 FACULTY OFFERING Chen Yu Simone Chung Naomi Hanakata Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Shinya Okuda Tsuto Sakamoto Swinal Samant Rudi Stouffs Tan Beng Kiang Wong Yunn Chii SEMESTER 2 FACULTY OFFERING Erieta Attali Filip Biljecki François Blanciak Lilian Chee Chen Yu Cho Im Sik Ruzica Bozovic Stamenovic
SPECIAL SEMESTER OFFERING François Blanciak Tham Wai Hon & Tan Yi-Ern Samuel
SEMESTER 1 AR5952C URBAN AND RURAL REGENERATION IN ASIA Tutor: Chen Yu This multi-disciplinary module explores several topics on urban and rural regeneration in Asia. It aims to provoke critical thinking of sustainable planning and design in Asia. We will elaborate on theories and principles of this study area through examining selected regeneration projects from historical, social, economic, and environmental perspectives. On-site lectures and seminars will enable the students to experience and understand challenges with regeneration practices in the context of Asia. AR5951B MIS: MOVING SPACE IMAGE 2.0 Tutor: Simone Chung New media and technology are so ubiquitous in our everyday and professional lives that they have become integral to space planning, design, artistic production, and spatial experience, as tools and conduits for visual representation and crafting virtual worlds. Moving images possess the capacity to reveal how space is; and can be differently organised and experienced, whilst profilmic mapping techniques—when properly employed—allow us to unpack embedded spatial and socio-cultural information shaping the lived environment to reveal certain inherent biases governing the logic of spatial configuration. This revised and expanded course, introduces themes shared by architecture, urban studies, and moving image media, situating them in the wider discourse of the last century that have shaped the visual discipline and consequently, depictions and experience of architecture and the city. The thematically organised seminars chart the evolution of moving image technology (celluloid, cinema, screen-based media installations, media architecture, virtual backlots) to demonstrate its contribution to architectural knowledge, urban research, and industry transformations. AR5952B DESIGNING WITH ENERGY. LOCAL RENEWABLES AS KEY FACTORS IN URBAN PLANNING Tutor: Naomi Hanakata This module critically investigates the renewable energy transition and the need to explore local energy resources as a key parameter for urban planning practices. It will examine Singapore’s current energy landscape and the potential of local energy production. It will investigate a concrete site to explore the potential of local energy sourcing, the implication on planning decisions; and students will produce alternative planning scenarios, based on optimal energy sourcing.
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AR5953E ARCHITECTURAL ACOUSTICS Tutor: Lau Siu Kit, Eddie Architectural acoustics describes the art and science of interactions between people and sounds in indoor and outdoor spaces. Students are introduced to the fundamental knowledge and skills on: (1) principles of sound generation, propagation, and reception; and (2) properties of materials for sound absorption, reflection, and transmission. In addition, we will examine the characteristics of sound: What makes the sound in buildings and urban areas? How can sound influence the way people perceive the space? With this in mind, this module will be directed toward design criteria, model simulation, and prediction of acoustics performance. AR5953C INTRODUCTION TO MASS TIMBER ARCHITECTURE Tutor: Shinya Okuda Mass Timber Architecture is rapidly evolving globally, as it is made of renewable resources and enables carbon sink in a building form. However, usage of natural and organic materials in a contemporary built environment requires a whole set of different design approaches from common industrial materials, such as steel or concrete. The elective provides an introductory, highly-interdisciplinary overview of the Mass Timber Architecture, across forestry, manufacturing, structures, architectonics, built environment and carbon sink. It aims to set theoretical and technical frameworks to design Mass Timber Architecture, with its emerging prospect in Southeast Asia. AR5951A ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS FROM EXPANDED FIELD Tutor: Tsuto Sakamoto Experiencing two outstanding phenomena: an environmental crisis and development of intelligent technology—our relationship with things, living beings and environment has significantly changed today. Overwhelming power of natural disasters and pandemics remind us that we are no longer situated at a centre of the world to control and exploit nonhuman entities for our subsistence. Today’s intelligent technology and its implementation in our society transformed our consciousness, desire and behaviour instead of us handling such technology as a simple tool. The crisis of human-centric ideas or anthropocentrism suggested in these phenomena provides us an opportunity to re-examine the discipline of architecture that has been closely tied with anthropocentrism since the Renaissance period. Exploring theoretical discussions on the issue developed in interdisciplinary fields, and searching for a possibility to bring such discussions into the architectural discourse, the course aims to develop an alternative architectural idea, design approach, and critical thinking.
AR5953A MIND THE GAPS: CRITIQUING URBAN SPACES IN THE CONTEXT OF HIGH DENSITY VERTICAL ENVIRONMENTS Tutor: Swinal Samant In the context of urban intensification, this module engages students in supervised research on specific urban spaces within Singapore, that function as nuclei for people, programmes and facilities based on their spatial, visual and functional characteristics. More specifically, it seeks to explore and understand the myriad challenges and possibilities presented by our transit-oriented environments and the urban spaces that they encompass and those that envelope them, i.e. spaces within, between and around. AR5953B SHAPE COMPUTATION Tutor: Rudi Stouffs Parametric/associative modelling has received much attention. There are obvious benefits of modelling a family of design alternatives instead of just a single design. However, developing a parametric model requires a prior understanding of its outcome, in order to be able to identify the desired parameters and associations. In this module, we will look closely at the alternative approach of rulebased modelling, using graphically-defined shape rules. We will explore the advantages and disadvantages of this rule-based approach in an application to design, within the Rhino/Grasshopper environment. AR5952A PARTICIPATORY COMMUNITY DESIGN Tutor: Tan Beng Kiang This module introduces concepts and practices in participatory planning and design at the community scale. Major topics include brief history of participation (global and Singapore), why participation is needed, benefits and problems, methods in participatory community design, and case studies. Students are expected to participate in real world projects to apply the methods and to do community engagement on a few weekends (subject to change, due to pandemic safety measurement measures). Only students who are in Singapore can take this module. AR5951C ARCHITECTURAL AESTHETICS, OVERVIEW & ISSUES Tutor: Wong Yunn Chii A reading course, supported by seminar activities, enables students to trace lines of discourses on architectural aesthetics. An important consideration is an attempt to delineate a distinctive Asian variety(ies) of aesthetics, and discussion of their relevance in the contemporary milieu. Their propositions will be assessed alongside contemporary discussions in mass and popular cultures.
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