Architecture Design Electives semester one, 2010
Masters of Architecture ARCH1338 ARCH1339 ARCH1340 Balotting occurs on-line at: http://www.dsc.rmit.edu.au/adballot > go to Architecture section in left menu bar
YOU NEED TO BE ENROLLED TO BALLOT enquiries: Pia Ednie-Brown, Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Design RMIT University, pia@rmit.edu.au
melbourne.australia
Architecture
architecture.rmit.edu.au
Contents. 1. Tree Sprawl – Mauro Baracco – Monday, 2.30-5.30, 8.10.26 2. Extra / Ordinary – Mel Dodd – Monday, 2.30-5.30, 8.12.36 3. Good Morning Sunshine – Marcus White – Monday, 6.30-9.30, 8.11.39 4. Edgelands – Simon Sellars/Pia Ednie-Brown – Tuesday 10-1, 97.3.06. 5. Urban Life Cycle Assessment – Milbourne/Carter – Tuesday, 9.30-12.30, 8.11.51 6. Flexible 3D Modelling – Jane Burry – Wednesday, 9.00-12.00, 10.11.24 7. Terrestrial Scanning – Brad Marmion – Wednesday, 1.30-4.30, SIAL (bldg 97) 8. Reading Melbourne. Crime Fiction – Harriet Edquist, Wednesday 3.30-5.30, 10.11.27 9. Photography – Hanna Tai – Thursday, 9.30-12.30, 8.11.42 10. Philosophy + Architecture – Helene Frichot – Thursday, 9.30-12.30, Bld45A 11. Pre-Built – Martyn Hook – Thursday, 10-1, 8.11.58 12. Contemporary Ornamental Practices – Brent Allpress, Thursday, 9.30-12.30, Bldg45B 13. 6 degrees of separation – Bridget Keane, Thursday 3-6pm, room tbc 14. ALESSI – Tom Kovac – Thursday, 6.30-9.30, 8.11.39 15. The Body is a Wall – Mike Hornblow – Friday, 9.30-12.30 88.5.14&14A (44 Elizabeth st) 16. Rainbow – John Warwicker – Friday, 2.30-5.30, 97.3.06
Research Assistant Elective Positions Visualizing the Unfamiliar, Professor Mark Burry White/Cold, Salter Architects
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Design Elective - Master of Architecture Sem 1/2010 Mauro Baracco Mondays, 2.30 – 5.30 pm, room 08.10.26 “Our relation to nature is characterized by its having become thoroughly disturbed. (...) Between the mine and the garbage dump extends the one-way street of the modern industrial civilization to whose expansive growth more and more lifelines and life cycles of the ecological system are sacrificed”. Joseph Beuys, ‘An appeal for an alternative’, Documenta 7 (Exhibition Catalogue), 1982. Joseph Beuys’ project for the International Art Exhibition Documenta no. 7 at Kassel, Germany,1982 was the planting of 7000 oaks dispersed throughout the town This seminar will involve investigations into the conservation, rehabilitation, consolidation and expansion of the natural and rural, leftover, brownfield and green reserve areas. It aims to produce an alternative approach to current metropolitan planning (that erodes and degrades as yet unurbanised areas and sets up a clear distinction between ‘urbanised’ land and ‘wild’ or ‘rural’ land, favouring the urbanised and rural in any figure ground). It responds to the current urgency to restore our natural systems to preserve water supply, wetlands and biodiversity conservation as essential remedies of carbon sequestration. Research will be undertaken around the premise that the growth of regional towns could form an important alternative to the expansion of the urban growth boundary or encroachments into green wedge areas of Melbourne and that some growth of regional towns could be environmentally preferable and an opportunity to rethink urban design from an ecologically empathetic position. The case study area for this approach will be the settlements within the large scale rehabilitation and conservation project ‘Habitat 141’ by Greening Australia, which extends from the Murray Sunset National Park in the North West corner of Victoria to the Murray-Darling Basin across the border in South Australia. Students will familiarise with the ‘Metropolitan 2030’ strategy, the ‘Habitat 141’ program, study the physical settings as well as issues facing several specific settlements within this area, investigate the principles of land rehabilitation and conservation, conduct case studies of different urban design plans and building typologies (in respect to their relationship to their immediate context). Students will be required to draw and map existing situations, conduct research and case studies of analogous situations. The research outcomes will be collated in a single document collectively by the students generally themed into the following categories: Study of settlements including their relationship to ‘Habitat 141’, Ecological guiding principles, Case studies including building and urban typologies, Strategies for urban design and buildings. NOTE: - Students are advised that this seminar is intended to prepare students for both a Major Project Design Thesis and a Design Studio (within the Master Course) in Semester 2/2010 designing urban/landscape plans and buildings that work with the rehabilitation and conservation of land and respond to growth in urban settlements within the Habitat 141 corridor. - Also students undertaking the Tree Sprawl Design Studio in sem 1/2010 are strongly encouraged to undertake this elective in conjunction to the studio as a way to produce research and test strategies that can be applied to their project for the case study area of the studio, that is: the Merri Creek parkland area and urban surroundings, from Wallan to Clifton Hill. - In general this design elective is meant to be a pathway to Major Project Design Theses, therefore students who are considering to undertake a Major Project involved with such research themes and supervised by Mauro Baracco, are strongly encouraged to undertake this subject.
ARCHITECTURE DESIGN ELECTIVE 12 CREDIT POINTS
Mel Dodd (with Andrew Ashton, Studio Pip and Co) Semester One, 2010 Mondays, 3.00 to 5.30 8.12.36
Specifically, students will design and construct a series of installations or ‘actions’ at the conference. The actions are opportunities to ‘do’ architecture in the conference rather than just talk about it, and they relate closely to the conference agenda of ‘actions on the ground’. They will also serve to provide signage and interruptions to the spaces. Your task will be to:
–Work in teams to collaboratively design an installation, including This design elective will investigation of materials, operate in tandem with the construction and National Architecture sponsorship Conference 2010 to be held in Sydney from 22-24 April –Manage the construction and be lead by the Creative and implementation process Director Mel Dodd on site at the Conference in April extra/ordinary will dwell on the culture of the –Fulfil other volunteer roles at extraordinarily ordinary. As the conference if necessary an antidote to the incessant abstractions of globalization, All students will get a Free we will be gathering Pass to the Conference, but together those who have an will need to arrange and pay enthusiasm for engaging for their own transport and with the contingency of the accommodation to Sydney. everyday: inventing new ways of operating; embracing collaborative approaches and initiating direct action on the ground. Producing outcomes that are innovative and utilitarian, provocative and pragmatic. Resolving ordinary problems in extraordinary ways.
The elective will run intensively from Week 01 to Week 08 inclusive and will include an intensive mode in the week of the Conference (week 07). This elective is suitable as a pathway to major project for level 09 students interested in pursuing concepts and themes being discussed at the conference. For further information on the conference thematic and speakers please see the website. www.architecture.com.au/ extraordinary Melanie Dodd Program Director RMIT Architecture Program
Subject: ARCH1338-39-40 Masters Elective Semester 1, 2010.
Good Morning Sunshine With Dr Marcus White
Abstract: This elective will involve modelling and interacting with complex urban sites focusing on modelling difficult terrains, both existing conditions and topographical manipulation. Modelling will be done digitally and physically using rapid prototyping. The elective will investigate biomorphic/organic form making and representation techniques utilising parametric modelling technology using 3DS Max as well as plug-in and script use. Through investigating rapidly emerging digital modelling technologies, students will learn time saving modelling and rendering techniques, how to manage complex files, and how to move information between a range of softwares eg. 3D Studio Max to AutoCAD, Rhino to AutoCAD, AutoCAD to Excel etc. Students will also develop a critical eye for perspectival composition. The class will involve an initial skilling stage of 5 weeks, followed by a series of site modelling interventions / investigations (3 weeks). One of the investigations will then be developed to a presentable level. This will then be modelled physically with rapid prototyping technologies. Throughout the semester, students will ‘record’ all that they learn with a ‘digital how‑to’ style manual and video capture. Students will be taught rapid knowledge capture techniques with the introduction of IrfanView capturing used with InDesign and Acrobat PDFs. The manual will be included in the final submission along with development work of student’s building /site, modelling and rendering exercises, and research work in the form of an interactive and searchable PDF file. Students will also be required to produce at least one poster of their work. Students who choose this seminar should have sound knowledge of AutoCAD, and Photoshop. A basic knowledge of 3D Studio Max and Rhino will be useful but not essential. When? Monday evenings 6.30pm Where? Computer lab 8.11.39.
the body is the city
blurred zones, edgelands, micronations, interstitial space Simon Sellars, with Pia Ednie-Brown
“The species needs a body and that body is the city. The time for simply letting the species have whatever body it turns out to have is past. Set no limit yet on how intensified a life may become through purposeful configuration. To form the body endlessly is the purpose of the city, and likewise of the small town or the housing complex”. – Arakawa and Gins
Domain (2005) – Patricia Piccinini (While the alpha male does maintain a strong hierarchy, juveniles are free to playfully interact.)
"The species needs a body and that body is the city. The time for simply letting the species have whatever body it turns out to have is past. Set no limit yet on how intensified a life may become through purposeful configuration. To form the body endlessly is the purpose of the city, and likewise of the small town or the housing complex" – Arakawa and Gins
In a time when urban sprawl is on many people’s minds, this seminar series explores whether the hyper-rapid expansion of architectural and urban space produces new living space – or new forms of life. Is this process unalterable, unstoppable – the city as a sentient, living organism? Or does advanced technology offer us some agency in ‘forming our bodies endlessly’ – the city as prosthesis? And where do the edgelands fit in? Just what makes a city’s outer rim so fearful and sublime? Is there something else, unknowable, springing up in the gaps in between? Drawing on the realworld phenomenon of micronations (in which people form their own ‘model nations’ either as a joke, an art project or a political act), and the processes of ‘psychogeography’ and ‘mythogeography’, we will explore how interstitial spatial logic can be metaphorically and imaginatively colonised, recoding urban space into a bodily suit of armour that, through architectural and urban experimentation, intensifies life to such a degree that it has the potential to challenge planning, politics, perception – and life itself. In keeping with the concept of blurring the edges, the seminar will utilise a transdisciplinary approach, drawing upon the work of theorists such as Arakawa + Gins, Alphonso Lingis, Raoul Vaneigem and Paul Virilio, novelists such as JG Ballard, Michel Houellebecq and William Gibson, filmmakers such as Paul Verhoeven, Andrei Tarkovsky, Chris Marker and David Cronenberg and artists such as Patricia Piccinini and Frank Miller. We will also undertake urban safaris to Melbourne’s uncharted edgelands.
Seminar: Tuesday, 10am-1pm at SIAL: 97.3.06. Location: SIAL: 97.3.06 Research Pole: Advanced Architecture This is an Architecture+SIAL Seminar
This seminar will be in dialogue with a studio with the same class time, run by Pia Ednie-Brown. In the studio, students will be elaborating upon a scenario set in about 40 years from now (2050), and with reference to relevant historical work from about 40 years ago (1970), testing, expanding upon and developing the suggestions of Arakawa and Gins, while drawing upon contemporary work wedged in the cleavage of these 40 year leaps, such as Piccinini, Stelarc, SymbioticA, R&Sie, biothing, Greg Lynn, Sabine+Jones, and others.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN ELECTIVE, SEMESTER 1 2010
URBAN LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT BEN MILBOURNE EDMUND CARTER Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), also known as “cradle-to-grave analysis”, is the investigation and evaluation of the social and environmental impacts of a given product or service caused or necessitated by its existence.
This is an opportunity to work on an ongoing, real research project in conjunction with the Xian Dai Architectural Design Group (Shanghai), one of the largest architectural design institutes in China, who are actively pursuing innovative emission reduction methodologies as they roll out large architectural and urban projects.
The theory of this assessment is that it empowers us to make an informed choice as to the least harmful product or service. LCA goes beyond typical parameters of “sustainability” and considers the full gamut of affect, from emissions to habitat destruction. LCA is well established in Industrial and Product design for obvious reasons, but it’s use beyond these disciplines is very limited.
• Research existing LCA techniques and environmental guidelines such as LEED and Green Star • Investigate how LCA techniques can inform architectural design, both conceptually and in ongoing project development • Develop a set of LCA tools and guidelines for architects and urban designers, and test these against the world’s best practices for “eco”-urban development • Test these tools and guidelines in a design-orientated project • Explore how parametric tools such as Grasshopper can inform the assessment and development process
This elective will address how LCA can be used in the urban context, essentially exploring how we can reduce carbon emissions throughout the life of big, urban projects. What do these tools offer? How can they be adapted? What strategies can be explored for reducing emissions? How can we empower architects and urban designers to make informed decisions, both now and in the future?
Individually and in teams, students will:
This is an excellent opportunity to be part of a realworld initiative with legitimate, informed research partners, focused on an entirely contemporary agenda.
TUESDAYS, 9:30AM - 12:30PM, ROOM 8.11.51 12 CREDIT POINTS
What does it means to be able to plan the topography of a single digital model that can assume many forms without altering its structure?
How can we link models together or to their environments such that they are dynamic in response to external conditions?
This course explores these and many other questions about change and structuring models for change: issues that tax designers from all disciplines
flexible 3d modelling
for design + prototyping
Coordinator: Jane Burry + Alex Pena de Leon (formally Gehry Technologies) Time: Location:
Wednesday mornings between 9.00am-12.00pm, starting 3rd March Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory, Bld 10, Lvl 11 Room 24
Reviews Location:
SIAL Presentation Space, Bld 97 Lvl 3 Room 5
Enrolment
As this is a Quota elective open to all disciplines, and offered in the School of Architecture and Design in the Advanced Technologies pole undergraduate students should enrol with the course code INTE2108 and postgraduates with the code INTE2107 For more details, visit the SIAL website: http://www.sial.rmit.edu.au/projects or contact jane.burry@rmit.edu.au
Course Description The aim of this course is to give students from diverse disciplines expertise in linking these to physical modelling and prototyping. This will be achieved through skills-based instruction and hands - on project - based learning with an introduction to DIGITAL PROJECT parametric design software. It will serve undergraduates in areas of study including but not excclusive to architecture, design, engineering, jewellery, textiles, new media as well as postgraduates starting study and design practitioners seeking professional development. It introduces an approach to modelling that can be applied in design studio, postgraduate project work and professional practice. The course is divided into demonstrations and presentations with hands on exercises and work on a preliminary design task that introduces the main principles involved in associative geometrical modelling. The second component is dedicated to tutorial and seminar support for individual project - based work shared regularly within the class. There will be opportunities to generate physical prototypes using rapid prototyping and traditional modelling techniques. Projects will be reviewed in class as the principal basis for assessment.
2010 | Semester 1 | SIAL Elective Architecture | Landscape Architecture and Surveying (Geospatial Sciences)
Terrestrial Scanning - Temple Sagrada Família The Terrestrial Laser Scanner ‘TLS’ provides a great method of accurately capturing as built data of a site in a detail that; when processed provides a complete digital model and opens new opportunity for working with site data to refine the communication between designers, surveyors and engineers. Architecture, Landscape Architecture and GIS students are invited to do this elective and will gain experience using SIAL’s TLS. Also, this technology has recently been used for a project where a small team of RMIT staff and students have just been to Barcelona using the TLS to 3D document Gaudi’s work on the Temple Sagrada Família . This provides a unique opportunity to be involved with the Temple Sagrada Famila and contribute to some meaningful research on Gaudi’s work. Students will measure and CAD document Gaudi’s original contributions to the temple and provide insight into Gaudi’s design methods. Practically this is a technology based subject that involves innovative modelling using Cyclone, Autocad and Rhino (with specialised plug-ins including pointools4rhino and rhinoresurf ). wiki: http://wiki.sial.rmit.edu.au/terrestrialscanning http://wiki.sial.rmit.edu.au/TSSagradafamilia Lecturer: Brad Marmion
Industrial Designer (MA) | SIAL Workshop Manager | Terrestrial Scanning Specialist For more info on brad go to. http://www.sial.rmit.edu.au/People/b marmion.php
brad.marmion@rmit.edu.au
Class Times | Wednesdays | 130 - 430 Locations | SIAL Computer Lab 10.11.24 (First Class)
SIAL Presentation Space 97.3.03 & out in the field
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN: OPEN ELECTIVE History Research Seminar: Semester 1, 2010 WEDNESDAY 3.30pm-5.30pm Building 10 Level 11 Room 27 Lecturer: Harriet Edquist
READING MELBOURNE: CRIME FICTION In this seminar we will seek to discover in a ‘book club’ setting how five key works of Melbourne crime fiction are inherently geographical and how, by using insights from the field of literary geography we can begin to understand fiction as a powerful spatial and urban discourse. Classes will alternate between general discussion of the novels and mapping their geo-spatial organisation. Students will have the opportunity to explore their own disciplinary focus in mapping exercises and essay format. GUEST LECTURE March 17: Prof. Cathy Cole, author of Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks
SET TEXTS Fergus Hume, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab 1888, any edition it’s still in print Shane Maloney, Nice Try, Text Publishing 1998 Lindy Cameron, Bleeding Hearts, Harper Collins 2001 Peter Temple, White Dog Text Publishing 2007 Garry Disher, Wyatt, Text Publishing 2010 These are available at Readers’ Feast, Readings, Angus & Robertson, Hill of Content etc COURSE CODES Architecture ARCH 1338 Master of Architecture Elective One ARCH 1339 Master of Architecture Elective Two ARCH 1340 Master of Architecture Elective Three Industrial Design GRAP 2304 GRAP 2305 GRAP 2306 GRAP 104
Interior Design ARCH 1289 -1294
Landscape Architecture ARCH 1178 Elective One ARCH 1179 Elective Two ARCH 1180 Elective Three Fashion GRAP 1066 Design Studies
PHOTOGRAPHY & INTERACTIVITY Use a digital SLR, generate images and ideas, and present them as a basic interactive website.
PART 1. PHOTOGRAPHY
PART 2. INTERACTIVITY
Students will first learn how to use a digital SLR, and how to use camera functions to control the results of their photographs. Hands-on classes will explore the photography basics (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, light direction) and how a combination of these factors can be used to control depth of field, motion blur and image quality. Understanding the vocabulary of photography will also assist in the use of modern render packages which make extensive use of camera attributes.
Students will learn how to create and edit a simple HTML website using Dreamweaver software. Web basics such as site design, navigation, links and creating web-based images will be explored.
The second phase of the elective is a practical project encompassing two themes: intervention and perception. Shooting exercises will focus on the photographic possibilities of documenting objects in different contexts. Photography will be used in several ways in the elective: to document and represent, and in processes and presentation. Students will also learn how to use Photoshop to import and manipulate images, and to resize and output them for various media.
Finally, using the ideas and images generated through their projects in Part 1, students will design and build their own basic interactive website.
Architecture Design Elective Semester One, 2010 12 credit points Tutor: Hanna Tai Time: Thursdays, 9.30-12.30 Location: 8.11.42
Architecture and Design Elective Program of Architecture, RMIT University, Semester One 2010 Thursdays 9.30-11.30, Blg45A Dr Hélène Frichot, Senior Lecturer, Program of Architecture
Architecture+Philosophy: Writing Architecture
The Writing Architecture seminar is part of Architecture+Philosophy (architecture.testpattern.com.au), which is an emerging research group as well as a public lecture series currently in its sixth year of existence. Participants will be expected to attend the Architecture+Philosophy 2010 public lecture series: architecture.testpattern. com.au This seminar group will engage in the practice of writing architecture by reading philosophical, theoretical and fictional texts and by undertaking and documenting a series of journeys both in motion and in place. It is expected that in response to these fleeting journeys and texts a series of essays will be composed and the practice of writing architecture developed. The short format of the essay is understood here to be an attempt, or an experiment, and it can be undertaken with words, with images, or through discrete spatial installations. The practice of writing architecture employs any material that is ready to hand from the written and spoken word, to images, to the precious objects and debris of everyday life: Composition relates as much to words and images as to things. On the way you will be required to explore processes of embodiment, encounter, subjectivation. You will take many trips on the Hope Street Bus Line to get there. What you can expect to glean from writing architecture: For what may be the first time in your architectural education you will be introduced to architectural theory and you will see how it can be put to use in a critical manner. The seminar will mostly take place off campus in Melbourne Central out of a shop front on the third floor. As such the seminar will operate between public and private spheres and in collaboration with researchers from SARU (Social Aesthetics Research Unit) Monash University (http://arts.monash.edu.au/saru/) and also with design students from Interior Design, RMIT University. The seminar will conclude with a two-day (12 hour) ‘site writing’ workshop with guest professor, Jane Rendell of the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
Architecture Elective
Contemporary Ornamental Practices Elective Leader: Brent Allpress Thursday 9.30-12.30, Building 45 Studio B “cultural evolution is equivalent to the removal of ornament from articles of everyday use.” (Adolf Loos) “Featurism is not simply a decorative technique, it starts in concepts and extends upwards through the parts to the numerous trimmings. It may be defined as the subordination of the essential whole and the accentuation of selected seperate features.” (Robin Boyd) “The anguish of the beautiful that shines through the fragility of ornament is atopian: displacing more than could any nudity.” (Franco Rella) Ornament haunts architectural discourse and practice. Theories of the ornamental within the canon, those marginal though often pivotal passages, cross and interrupt the central texts of the architectural tradition, both constructing and internally dividing them. While modernist theory negated traditional ornament, modernist practices involved radical ornamental operations employing autonomous and abstract spatial screens and surfaces. The representational role of ornament in contemporary architecture has remained complex and contested. This elective will explore shifts in the status of ornament and figuration in contemporary architectural practice opened up by emerging digital design and fabrication technologies and practices that challenge the economies of standardisation. Diverse discourses on ornament will be presented and debated. Project investigations of modernist and contemporary ornamental practices will be undertaken, focusing on qualitative and performative operations and outcomes.
grace coddington for US vogue, september 2007
6 degrees of separation invention and the culture of collection Blogs, anthologies, compilations and collections, are a pervasive part of our culture. They explore adjacencies both likely and unlikely, reveal preferences and rely on variation to exist. Ordering, tagging and archiving are devices to construct meaning in the collection. But what is ultimately produced from this gathering of information? Can new variations be introduced that expand out from the accumulation of things and go beyond the mash-up? How far could the ordering process be pushed to create new adjacencies and opportunities. In this elective you will investigate and explore the creation of an ‘alternative history’. Through the collection of 6 (objects/projects/images) and designing connections between them (producing a physical artefact) in weekly exercises. The class will culminate in the production of an exhibition that charts your ‘new’ history through your artefacts. In this elective you will explore model making (analogue and digital) techniques, drawing and writing. Through the workshops you will be shown examples of methods of fabrication, drawings, see guest lectures, visit sites, discuss the notion of collection/invention/history and research a number of collections.
class type: elective workshops: thursday 3.00 - 6.00pm (weeks 1-8) exhibition setup + development workshops: thursday 2.30 - 8.30pm (weeks 9 + 10) room: TBC tutor: bridget keane
ALESSI SCALESS The Alessi Scaless program is an intensive seminar in emergent digital directions within object and architectural design. It will investigate and explore the systems, processes, and techniques of Alessi design in the context of design, research and practice. The purpose is to develop geometries that assist in the development of objects and architectural forms. Students will develop knowledge of scalable projects investigating design methods, as well as testing new design and adaptability of geometries application and rocesses in scaling industrial objects and architectural form. The projects will explore design mutations with a single project, exploring materials and production techniques of Alessi design direction. The seminar will focus on the challenges of developing and expanding the domain of object design and the emerging technologies in the design and production of architecture.
ALESSI TOM KOVAC TIME : THURSDAYS 630-930 PM VENUE: Building 8, Level 11, lab
THE BODY IS A WALL Architecture & Performance This elective will investigate the relationship between the body and the built environment through a diverse range of practices ~ across architecture, dance, video, sound, performance and installation art...
Architecture Design Elective 12 credit points Research Pole: Expanded Field Tutor: Mike Hornblow Time: Fridays, 9:30-12:30 Location: B88.5.14 & 14A
Students will examine and discuss various aesthetic precedences from the historical avant-garde to the present, considering the nexus of architecture and performance in relation to experiments in subjectivity, duration, composition and materiality (to name a few).
These discussions will be further situated within a range of theoretical texts on architecture and embodiment, in particular the work of Brian Massumi, Bernard Cache, Deleuze & Guattari, and Arakawa & Gins. Students will have the opportunity to observe, discuss and diagram a number of Melbourne-based performance practitioners, as well as generate their own propositions and responses for exploring the interstices of architecture and performance.
THE GENERATION & PRESENTATION OF IDEAS – AESTHETICS • (GRAPHIC) DESIGN • STRATEGIC THINKING AND RESPONSES• TYPOGRAPHY • PHILOSOPHY • SCULPTURAL FORM • WRITING / NOTATION • CULTURAL ALCHEMY • PUBLISHING ... EXPLORED AND MADE THROUGH 3-D, FILM, PRINT, ELECTRONIC AND SONIC MEDIA ...
CULTURAL FIGHT CLUB EVERY WEEK! RENE DESCARTES vs KRAFTWERK AFRIKA BAAMBAATA vs REM KOOLHASS ORNETTE COLEMAN vs PETER ZUMTHOR AND A 3-WAY BOUT BETWEEN ... GEORGES PEREC vs EDGAR VARESE vs CO-OP HIMMELBLAU
Elective Research Assistant Position
Visualising the Unfamiliar. Prof. Mark Burry and Michael Wilson This elective provides an interesting opportunity for students to conduct virtual lighting studies in the yet to completed Sagrada Familia. Student will be asked to produce a range of rendering experiments to understand the potential environmental conditions throughout Sala Creuer which is approaching completion of the design phase. Sala Creuer is the section of Sagrada Familia situated at the base of the Christ Tower, the largest tower of the Sagrada Familia. This elective is suited for students that have competent skills in 3d Studio max and want to gain insight into mimicking real lighting situations from a virtual medium. The results gathered from this elective will aid the design team of Sagrada Familia to gain better understanding of the space and predict probable issues prior to construction. Weekly meeting time to be negotiated.
Elective Research Assistant Position
WHITE / COLD
2 Positions for Research Assistants Design Elective with Salter Architects Semester 1 2010 Time: Weekly meeting (2 hours) Tuesday am or Thursday pm (confirm with students) @ RMIT Course Description
Research into Victorian Alpine architecture towards publication of a book. Your work will develop skills in research methodology, graphic production and architectural critique. Victorian alpine villages are a history book of innovative architectural buildings, often by well known architects that will soon be altered or demolished as their Crown leases expire. Presently there is no co-ordinated record of this important work.
Process
You will require 12 hours a week for the semester working both independently and supported by Salter Architects. Your work will be broken into weekly elements that diarise a reflective portfolio evidencing your research strategies with drawings, notes, photos, email correspondence.
Research Project
The aim of the research is to build a coordinated archive and methodology for management of the material. Your work is to source and coordinate original building documents (drawings, photos, interviews) from architects, architectural offices, lodge groups, public records held in the State Library, government departments and statutory authorities such as the Resort Management Boards and National Alpine Museum. Where no original documents are available, we would prepare measured drawings and photograph the buildings. Field trips to the mountain resorts may be required.
Alpine Design Background
Melbourne architects brought all the obvious period styles and construction techniques to the ski villages then adapted those to suit alpine conditions of extreme weather, snow, site slope and views. Imaginary design and innovative engineering ideas often suppressed by the formalities of metropolitan manners and planning controls could be released on these projects. The 1960’s interest in pure geometrical plans and forms such as “A” frames, triangles, and decagons often overlayed with “nuts and bolts” detailing and use of local/accessible raw materials can be seen in lodges designed by Peter McIntyre, David McGlashan, Chancellor & Patrick and Barry Patten. There are good examples of 1970’s Californian ranch style lodges where each programmatic element is given compositional form (Howden & Wardrop at Australian Alpine Club and Koki Falls Creek). In the 1980’s, rolled and brightly coloured tubular steel framing with wire mesh screens laid over diagonal boarded forms, moved from Fitzroy to Falls Creek (Cocks & Carmichael and Graeme Gunn). 1990’s buildings are characterised by a search for local alpine authenticity where the vernacular mountain cattleman’s hut was enshrined by both architects and planners as the template alpine style (McIntyre at Dinner Plain and Greg Burgess in Mansfield). Also unbuilt schemes by Peter Corrigan, Wood Marsh and Denton Corker Marshall.
Assessment & Outcomes
By end of semester you should be able to prepare a draft publication layout for at least two buildings using the graphic material and write a critical supporting essay that demonstrates an understanding of the architectural work. In time this may extend to a public presentation in lecture form, designing and mounting a public exhibition and preparation of material for publication.