Architectural Design 5

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: 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: Architectural design strategy

Aim: to deduct a position for sustaining an architecture for place-making. By this time of the semester, the students should be able to find their positions to develop the architecture for place-making. The students are individually to synthesised (from Project 1a) to identify the issue to tackle at the proposed site area and to develop individual sense of place as well as to discuss the relavent precedent studies for the project in depicting a good understanding design strategy within the urban context for both architecture and urban space. Further to this, the students are also expected to perform an analysis for the target user group of their community centre. By the end of Week 7, students must attain a competency level of producing a schematic design, with strong exploration onto tropical and construction design ideas.

Project 1c: Architecture for place-making

Aim: To develop an architectural design for placemaking for the urban community within the urban context. The architectural strategy should be resolved for form, activity, and circulation. The proposed building should be of an area of 1200 m2 and 3-5 storeys high in the given block boundaries of a corner lot. Apart from developing an appropriately formal and elevational strategy in response to the character of the street, the design should take into consideration a holistic application of structural, spatial, technical, environmental, UBBL & services requirements to address the user needs for an urban program. This will include a focus on tropical design, services, as well as the design of the façade and building envelope that is of a coherent language to the overall design scheme within the urban context. The design outcome will exhibit a strong rigor in underpinning and applying theoretical explorations such as elements of legibility (Lynch), contact points (Gehl), and six dimensions (Carmona) in a city.