A52K3B Critical Studies Design - Studio 5:3 12.0 credits

• Educational level

  Second cycle

• Academic level (A-D)

• Subject area

  Architecture
  

• Grade scale

  P, F

• Course page on KTH Social

Learning outcomes

Deltagande Kartläggning / Participatory Mapping

Participatory Mapping is a research studio based on the critical design tools and methods in the course Feminist Design Tools. Its aim is twofold, first, to develop and test tools for spatial research such as methods for collecting site-specific knowledge through narrative methods that, as opposed to more analytical methods, require a participatory engagement with sites, contexts and actors. Second, to explore different modes of representation in relation to the mapping out of found processes, that may generate proposals that inspire a change of existing conditions.

Upon completion of this course, participants should be able to:
-Explore, recognize, and map a site by taking into account social and power relations.
-Develop narrative, participatory, dialogical, and subversive strategies for collecting site knowledge and for projecting possible futures.
-Develop modes of representation that adequately portrait situations, and mediate aims and aspirations of their work.
-Discuss, and present concepts and architectures from within a critical approach to power relations that questions and redefines normalizing notions, situations and practices in the built environment.

Overall goals

1. The course is part of the Critical Studies Design Studio. 2. The course/project goal is to increase the student's knowledge in this area/field and skills/knowledge in the field of architecture in general. The students will enter the project with varying degrees of knowledge/skills and will subsequently end up at different levels at the end of the course/project.
 3. The individual student must show an increase in the particular skills/knowledge offered in the studio and in the field of architecture in general.

Course main content

The application of feminist and activist methods and tools unearths a specific knowledge of sites, which complements analytical and generalized instruments for the purpose of planning with personal, subjective, and narrative accounts. Through engaging in a closer dialogue with a site and its agents participatory and collective forms of acquiring and mapping information establish. This produces material, which is informative as well as it is fictional, which has the power of opening up for new site-specific themes and discourses. Urban proposals will be developed, which consider the intimate scale of 1:1 as well as larger conceptual frameworks.

Disposition

The course includes several seminars with design assignments, presentations and group discussions. There is also individual tutoring and a final review for the presentation and discussion of individual work. Parallel to the course, there is also a series of text seminars with literature on methodology and theory.

Eligibility

One year fully approved architectural studies at the advanced level, courses and projects.

Literature

-Jane Rendell, Barabara Penner, Ian Borden (eds.), Gender Space Architecture, London: Routledge, 2000.
-Peter Blundell Jones, Doina Petresu, Jeremy Till (eds.), Architecture and Participation, London: Spon Press, 2005.
-Andrea Kahn (ed.), Drawing, Building, Text, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.
-muf, This is what we do. A muf manual, London: Ellipsis, 2001. 
-Joan Ockman (ed.), The Pragmatist Imagination. Thinking about “Things in the Making”, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2000.
*Specifika läsningar meddelas vid kursstart.

Examination

• PRO1 - Project, 9.0 credits, grade scale: P, F
• PRO2 - Project, 3.0 credits, grade scale: P, F

Requirements for final grade

a) Presentation requirements
Presentation requirements will be handed out at the start of the course. The studio presentation will be part of the future diploma portfolio and shall be delivered in an appropriate and fully qualified way.

b) Examination
80% attendance. Active participation in lectures, tutorials, and seminars etc. Passed intermediate and final assessments. Compulsory attendance during the assessment reviews.
Completion: The project work shall be delivered and, if necessary, reworked within the set time limit.  See general directions.
(Overall principle: Autumn term projects must be approved during the following Spring term: Spring term projects must be approved before the start of the following Autumn term. The reworked projects must be delivered at least one week before the time limit.)
The project work is to be documented in a portfolio, including drawings, analysis and models. The work process shall be legible.

Offered by

ABE/Architecture

Examiner

Helene Frichot <helene.frichot@arch.kth.se>

Version

Course plan valid from: Autumn 12.
Examination information valid from: Spring 11.