A42K1B Critical Studies Design Studio 4:1 12.0 credits

Framed by feminist references and methods, queer and postcolonial perspectives, where performativity, affect and intersectionality act as central terms, the course applies and develops several productive tools – reflections, texts and actions – to critique power relations in the built environment. We will move between full-scale experiments, re-interpretation/performance, writing/drawing and practice architecture and design in a social and historical context as materialized proposals for new realities.

Feminist Design Tools I / Feministiska designredskap I

Feminist Design Tools I is a research studio with two parallel aims. It will give an orientation in contemporary and historical feminist architecture theory, methodology, practice and activism. It also aims at develop critical skills, methods and projects in order to identify, explore and propose new or alternative possibilities within the thought and practice of architecture and design – to initiate a realization of dreams of transformation.

After completed course the participants know how to:
- Orient themselves in feminist architecture theory and contemporary feminist thought and activism in particular with the central terms performativity, affect and intersectionality.
- Practice, present and design architecture from several academic and political feminist perspectives, particularly through the acts of identification and creation of subversive and dialogical strategies.
- Develop productive tools for artistic research by design.
- Recognize, explore and redefine normalizing notions, power structures and situations in the built environment; critically examine normative architectural practices and disclose non-patriarchal architectural history and practice.
- Start realizing dreams of transformation.

Overall goals

1. The course is part of the Critical Studies Design Studio. Through architectural projects, this Studio investigates different experiences of architecture and conceptions of space, in relation to the synthezising design process.
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.

Bachelor’s Degree, or an equivalent level, within the field of Architecture.

-Gülsüm Baydar, “Figures of wo/man in contemporary architectural discourse”, Heynen & Baydar, eds., Negotiting Domesticity Spatial productions of gender in modern architecture, London & New York: Routledge, 2005, 30-46.
-Jane Rendell, Barabara Penner, Ian Borden, Gender Space Architecture, London: Routledge, 2000.
-Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Transforming Knowledge, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005.
*Specific literature will be assigned at the beginning of the course.

• PRO2 - Project Part 2, 3.0 credits, grading scale: P, F
• PRO1 - Project Part 1, 9.0 credits, grading scale: P, F

Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.

The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.

If the course is discontinued, students may request to be examined during the following two academic years.

Evaluation and assessment of project work at the advanced level:
The degree to which the student has fulfilled the learning outcomes is evaluated in several different steps.
1. Progression; The studio projects are elective courses, attended by students who have reached varying levels in their individual development. The basis for evaluation is the student’s individual starting point and the progress of the student’s devlopment throughout the project.
2. Continuous evaluation; Both the working method and the quality of material presented at interim reviews, during the process of the project, are evaluated continuously.
3. Final evaluation; At the final critique, both the material presented and the ability to communicate central ideas of the project are evaluated by teachers and guest critics.
4. Finally, the examiner of the course makes an overall evaluation of the student for the entire course/project.

a) Presentation requirements
Presentation requirements will be handed out at the start of the course.

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.

• All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
• In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
• In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.

Incoming exchange students within an architecture agreement can select this course.

No other exchange students are allowed to select this course.