Available in 2024
Course code

ARBE6231

Units

30 units

Level

6000 level

Course handbook

Description

Master of Architecture students engage in design-led research praxis: the exploration, development, and proposition of architectural projects across a broad range of complex programmes and scenarios. Students at a Master level of study are expected to learn to apply themselves with a high level of rigor and self-direction. Studio offerings range in their nature, but will all encompass working on a project through all aspects of design, from research and conceptual formation, to a detailed level of resolution and technical refinement. Master of Architecture studios help students to act in the world in a conscientious manner, to work with others, and to communicate (through verbal and visual means) with clarity and maturity.Architecture Studio 7 frames design-led research through introducing students to specific methodologies and ways of thinking. Principally it engages with Indigenous knowledges and worldviews to emphasise cultural and environmental care and custodianship into the future. Studio 7 learning activities are focused on the conceptualisation and interrogation of a project brief—as processes underpinned by robust and design-led research—and on the iteration and communication of projects that emerge from that process. Students are invited to deeply explore their projects through drawing and modelling processes and to build skills in the production and building of architectural propositions.


Availability2024 Course Timetables

Callaghan

  • Semester 1 - 2024

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of the course students will be able to:

1. Undertake design-research methods to develop a proposition that meaningfully engages with Indigenous perspectives and knowledges.

2. Develop skills in design methods, strategies and media.

3. Demonstrate iterative design practice in a process of ongoing conceptual and formal experimentation.

4. Develop a capacity to elucidate and critique your work, and the work of others, through verbal and textual communication.

5. Articulate research, propositions, and resolved scheme through appropriate architectural communication methods

6. Integrate strategies for environmental sustainability that meaningfully engage with care for Country over the life cycle of a project


Content

Master of Architecture Studio Themes

Connecting with Country: Master of Architecture Studios foreground working on Country and with communities: on what it means to design projects that occupy un-ceded land, and on the capacity of architects to act with custodianship and care. Studio projects seek to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander world views and perspectives in emergent design processes, through meaningful and respectful engagement with culture, Country and community. Studio projects will demonstrate care for Country through formulating deep approaches to environmental sustainability. This might include consideration for energy and water consumption, resources depletion, waste, embodied carbon, and carbon emissions over the life cycle of students' projects.

Design-led research praxis: Master of Architecture Studios are designed to inhabit the rich territory between the theoretical, the propositional and the situational. Individual Studio briefs may range in scope and nature, they all attend to this nexus, while questioning normative assumptions about design and environments. Design-led research praxis is defined as the explorative embodiment of concepts through rigorous, critical, project-based design exploration, informed by gathering, analysing, and synthesising an array of relevant information.

Complex projects and contexts: Architecture’s critical relationship to the complex nature of built and unbuilt environments is key. Studios focus on architecture’s affects: on contributions to, and integration into, complex, extant environments – be they physical, social, cultural, or ecological. Students will navigate complexities and constraints in a variety of forms.

Synthesis and testing: All studios will incorporate methodologies of analogue and/or digital analysis and testing to frame, progress, and refine propositions. Students will experiment with design methods, media, and representational strategies. Formal, compositional, and aesthetic choices should be underpinned by explorative design processes.

Resolution and refinement: Master of Architecture studio projects require a capacity for producing coherent architectural proposals, incorporating structural, technical, technological and performative building requirements. Students will develop a capacity for critical and creative reflection on their own work and others’ as part of this refinement.

Ethics and inclusivity: Master of Architecture projects entail an ethical dimension and acknowledge their presence on unceded lands whether local or global. Resilience and custodianship for human and non-human agents underpin studio projects, and considerations for difference, diversity and respect are cultivated as paramount to the actions of an architect.


Requisite

Only students enrolled in the Master of Architecture [12060] are eligible to enrol in this course.


Assessment items

Project: Part 1

Project: Part 2

Project: Compendium


Contact hours

Semester 1 - 2024 - Callaghan

Studio-1
  • Face to Face On Campus 4 hour(s) per week(s) for 13 week(s) starting in week 1
  • Lectures are incorporated in Studio sessions.Optional -3 hour Face to Face on Campus
Studio-2
  • Face to Face On Campus 3 hour(s) per week(s) for 13 week(s) starting in week 1
  • Lectures are incorporated in Studio sessions.Optional -3 hour Face to Face on Campus

Course outline