AR2AP012 | On Site – Design Research in Emerging contexts

Title: On Site – Design Research in Emerging contexts
Course code: AR2AP012
EC: 12
Offered in: Spring semester
Project type: Practice-related
Approved Master 2 Architecture design project: Yes
Project includes an educational trip / excursion: Yes
Location of educational trip / excursion: Berlin, Hong Kong, Prague or Split (As per studio selection)
Costs of educational trip / excursion: € 200-300 plus transport costs (Depending on the studio selection)

Architecture distinguishes itself from mere building. Architecture aspires to accomplish much more than providing what is needed at the moment and to offer something out of ordinary. In short architecture stipulates “exception” that sets itself apart from the mundane everyday. We can also consider that architecture deals with “specificity” rather than generality.

In the spring semester, the PB’s Master 2 design studio (AR2AP012) explores architectural design that is specific to site conditions. The theme takes into account a range of issues, not only of the innate aesthetic implications of the unique and the meaningful, but also of functional organization and purpose in general. Such conditions include the cities and territories where the native and the foreign converge in many different modalities.

The Master 2 design studio “On Site” initiates various design agendas from the specificities and/or exceptionalities of a particular material culture of a place arriving at a fully elaborated architectural design. By focusing on the specificities of the site and eventually defining their own design positions, the students are expected to implement their site research into design practice. The sites and urban conditions vary from semester to semester and provide testing ground for diverse scales of inquiry, intervention, analysis and cultural perspective. Architectural means, instruments and techniques provide operative interface but also focus on a set of precisely delineated a priori as compositional constraints. Hence design research is exercised by and within the instruments, techniques and languages of architectural design.