LADES4139 Fundamental Architectural Design

Course Overview

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of architectural design. Through a series of exercises, students learn to design design itself – to consciously frame an architectural project, before engaging it. These exercises will introduce students to this new mode of thinking and working, one that requires an iterative process of inquiry. Students will learn to develop architectural concepts and design proposals through the investigation of spatial and formal concepts culminating in the fundamental understanding of key architectural principles and design methodologies.

Learning Outcomes

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

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

A minimum of 60 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

Further information on the structure of summative assessment elements can be found in the Summative Assessment Briefs.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books

• Koolhaas, Rem. Elements of Architecture. taschen, 2014.
• Bo Bardi, Lina. Stones Against Diamonds. AA Publications, 2013
• Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction. Museum of Modern Art, 1966
• Goldsmith, Selwyn. Universal Design. Routledge, 2000.
• Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. John Rodker, 1927. Originally “Vers une architecture”, published 1921.
• Cullen, Gordon. The Concise Townscape. Taylor and Francis, 1961
• Ching, Francis. Form, Space, and Order. John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2014
• White, Edward. Site Analysis: Diagramming Information for Architectural Design
• Clark, Roger and Pause, Michael. Precedents in Architecture: Analytic Diagrams, Formative Ideas, and Partis. John Wiley & Sons, 2004.
• Andrea Simitch, The Language of Architecture: 26 Principles Every Architect Should Know. Rockport Publishers. 2014

Indicative Topics

Students will typically study the following topics:

• Iterative Design: Understanding and Importance
• Tectonic and Spatial Ordering in Architectural Design
• Precedent Analysis in Architecture: Methods and Applications
• Documenting, Analysing, and Critiquing the Built Environment
• Architectural presentation including drawings, models, and diagrammes

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