Duration
48h Pr
Number of credits
| Bachelor in architecture | 4 crédits |
Lecturer
Elisa Baldin, Marc Goossens, Rita Occhiuto, Sebastien Ochej, Virginie Pigeon
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
This course opens up questions about the town through reading and designing a public space.
At the onset, simple urban issues relate to a clearly defined spatial element (planning a square for example), involving moving from reading the environment in all its dimensions (morphological, environmental, social, economic and political) to that of project transcription. Methodological explanations, thematic classes on contemporary public spaces and interactions with classes on urban composition and town culture (theory classes in the 1st and 2nd terms), are the basic formative elements to establish a practical project.
Concepts of participation and sustainability are incorporated at the very onset of the project. Taking into account complexity and space as a system, inevitably leads to making a project a fundamental element in the search for sustainability. Taking into account the collective, plural, social and cultural dimensions of town planning and the town, presents students with evidence that the urban project can be nothing but participative.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The course aims on the one hand to introduce students to the composition of the public space and, to ensure they become aware of the role and responsibility of the architect operating in an urban context on the other hand,to give elementary bases of the urban project design approach.
Teaching staff participate in training and in strengthening the urban culture required for the development of all construction actions in our living environment (built and non-built spaces).
This initially consists of understanding the fabric which makes up our (urban and non-urban) regions both in terms of their ability to organise space and to generate quality of life as well as in terms of their processes of formation and evolution.
Fine reading exercises serve to develop students' critical and reflective capacities. Secondly, the critical approach acquired will enable students to develop their reasoning in order to develop relevant and well-positioned projects, leading to positive and flexible relationships with the context (dynamic conception). The class is also presented as the practical chance to train students in the dialectical range of urban composition based on its central object : public space.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
The course is an extension of the theory courses entitled 'Urban project design appraoch' ,'Landscape theory' and "Urban sociology".
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
The course is essentially developed around workshop-based research.
Regular theoretical presentations will take place.
Students will be presented with practical cases based on real demands from communes. Based on this reality, students should identify and understand various urban challenges, particularly in terms of highlighting the potential of the place, taking into account the various perspectives for developing the entity in question and addressing the various actors on the ground and their respective interests and needs.
Through a range of progressive questions, students will conduct investigations which are likely to supply the most adequate responses, but above all, will build up an individual, responsible position focussing on a well-reasoned part of the project.
This part will then be translated into a diagram of intention focussing on selected concepts and principles of organisation. This will serve as the basis for dialogue with the various local actors, to then be corrected and refined with a view to becoming the guideline for a practical project design.
The exercise as a form of project research:
the exercise will focus around a public space in a town (square, street, small spaces, etc.) with great potential, enabling students to embark on an avenue of questioning and a way of exploring the non-built urban space through a practical project.
Spaces to be studied and envisaged are often spaces which are poorly characterised or which have lost all urban value. The specific study of these places enables the less visible aspects which have not be considered, or which have been forgotten or voluntarily overlooked in terms of functional and fragmented practice in managing urban spaces to emerge. The opportunity to have presentations from public authorities is a significant part of the training and an interesting exercise which obliges students to become aware of the constraints and the reasoned position through the project.
The exercise consists of researching through history, landscape, urban morphology and observation of social and economic practice, all elements likely to bring into question the values of these places.
The new questioning opens, through texts, graphic and iconographic research, will contribute to the formation of hypotheses which will form the basis of the choice of urban renovation projects based around public spaces being studied.
Projects, leading to alternative, complex and innovative solutions, will thus become a means of 'stimulating' a culture and innovatively examining urban issues.
They may open up avenues for reflection in general which are rarely or little explored through standard solutions proposed by technical departments or by professional procedures which are too connected with the culture of functional urbanism.
The exercise is the chance to offer, as in a competitive tender, an idea, a subject, which is both reflective and operational, which imposes itself on the one hand as a decision-making tool and, on the other, as a means of stimulating debate and the culture of its inhabitants.
The project will thus become a tool for 'interrogating the reality of the ground' 'treating in a critical way through reasoning and hypotheses of intervention', 'testing hypotheses through reality by subjecting them, prior to implementation, to views from inhabitants and decision makers who should support the project, creating ownership so that it can be realised' and finally, 'living, inhabiting, giving it a status and meaning in order to validate and prolong the phase of rehabilitation'.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Teaching is developed in workshops in small groups of students with the continuous presence of the teaching staff.
Recommended or required readings
Assessment methods and criteria
Assessment is conducted by a jury.
Through documents produced in the form of explanatory boards which establish the relation between all the elements which set out the argument for the chosen solutions by referring to the site reading and to the positions taken and the oral presentation which is conducted, students must show the coherence of the approach taken and thus the strong foundations upon which the proposals are made.
Work placement(s)
There is no work placement organised during this course