Duration
Number of credits
| Master in architecture (120 ECTS) | 2 crédits |
Lecturer
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
By the end of the second term of the second year of the Masters, students should have completed a fifteen day work placement at an ARCHITECT'S OFFICE. This experience aims to make the link between the classes and reality of exercising the profession. Students should participate in the work of the office following the instructions given by the internship supervisor who must, in this regard, be registered with the ORDRE DES ARCHITECTES in Belgium.
Students may propose other forms of office internship (internships in architects' offices abroad, in a company, etc.) on condition that this has been approved by the course leader with at least ten days spent in an architect's office.
The internship should result in a REPORT to be submitted at the end of the 2nd term of the second year of the Mastersn in week 15 (date, place and time to be specified in advance by the teaching staff) ; the document will be graded in the same way as other courses and is worth 2 ECTS. The report will be at least 25 A4 pages long, in portrait format, in standard, legible 12pt font.
It consists of:
- completing the classes through observations which illustrate what has been observed or discovering what has not yet been observed.
- taking account of the logical succession of stages in construction and the concept of the time required to accomplish these tasks
- asking questions likely to clarify, specify, and consolidate theoretical concepts: understanding working methods, implementation, how a site is organised, etc.
- experiencing and observing life in an architect's office
- reporting on the experience
In this context, students may address the following tasks:
Ø Meetings with clients, entrepreneurs, public authorities, partners, etc.
Ø Pre-project and project sketches, etc.
Ø Town planning applications
Ø Descriptive surveying and specifications
Ø Technical details
Ø On-site work
Ø ...
On the understanding that some tasks cannot be addressed in a short time internship.
N.B.:
An internship in drawing and CAD alone is insufficient. It Is likely that students will have to become involved in projects which are already underway and the student will be forbidden from copying, in any form, documents from the office without the permission of the internship supervisor. Students are obliged to behave unobtrusively and to respect the intellectual property of the office in which they are based.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
By the end of the year, students should be able to demonstrate their ability to:
- integrate into an existing working team in a professional manner
- master the art of observation, analysis and summary of various subjects addressed during training
- appropriately read internal and/or external phenomena which affect practical implementation as opposed to the theoretical concepts covered in class.
- to have an objective opinioin, for example, on the construction techniques taught and the reality "on the ground".
- preparing schedules of quantities and specifications in relation to practival projects in also an interesting and very educational approach.
- in their report, students must avoid listing tasks they carried out on a day-to-day basis, but should summarise these.
Particular merit will be awarded to reports which explore, through detailed sketches and/or explicit reasoning, valid mediation procedures which can correct, adapt or solve inadequate and/or imperfect technological situations.
In their reports, students must incorporate convincing elements from site visits including photos, sketches, objective opniions on the situations they experienced, corrections and/or comparisons with subjects which are taught and illustrated primarily through sketches.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
None
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Appointments can be organised on student request to enable them to ask any questions relevant to the next stage of their work.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Organised meetings.
Recommended or required readings
None.
Assessment methods and criteria
The content of the report should take into account in a relevant way all observations made on site; the report is a critical illustration of the student's participation in the tasks they have encountered. The report must be clear and well-structured. The style of the text must be adapted to the subject: it should be precise and thorough, and remain on the subject without being reduced to shorthand.
The report will be assessed on:
- its form: clarity, legibility, care, quality of formatting,
- its content: relevance and precision of comments, accuracy of observations, technical curiosity, strongly founded criticism, the logic of the conclusions, etc.
Through their reports, students should demonstrate that they have mastered the relationship between the different disciplinary fields in architecture.
Work placement(s)
The purpose of the course.
Organizational remarks
Work should be completed on time, in order to be able to take advantage of free periods during the class to carry out the work placement. The insurance which covers the students does not permit them to conduct on-site work. It is down to each student to conduct research and undertake the necessary steps to establish a work placement which meets the objectives in question.
Students may carry out all or part of their internship during the first year of the Masters, although logically, they will better understand the issues in the second year. The report must, in all cases, be submitted in the second year, as indicated above.
Contacts
Karl SIMON - Karl.Simon@ulg.ac.be
Jean Claude Donneau - jcdonneau@ulg.ac.be