Space writing 3

Duration

12h Th, 48h Pr

Number of credits

Lecturer

Sarah Behets, David Crambert, Carine Driesmans, Aniceto Exposito-Lopez, Michele Hougardy, N...

Coordinator

Sarah Behets

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The Writing space learning units are part of the offering in the field of "Art and drawing techniques", available to students in blocks 1, 2 and 3.
Writing space
These classes are about writing, describing and recording architecture.
Drawing is also a language with various applications (with multiple intentions) for the architect who looks, decides and designs with graphic, digital and three-dimensional means of expression.
The third year aims to synthesise what has been learnt during the first two years of the Writing space classes. The students become the actors of their development in terms of graphic exploration. The course is centred around a case study, a place as the trigger for a story.
To define this place, we use two online image collections: the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and that of the New York Public Library. They contain downloadable high-definition documents.
We therefore invite students on an exploratory journey through vast image banks referring to a very wide range of worlds and eras: traces, fragments of memories, and archives.
Students rework these striking images, inventory them, link them, list them, and transform them by using freehand drawing in a complementary way as well as graphic digital tools for modelling, image processing and layout. They then play with them graphically until a key scenographic idea emerges.
Practices as varied as those of the image (photo, video, film, etc.), the digital arts, graphic or pictorial intervention, and publishing can be envisaged by students who connect them to their architectural questions.
Every stage, every idea, every way of doing things, intellectually or manually, leads to a series of decisions for which it is necessary to find original solutions in line with the medium used. Students learn to determine what motivates and what hampers a visual exploration.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The B3 workshops offer a synthesis of what has been learnt during the bachelor's degree. They use what has been learnt during the Writing space workshops, as well as what has been learnt in the architecture workshops and theory classes.
While the workshop encourages synthesis, it also aims to develop reflection, which should be pursued and used in practice in the architectural project.
1st part: link with the competency framework
Everything learnt in DE 4 allows the student to develop the competences specified in the faculty's competency framework, by providing tools that help in the development of the following competences: 'investigation', 'elaboration' and 'interaction'. The workshops provide an introduction, which students can build on through their practice, especially in the architectural project.
INVESTIGATE an architectural issue
- study the different components of the theme and the context: graphic and plastic approach - identify the spatiality that the components generate, their relationship with the context and their meaning in relation to the function
ELABORATE a spatial response
- appropriate graphic languages as tools to design, structure, verify and provoke thought - introduce an aspect of experimentation - translate spatially - retranscribe and look for an initial proposal in the form of diagrams and models that will evolve over time
INTERACT with all those involved
- master the graphic and plastic elements as tools to share ideas through experimentation, conduct a mature development of a project, express the essential and explicitly formulate an approach.
2nd part: learning outcomes of the learning unit described from an operational point of view
Since 2D and 3D representations are the obvious essential languages in an architect's training, observing, designing and formalising are the three fundamental complimentary objectives pursued up until B3.
At the end of the course, students will therefore be able to:
- tackle an observation subject by defining a precise field of investigation
- structure their view and prioritise information in hierarchical order
- construct a sketch in accordance with the rules of perspective
- develop a graphic language that is autonomous and coherent with the subject
- make proper use of the terminology specific to the workshops
- adapt their work to the format
- choose their tools and make proper use of them
- associate elements to create volumes
- tackle and understand objects, spaces, environments
- understand and master the proportions of bodies (mineral, plant, animal)
- create by combining shapes, materials, colours, etc.
- master the evolution of their work process as the project advances
- use the research instructions in such a way as to exceed them and freely and creatively explore the defined framework
- promote their research
- put in all the necessary care required to present it
- synthesise an approach, structure, organise and communicate

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

To be able to participate in this learning unit, you must have taken the following courses:
Block 1:
ARCH3265: Writing space 1A
ARCH3266: Writing space 1B   Block 2:
ARCH0231: Writing space 2 (workshops 1 and workshops 2)
Students are also invited to make useful links with the courses in aesthetics, theory of architecture, history of architecture, history of the town and landscape, which they took in the first two years of the bachelor's degree (courses and workshops). In short, with everything aimed at developing the understanding of forms, whether they be open spaces or places of everyday life.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Classes are organised in the form of workshop-laboratories, supervised by teaching staff.
The focus is on creativeness and exploring forms. The classes are part of an evolving process, where each new class is based on the work done in the previous class.
Students experiment alone first, then through the participatory dynamics of working in a team.
Teaching staff regularly give theory presentations to initiate the students' applications.
The core elements from the class are posted on the miro platform at the end of each session.
During the first workshop, five emblematic places are selected from a noteworthy image bank. Firstly, during the first six workshops, a few selected places will be explored through a series of graphic manipulations, going from 2D to 3D, and from the virtual to the palpable. Students are encouraged to look for, dissect and analyse various types of document: architectural projects, (photo)graphic images, maps, archives relating to the arts, history, natural sciences, etc.
Secondly, the last six workshops will be dedicated to the design and development of a collective piece of work based on the work done previously. The purpose of the workshop is to establish a piece of group work. Guided by the previous research and analyses, the students have to communicate a certain number of intentions in a synthetic, accurate and powerful form.
The teams are composed according to the affinity of the content (developed during the personal research carried out beforehand) and according to the exploitable potential of combining unique approaches: similarities, opposites, complementarities. The work comprises the sum total of the all the serial searches and individual work conducted during the first part of the quadrimester.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Virtual work sessions carried out each week through the miro platform and with blackboard collaborate for video/audio coimmunication
First part carried out individually
Second part carried out in groups of 2 ot 3 persons

Organisational adjustments related to the current health context

Practical work will be carried out individually by students in their own homes for the first part of the quadrimester and in groups of 2 or 3 for the second part. The work will go through a stage of filing the production (observation drawings, compositions, thematic research, photographs, written notes) on the miro platform. The practical work will be placed under the supervision of a dedicated teacher, who will accompany the production process by providing formative feedback at different stages of progress thanks to the blog and videoconference meetings during class hours (Black Board Collaborate).

Recommended or required readings

Students must demonstrate autonomy regarding their research, by developing reading resources, consulting publications, visiting exhibitions, and attending conferences on architecture in order to broaden their horizons.
Bibliographic guidelines for the course in block 3 are regularly updated on the miro platform for students.

Assessment methods and criteria

Below you will find information on the evaluation methods planned for in-person and remote exams as well as those planned for hybrid sessions. Depending on how the health crisis evolves, the chosen method will be communicated to you no later than one month before the start of the exam session.

Attendance and participation in the workshops is compulsory and is part of the students' assessment. Any unjustified absence will result in a score of zero for the said class.
The writing space 3 workshop will take place at the end of the cycle. Students will be required to use the skills acquired during the first two years of the bachelor's degree. The quality of the work will be assessed, not on the basis of specific and successive exercises, but on the quality of the process of all the work, throughout the quadrimester.
The assessment will be based on the following criteria:
-subject scoping
-structuring
-respect for the rules of perspective
-work coherence and autonomy
-mastery of the terminology specific to the workshops
-sizing and layout (image processing)
-tools and materials (clear mastery of digital/analogue drawing tools)
-volumes and modelling
-relation to the subject (architectural representation skills)
-study of proportions
-composition
-design approach (mobilisation of various references)
-production autonomy
-communication
-care
-synthesis
There is no extra assessment at the end of each quadrimester.
The test during the second session will allow students to improve on the work for that year; hence, it is based on what they have learnt during the workshop and therefore, can't replace it.
The exam in September lasts 4 hours. If the September exam is in the form of a file that has to be submitted, students will be informed in advance. The test will be worth 50% of the points for the year.
Students must attend the workshops on a regular basis. This is were the dialogue is created that is required for the training. While students can finish some work at home, or be asked to do preparatory research, most of the work, in terms of production, exchange, exploration and validation takes place within the workshop.
As for students who are taking the course because of remaining credit and are finding it difficult to attend regularly because of timetable clashes, they must inform the teachers right at the beginning of the quadrimester. An adapted follow-up can be set up according to an agreement made between teaching staff and the student repeating the year.


 

Work placement(s)

None

Organizational remarks

Contacts

Sarah Behets, sbehets@uliege.be
David Crambert, dcrambert@uliege.be
Carine Driesmans, carine.driesmans@uliege.be
Aniceto Exposito-Lopez, aniceto.exposito-lopez@uliege.be
Claude-Lucie Hick, claude.hick@ulg.ac.be
Michèle Hougardy, mhougardy@uliege.be