RMIT ARCHITECTURE DESIGN ELECTIVES

POSTERS

SEMESTER 2, 2013

Masters of Architecture: ARCH 1338, ARCH 1339, ARCH 1340

Bachelors of Architecture: ARCH 1040, ARCH 1041

Both Bachelors Electives and Masters Electives will be Balloted for via PAPER BAL-LOT. This means filling out and submitting a ballot paper into the elective ballot box on level 12, Building 8. The ballot Box for electives will be available from 1pm Tuesday

16th of July until midday the next day Wednesday, 17th July.

Enquiries: Leanne Zilka, lecturer in Architectureleanne.zilka@rmit.edu.au

IMAGE BY RACHEL LOK

RMITUNIVERSITY

DAY TIME LOCATION STAFF

TUESDAY 2.30 ‐ 5.30 B45B Roland Snooks ‐ Experimental Robotic Fabrication

WEDNESDAY 9.30‐12.30 B45D Chin Khoi Koo ‐ Synthetic Annex

2.30 ‐ 5.30 UAL Space Building 45 Graham Crist  ‐ Eco Urban Practices

2.30‐5.30 B45C Scott Woods ‐ The Classical View vs Emerging Theories of Typology

6.30‐9.30 8.7.153   Gwllym Jahn ‐ Leviathan

THURSDAY 9.30 ‐ 12.30 B45B Marika Neustupny and Laura Harper ‐ Speculation and Procurement

9.30 ‐ 12.30 8.12.36 John Doyle ‐ Metropolitan Machinery

9.30 ‐ 12.30 8.12.38 Lindsay Holland ‐ Deep Skin Deep

9.30 ‐ 12.30 B45C Jane Dash ‐ The Environmental Facade

6.30 ‐ 9.30 8.11.51 International Practice ‐ Bruce Allen

6.00‐9.00pm DESIGN HUB level 8 Tom Kovac ‐ Wicked Mobilities

INTENSIVES week 2 ‐ week 6 Tues and Fri ‐ 10‐1 Design Hub Erieta Attali‐ Architecture After Dark

week 1 ‐ week 6 (mid term break ‐ elective will run the entire week) John Cherrey and Nick Williams ‐ Sound Bites

week 6 ‐ week 17 refer poster John Cherrey and Nick Williams ‐ Music Room

RESEARCH

ELECTIVES

CONTENTS

Richard Black Refer to Richard for meeting time after balloting

Tools have always defined the space of possibility for design. With the emergence of a new set of robotic tools, this space is expanding in unexpected directions. This elective will explore the relationship between new robotic tools and their potential to create novel archi-tectural forms, structure and ornament. Students will design and prototype an architectural installation/ob-ject in parallel to designing and making a robotic tool, with the emphasis on the feedback between the two. The elective is a collaboration with the mechanical en-gineering department. It is intended that the architec-ture students will design and fabricate an architectural prototype, while the engineering students will construct custom tools for the robot. The elective will explore techniques including: large scale direct-deposition (3D printing in plastic, foam, sand), composite fibre taping, and intricate timber fabrication. This elective will be highly speculative and experimental.

TUESDAY 2:30PM - 5:30PM | BUILDING 45 STUDIO B

EXPERIMENTAL ROBOTIC FABRICATIONROLAND SNOOKS

Eco Urban Practices

Eco-Urban Practices introduces you to the key skills, methods and practices of the urban design professional from a multidisciplinary perspective, and with a particular focus on environmental sustainability. The relationship between urban design and global pressures of population and climate change is a key focus, as well as urban shifts in infrastructure, technology and transport. You will explore the implications of these issues on urban design processes, projects and practices, while acquiring insight from industry and government professionals. Design practice from an international perspective is also addressed, with an emphasis on Australasia.

Graham CristWednesdays 2:30-5:30

RMIT B45-UALWeek 3 - Week 8

Architecture Elective: ARCH 1338-39-40Landscape Architecture: Design Research Seminar

 

Architecture Elective                      Elective Leader: Scott Woods 

 

 

 

THE CLASSICAL VIEW vs. EMERGING THEORIES OF TYPOLOGY 

 

 

 

“But, where is the HISTORY” Sanford Kwinter, Proof: Design As Research. 

“The influence of invention on life is marked by fixed reference points, points which enable one to grasp fully the changes of life itself, in the same way that the fixity of lighthouses enables ships to navigate.” Aldo Rossi, Spoken Into the Void. 

 

 

WAM Architecten, Inntel Hotel, Amsterdam                    Laugier’s primitive hut, 1753                      Herzog & De Meuron, Vitra Haus, Weil am Rhein 

 

**”… each historical culture, viewed as a whole, was represented by an array of types as diverse and as complex as the society it sheltered; and if these types were truly representative of their culture, they must be so many variations, conceived within the same visual language …” Anthony Vidler, 

Architectural Cryptograms: Style and Type in Romantic Historiography. 

 

The idea of Type**, developed in the Late 18th Century by Quatremère de Quincy, has undoubtedly been one of the most broadly referenced (and debated) within architectural discourse. Type’s relevance is now, (seemingly) more than ever on the wane ‐ dismissed as prescriptive and dogmatic, a troublesome foe ‐ like a dinner guest who just won’t leave. Lately however and simmering quietly, those on watch are beginning to observe a return. To be sure, this ‘revival’ is something different again; notably (and counter to past incarnations) it does not take itself too seriously. 

This elective is concerned with: the production of architecture within the specific context of this ‘ground‐swell’ of new typological architectures ‐ unearthing their operative methods, agendas, generative processes and nuances. We will ultimately ask: Do these observed practices fall within classically defined typological guidelines or are these suggested experiments in typology actually something else all together? 

To probe these questions students will be guided through historic Landmark Texts, and introduced to a Historical Survey of built Case Studies (works spanning the late 18th century to present day). Phase 1 requires students to study the supplied historical references to develop a clear understanding of the ‘story’ of Type as told through both written and built works. Phase 2 asks students to select and critically examine a contemporary Case Study. 

Students will then locate, decipher and articulate their findings regarding the broader and detailed connections (or disjunctions) between their classically defined ‘typological architectures’ and their contemporary or present day manifestations. How do we classify this new phenomenon? 

Investigations will include: Close‐reading of Historical texts; Analysis and Close‐reading of a Case Study (both historical and contemporary) including Drawings and Model‐Making; A Critical Essay OR Design Project; and a Seminar presenting your findings. 

 

 

When: Wednesday 2:30 – 5:30pm  // Where: Room 45D  

‘To produce complexity we need to construct new models…capable of dealing with ever more dynamic processes and complex organisations‘ - Alejandro Zaera-Polo

Contemporary approaches to urban research understand the city as a network of complex systems that structure and organise the built environment. These urban ecologies are not simply limited to formal appearance, but also social, economic, cultural, architectural precedent and other ephemeral or fluid qualitative aspects. In this context the challenge for architecture is in developing design approaches that are capable of engaging with the organisational systems of the urban condition. Digital and generative approaches to architectural design offer the possibility of deploying the outcome of urban research as a toolset that can be co-opted to structure a design process.

This elective will explore digital approaches to design in an urban context. More specifically we will be reviewing techniques for integrating contextual information into the design process using scripted and parametric operations in Rhino and Grasshopper. This be will explored through the analysis of a series of case study projects, from which students will reverse engineer their own design tools. The primary focus of this class will be in the development of technique, however it is expected that this will be accompanied by research both through literature and project surveys, as well as iterative testing in design.

The outcome of the elective will be the production of a catalogue of digital diagrams and a suite of digital tools which students will be able to carry forward into future studios and major project.

metropolitan machinery design elective

Tutor: John Doyle

Time: Thursday 9:30-12:30

Room: 8.12.36

Prerequisites: This elective is available to Masters students, and Bachelors students who have completed Communications 3. It assumes a good general knowledge of Rhino. This is not a communications elective and instruction on the use of software will be limited.

The environmental façadeJane DashBuilding 45 room cThursday morning 9.30-12.30

This technology elective builds on the research completed in Technology 4 (facades) and Technology 3 (ESD) Using the Technology 4 tower projectas a base for redesign, the elective will explore environmental issues confronting the high-rise tower façade through the lens of Greenstar, BCA Section J façade requirements and Life-cycle Assessment principles. The above will be examined through the completion of three research exercises which analyse the building through each of the three lenses.

The �nal façade will be described through research, the production of 3D documentation and 1:20 sections and elevations of the façade.

Completion of Technology 4 is recommended as a prerequisite.

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Architecture  After  Dark  _  Night  Photography  &  Architecture    Architecture  &  Design  Elective_Semester  2  2013_  Erieta  Attali_  M&C  Visiting  Research  Fellow  2013    Since  the  Renaissance,  artificial  illumination  has  been  used  to  alter  our  perception  of  the  built  environment.  During  the  20th  century,  it  became  an  inextricable  part  of  the  design  process.  It  can  be  said  that  architecture  of  the  night  has  contributed  toward  the  fulfillment  of  the  modernists'  dream  for  an  architecture  of  intangible  forms.  Now,  the  once  cold  and  sturdiness  of  a  structure’s  materials  can  be  transformed  into  a  floating  apparition  by  the  building’s  light,  shadow  and  color  that  can  only  exist  after  dark.  

 From  its  infancy,  photography  has  proven  to  be  an  important  means  of  documentation  and  aesthetic  appeal.  Urban  photography  pioneers  such  as  Alfred  Steiglitz  and  his  peers  were  key  in  the  development  of  a  technical  and  aesthetic  photographic  language  that  influenced  their  followers,  the  design  community  and  the  general  public.  By  ignoring  mere  topographical  representation,  these  photographers  embraced  the  technical  imperfections  of  this  medium  –  darkness  and  artificial  light  –  and  produced  images  of  striking  aesthetic  and  cultural  impact.  The  pioneers  used  designed  building  lighting  and  ambient  city  lighting  to  change  our  perception  of  modern  urban  cityscape.    

 This  course  will  give  students  the  opportunity  to  engage  in  a  similar  quest  and  will  discuss  photography  as  a  medium  to  interpret  aesthetic  intent  and  express  subjective  understanding  of  building  or  urban  space  after  dark.  Students  will  explore  these  issues  by  producing  a  series  of  night  images  that  cover  a  range  of  architectural  themes:  cityscape,  urban  landscape,  residential,  commercial  and  public  spaces.  Technical,  historical  and  aesthetic  aspects  of  night  photography  will  be  covered  in  this  course.  There  will  be  a  field  trip  to  examine  and  interpret  work  outside  of  the  classroom  environment.  

 Students  will  explore  the  medium  of  architectural  photography  as  a  critical  tool  for  analyzing  and  representing  buildings.  To  understand  the  intent  behind  design  processes  by  contextualizing  and  framing  the  relationship  between  an  architect  and  his/her  work,  photography  is  used  not  only  as  documentary  evidence,  but  also  as  a  stimulant  for  the  critical  mind.  

 By  the  end  of  the  course,  each  student  will  be  taught  how  to  select  and  compile  a  photographic  portfolio  based  on  his/her  work.  With  this,  each  student  will  include  a  short  written  contribution  that  explains  their  choice  of  project(s)  and  discusses  the  co-­‐relation  between  the  architect’s  concept  and  his/her  visual  interpretation  of  it.  

 Erieta  Attali  is  a  Visiting  Research  Fellow  in  the  School  of  Media  &  Communication  at  RMIT  and  is  Adjunct  Professor  of  Architectural  Photography  at  the  Graduate  School  of  Architecture,  Planning  and  Preservation,  Columbia  University,  New  York.  She  is  an  eminent  and  highly  respected  photographer  who  describes  herself  a  ‘hunter  of  landscapes’  and  has  spent  the  past  decade  photographing  architecture  is  dramatic,  elegant  and  extreme  landscapes  for  Rick  Joy,  Kengo  Kuma  and  Bernard  Tschumi  to  name  just  a  few.  She  is  currently  working  on  three  monographs:  Scandinavian  Contemporary  Architecture,  South  American  Contemporary  Architecture  and  the  architecture  firm  Smith  Miller  &  Hawkinson  in  the  USA.  Her  monograph  “Landscape  as  Architecture”,  a  collection  of  selected  works  of  thirty  five  architects  around  the  world,  with  contributed  texts  by  Juhani  Pallasmaa  and  others  is  published  by  Columbia  University  Press.    The  Elective  is  open  to  students  from  Architecture  &  Design,  Art  and  Photogrpahy.  It  will  run  in  intensive  mode  in  RMIT  Design  Hub  on  10-­‐1  Tuesday  and  10-­‐1  Friday  During  August,  2013.  Enquiries  martyn.hook@rmit.edu.au  

Sound BitesSound Bites City will be an exhibition to showcase new works in RMIT's Sound Art Collection, to be held in the RMIT Gallery in September and October this year. The collection comprises multi-channel electroacoustic installation and performance works.

Tutors: John Cherrey and Nick Williams

image: concept sketch of timber gridshell installation, to be developed and fabricated through the elective.

Sound Bites Cityt will be any exhibition to showcasee new works in RMIT's Sound Art Collection, to be held in the RMIT Gallery in September and Octobeer this year. The collection comprises multi-channelrrelectroacoustic installation and performance ff workks.

Sound Bites is a design & make elective focused on contemporary timber fabrication and long-span structures which results in a full scale built work. The program will provide an opportunity to explore the design potential of timber gridshells, timber laminates, panelized construction, continuously curved rainscreen cladding. We will test the possibilities of these material typologies through parametric design, testing through scaled physical prototypes and inally the full-scale work which will be used for the exhibition installation. In the process of construction we will also engage in digital fabrication technologies. In working toward a inal design, we will also consider key examples of designing for music performance and constraints of exhibition design.

Note: In participating in this elective, students will be required to complete the standard elective load, with classes running twice weekly.

Weeks 1-5 July 22nd – August 23rd ) Wednesdays: 9.30 – 12.30pm B45 Studio D Wednesdays: 1.00pm – 5.30pm TBA Thursdays: 9.15 – 12.30pm 8.07.79 workshop Thursdays: 1.00pm – 5.30pm 49.0A.1 workshop

Weeks 6 (August 26th – 29th ) Full scale shell production week – RMIT Gallery Daily 9.30 – 5.30pm

The Music Room is a hands – on design & make elective, with the finished project being the construction and installation of a small music practice room in a primary school. The project continues research following on from the suc-cessful FABPOD project undertaken in Sem II 2012. In this project you will be introduced to real world problems of acoustic performance in small spaces, acoustic separation and isola-tion, issues of heating and ventilation, solar control, services and, of course, the architectural design of such an interior spaces. In keeping with ideas developed in the FABPOD, the Music Room will explore the problems of prefabrication, and the design will make extensive use of digital design and manufacturing equipment. The software and equipment will challenge you to think about design and pro-duction and the unique design possibilities afforded by them.

Times: This elective will run in both intensive mode (mid & post semester) and a series of weekly classes which will have combined total number of hours to satisfy the minimum contact hours.

Mid semester - 2nd - 6th September 9am – 5.30pm Location 8.11.58

Weeks 7-12Tuesdays 9am – 1.00pm Gossard workshop

Post semester Week 16 11th - 15th November, Gossard workshop & On -siteWeek 17 18th – 22nd November, On -site

Tutors : John Cherrey & Nick Williams

X_Field is a collaborative group of practitioners and researchers who work across the disciplines of art, architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. We have identified the gaps that conventional practice has marginalised as fertile grounds for intervention: places of becoming, transaction, negotiation, and improvisation. We privilege the question over the solution and the process over the product. These field-based investigations include the ephemeral and transitory; the ordinary and everyday; social, political and economic infrastructures; social and environmental sustainability and the city.

The exhibition highlights our way of acting – our ethics – and the techniques we invent and employ at many spatial and temporal scales: careful observation, constructed interaction, the collection, mapping. We reveal the invisible systems that make things the way they are to generate what they can be. This exhibition of new work in various media will be designed to promote a continuing and significant discourse amongst the practitioners and the gallery visitors throughout the duration of the show. The core group of practitioners include Charles Anderson, Richard Black, Melanie Dodd, Sand Helsel, Andrea Mina, and Sue Anne Ware.

We are seeking 5 Masters level students to assist with the production and assembly of 2 forthcoming X_Field exhibitions. You will work closely

with the various X_Field group of practitioners on:

• exhibition design

• publication design

• website design

There will be an initial meeting with Richard to discuss the elective in further detail on Tuesday 16 July, 11.00am in 8.12.16

Elective Coordinator: Richard BlackIf you are interested in participating please email Richard Black asap on richard.black@rmit.edu.au

Research Assistants / Elective X_Field Exhibition semester 2_2013Garden City Gallery, Taipei (August 2013) / Design Hub, RMIT University, Melbourne (December 2013).

Image: Make Your Park, by Mel Dodd