Make and Build
Module Code UBLM11-15-M
Faculty Built And Natural Environment
Level M
Module Leader Eleonora Nicoletti
Tutors Eduardo Costa
This module requires all students to work as a group, take a previously established design proposal, and develop its construction detail through element fabrication and on to final assembly. The module's outcome is the group's completion of a full-size freestanding architectural structure, the construction and completion of which is the subject of a group assessment for the module. The size for this structure will be the order of a single storey in height. It is for a shelter that can act as a pavilion - providing flexible space for assembly and exhibition. The project encourages creative problem solving and reconsideration of the nature of architectural structures. It promotes experimentation with materials and fabrication techniques.
This module will include a theoretical seminar to encourage a more in-depth understanding of cognitive theories as part of the programme's continued theoretical strand. The students are invited to read and distil seminal texts to be discussed in the seminar sessions and reflect and articulate their spatial experience while assembling the structure within computational methods.
Post-completion of the construction project students carry out a retrospective analysis of the fabrication and building processes to establish 'lessons learnt' and recommendations that can be made of improvements in technique and management of construction projects that use computational architecture. The reflective report will include a collaboratively distilled theory comparing the original design and the final structure.
This module connects with the module 'Digital Charrette' that precedes it in the MSc Computational Architecture programme. The design proposal that is developed and built for this module is the winning competition design established by the Digital Charrette.
The module runs as a short, intense architecture studio of between 3 weeks. Students taking the module will collaborate as a team to complete the detailed design and implement a live build project. Students are encouraged to use the expertise developed in other related modules to generate and refine proposals for an architectural structure and then complete its fabrication and assembly. This construction problem poses practical questions of structural integrity, design and use of false and temporary work for safe assembly, component fabrication, joint design, fixings and assembly sequencing, site management and health & safety risk review.
The above aspects will need considering along fundamental cognitive theories that will be discussed through seminars or lectures in the earlier sessions and will be supported by relevant readings. Students will critically reflect on the design proposed in the Digital Charrette module and the completed structure, to submit two outputs: the full-size artefact and the Critical Project Review reflecting on the process.
