Welcome to Spatial Design Theory and Practice: A critical study of the theoretical basis of spatial design in its contemporary context. Assignments develop the imagination and reflective capacity, designerly enquiry and the evaluation of design concepts.

224.381_Paper Outline | Assessment Schedule

                                                                                      

 

wk6-7: READING (PLAYING?) THE FIELD…

Over the next couple of weeks you are to READ – read radically, read analytically, read playfully, read creatively. The intended outcome of this READING is to further question (or interrogate) a question: “who should I say are my ‘key theorists’?”  One immediate answer to this is that if you have to ask then you don’t have any (!) – and what is a ‘key theorist’ anyway?  Who says we need to have/quote/reference ‘theory’?  What is ‘theory’?

In order to explore these questions it is helpful to have an understanding of the field – both contemporary (current) theory and the theoretical precedents (recent or historical) upon which contemporary theory is based (or from which it departs).  We will start with three readings on architectural theory and its recent  history.  All three are introductions to anthologies, or collections of theoretical writing, and thus provide quite a broad overview of their respective fields.

1. Iain Borden and Jane Rendell discuss the relevance of critical theory to the study of architectural history, and thus the ‘objects’ of architecture, in the introductory chapter to their anthology InterSections.  READ this chapter: Borden, I. and Rendell, J. (2000). From chamber to transformer: epistemological challenges and tendencies in the intersection of architectural histories and critical theories. In InterSections: Architectural Histories and Critical Theories (pp. 3-23). London, England: Routledge.  WRITE a paragraph summarising your interpretation of theory and its relevance to practice.

2. According to Kate Nesbitt, critical architectural theory as we conceive of it today has its origin in postmodern discourse, which arose out of a critique of modernism.  Nesbitt outlines the defining theoretical paradigms of postmodernism in the introduction to her anthology of architectural theory from the 1960s-1990s.  READ: Nesbitt_TheoNesbitt, K. (1996). Introduction. In Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995 (pp.16-70). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.rizing a New Agenda_title contents intro – in particular, ‘Part IIB: Postmodernism’s Defining Theoretical Paradigms’ pp.28-40.  DRAW a diagram of Nesbitt’s 5 paradigms and the key theorists that she associates with those paradigms.

3. Editor A. Krista Sykes cites Nesbitt’s anthology as a precedent to her own, which covers architectural theory from the 1990s-2000s.  Sykes identifies a shift in the way in which theory is viewed and engaged with in relation to architectural practice since the mid-90s.  This shift is reflected in the way in which she chooses to structure the anthology in comparison to Nesbitt.  READ: Sykes, A. K. (2010). Introduction. In Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993-2009 (pp. 14-29). New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press.  PREPARE FOR DISCUSSION: Identify from this reading three key trajectories of current architectural ‘realities’; compare and contrast them with the three emergent themes of architectural theory in the 90s that Nesbitt posits at the end of her introduction to Theorizing a New Agenda.  Do you agree that these are the key issues that we are currently dealing with?  What do you think are the roles of theory and practice in dealing with these issues?  Do you think that ‘theory is dead’?  What about ‘architecture’?  What is the relevance of these things to your future as a ‘spatial designer’?

The above readings should provide an overview but could also act as a ‘toolbox’ for theory.  One could dive into them at any point and come out with a series of names of ‘key theorists’ or specific fields of inquiry.  As you explore the texts, make a note of any theorists or theories that take your interest or seem relevant to your research on New Materialism.  Could you draw parallels between your approach to New Materialism and any of the theoretical paradigms outlined in Nesbitt’s text?  Or is your research more aligned with the ‘architectural realities’ of Sykes’?  Or are there multiple links, parallels, alignments, flows, slippages, intersections…?  Use these tools to find further texts to read, and CONSUME RADICALLY (Salen, 1998)

 

wk5

please refer to Studio blog page for updates

note CHANGE OF FINAL HAND-IN DATE: now 5pm Friday 17 May (week 10)

 

hand in – writing part 1: Design Research

Please create your document as a Google Doc (if you don’t already have a gmail account you will need to set one up) and hand in by sharing it with me using this email address: jlarcherdesign@gmail.com (note for any other communication please use my Massey email J.Archer1@massey.ac.nz).  This is due by 9am Monday morning.  See below for further reading references.

Friday: there will be no Friday Session this week, but I will be available for office hours between 2pm and 3.15pm (office hours sign up sheet on my door).

 

wk3 – writing part 1: Design Research

notes

further reading (don’t have to read all of them but one or two might be of use depending on your research direction):

on writing and text as a creative/dynamic act…

Bloomer, J. (1992). Supplementing the Sites of Practice. Riba Journal 99(11), 26-32. (article)

Bloomer, J. (1995). Architecture and the Text: The (S)crypts of Joyce and Piranesi. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (chapter: A Priming)

on hermeneutics/interpretation and anthropology/ethnography:

Turner, V. & Bruner, E. (1986). The Anthropology of Experience. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. (chapter: Dilthey’s Hermeneutics)

Salvador, T. et al (1999). Design Ethnography. Design Management Journal 10(4), 35-41. (article)

on different traditions of communications theory (some relate to design methodologies we have talked about):

Griffin, E. (2000). A First Look at Communication Theory. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. (chapter: Mapping the Territory) – outlines seven ‘traditions’, but of particular interest might be the first one (socio-psychological – if you are looking at empiricism it has a good explanation of what this is) or the last four: semiotics, socio-cultural, critical or phenomenological (which are heading toward the more interpretative end of the scale).  There is also a good diagram of where these different traditions/methodologies sit in relation to objective or interpretative approaches.

 

urban ramblings…

see Studio page…

 

wk2 – Design Research lecture & readings

readings (to be discussed on Monday):

Downton, P. (2003). Design Research. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing. [read introduction – book available from Massey library or preview on Google Books]

Grosz, E. (2001). Architecture from the Outside. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [read chapter 4: Architecture from the Outside]

Salen, K. (1998). Traversing Edge and Center: A Spatial Approach to Design Research. In Heller, S. (Ed.), Education of a Graphic Designer (pp. 91-94). New York, NY: Allworth Press.  [also available as an eBook through Massey library (2nd ed., 2005, pp. 141-144)] > new link 

 

coming up next:

studio rules

• must be on time to class
• do not use ball point pens for drawing or sketching
• accept that you are going to make mistakes; learn from them and move on
• be brave, experimental and innovative
• do what is asked of you, responding in a critical manner
• take notes for each other at reviews
• you are not to use the term ‘artist’s model’

 

 

Project 01_2013

Starfish: New Materialism

This project is run in conjunction with 224.351_Studio III and 224.361_Multimedia.  Refer to Studio blog page for brief.

 

 

References and recommended reading

:: General Readings

spatial_notes on writing 1

spatial_notes on writing 2 (to be updated)

National Library of Australia database, search for archived Australasian thesis: trove.nla.gov.au

Texts:

• Downton, P. (2003). Design Research. Melb.: RMIT University Press.
• Borden, I. & Rüedi, K. (2000) The Dissertation: an architecture student’s handbook. Oxford, U.K.: Architectural Press.

 

:: 2012 Seminar Readings

CATHERINE BAGNALL: Alternative Hedonism and what does it mean or how can it be useful and how I have tried to use it…..

1) own writing: bagnall_Abstract

2) theorist’s writing:

audio for “Alternative Hedonism”    philosophybites.com/2009/01/kate-soper-on-alternative-hedonism.html

Politicsof Nature dx.doi.org/10.1080/10455759909358857

 

SAM TRUBRIDGE:

1) own writing:

abstract_MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

Coming to Sleep

2) theorist’s writing:

‘The Orchestral Conductor’ from Canetti, E (1960) Crowds and Power, p.395-7

 

AMANDA YATES

1) own writing

Oceanic flows

2) theorist’s writing:

GROSZ_Future of Space

refiti_ 2003 ponifasio_PQ03_The Labyrinth of the Heart and Paradise of the Theatre_Theatre Inst P 03_

 

SIMON TWOSE:

1) own writing

simon Twose_INT11_web

simon twose_2011-12 Block

2) theorist’s writing:

 

STUART FOSTER: Space as Interface

1)own writing

Space as Interface_abstract

Being@SpaceasInterface

2) theorist’s writing

 

:: 2012 Lectures (Amanda Yates)

Dwelling Lecture

Duration Lecture