COLLABORATION /

AAR4500 Complex building programs / AAR 4870 Architectural Design and Programming

AAR4510 Housing design / AAR 4814 Housing knowledge

AAR 4540 Metamorphosis / AAR 4851 Metamorphosis knowledge

Reception center and Temporary Housing for migrants

Collaborative design studio – Fall 2012

People all over the world are on the move. The reasons for moving are diverse, from seeking adventure or a better livelihood to the urgent needs for safety from emergencies or ethnic, religious or political conflicts. The topic for the proposed collaborative design studio is reception center and temporary housing for migrants. It thus focuses on an “invisible” and excluded residential group, aiming at improving their life conditions as well as their relationship with the local community. In the Norwegian context we will deal specifically with asylum seekers, while in the Chinese setting the focus will be the so called urban migrants, people moving from the rural areas to seek work in the cities.

The topic is chosen for several reasons. Firstly it is a public matter of high societal significance today (nationally as well as globally) and where architecture may influence the life of vulnerable people. In Norway there are at the moment 16.000 people living in asylum centers waiting for their application of asylum to be considered. In other countries, such as China, there is a huge movement of people from the rural areas to the urban centers hoping to get work.

Secondly, the topic encompasses fundamental architectural issues relevant for all three subjects collaborating in this design studio. These issues are related to the complexity of different functions, cultural and social backgrounds and life conditions gathered as well as a challenging relationship to the local community and the temporariness of the situations. Basically it addresses how spaces, borders, thresholds, buildings and surroundings influence the way we include, exclude and create “others”- such as asylum seekers and urban migrants - similar and different from our selves. We will investigate how architectural solutions shape physical and symbolic borders and boundaries within space and how they may influence exclusion and inclusion processes.

Finally, the faculty is involved in a newly established research project related to architectural qualities in asylum centers. This may provide synergy effect in terms of extra expertise and competence into the subjects, relevant contacts, visits to asylum centers etc. At the same time student work may give input to specific projects and to general debates on the architectural dimensions of asylum centers.

There will be a close collaboration between three design studio courses and the compulsory knowledge courses connected to each one of them. This implies that a larger group of students will work with different approaches to (more or less) the same program. It gives opportunities to develop projects where housing design, complex building programs and project and real estate management are seen as interrelated aspects and where students will have access to a larger group of teachers and competences than in an ordinary design studio. We believe that a collaboration will create an inspiring learning environment where we all, teachers as well as students, will meet refreshing challenges and new possibilities. At the same time, a closer cooperation between courses makes it possible to benefit the most of the available resources, by organizing common lectures, seminars, workshops and excursions when this is reasonable.

We will propose three different sites in Trondheim for the Asylum center (Complex programs and Housing design). In China (for the Metamorphosis students) the site will be in Xi’an. In all cases the task can involve both reuse / transformation of existing buildings and / or design of new buildings.

Students should choose their own approaches related to an overall discussion of the specific program, situation and needs, as well to the main issues of the subject they have assigned for. Relevant issues are:

//         Quality of life for residents: Safety and freedom / self-respect / mental health /meaningful  

       activities

//          Cross-cultural meetings / relations / conflicts  / contributions

//          Social integration / local community

//          Cost-effectiveness

//          Environmental issues

Architectural programs may incorporate: Temporary dwellings – basic housing qualities; shared spaces; public arenas for cross-cultural meetings / collaboration; neighborhood development.  Students may choose hybrid programs, but will have to somehow relate to the subject they have assigned for (complex programs, housing, metamorphosis).

Collaboration

Students choose one of the three design studio subjects. Each of them has specific issues and objectives which are described at the end of this program. There will however be several shared activities for all three subjects, and some shared activities only for the Norwegian based subjects (Complex programs and Housing Design).

For all three subjects, the shared activities will be:

//          Introduction to the topic

//          Selected lectures, seminars, workshops etc as well as tutoring

//          Review (week 42)

//          Final review and exhibition

//          Shared compulsory knowledge subject (replacing AAR4870, AAR4814, AAR4851)

For the two Norway-based subjects there will in addition be a shared field work period and an excursion. 

 

Shared compulsory knowledge subject (replacing AAR4870, AAR4814, AAR4851)

All three student groups will do a shared compulsory knowledge subject, consisting of elements from the three above mentioned subjects, one third of each. It will thus consist of the following parts:

Temporary housing

Questions related to temporary housing that will be dealt with are: How to define temporariness in the context of housing? How may “homing processes” be supported in temporary housing? How may we distinguish between institutions and homes? We will investigate a broad specter of temporary housing through lectures, seminars and in depth studies of examples such as: Hotels, student housing, nursing homes, prisons, monasteries, military camps, accommodation on North sea oil rigs etc. Plan layout typologies will be identified and discussed.

Tools of Visual Communication

In all project development there is an initial concept phase. During this phase it is essential that the architect is able to work fast and to communicate efficiently with clients, consultants, politicians, investors, prospective users and other decision makers. Common to all these actors is:

//    that they can make or brake the project depending on how well the architect is able to  

       communicate a brilliant concept

//    they are not trained in reading architectural drawings or in understanding architectural  

       jargon

This course module will introduce the basic digital toolbox of visual communication such as the adobe creative suite, powerpoint, sketch-up etc.

Programming

In the programming module we will discuss possibilities to define a program. It is quite rare that a plan­ning architect has to choose or suggest a program, but very often there is a program provided by a cli­ent or a user. In these cases it is the architect’s duty and an important as­pect of his design work to question the program, to extract the essence for his designwork as well as to help the client to find out more about his own needs. We will have a look at different examples of programs and discuss possibilities to question existing programs in a constructive way.

Language

All written material as well as most lectures, seminars, reviews will be in English. Individual and group tutoring in Norwegian or English.