This seminar invites students to discover the interaction of design and communications in order to take a critical position on the interaction between architectural discourse and built form.
Media communications, including broadcast, online forums, printed press among others, play a powerful and inescapable role in shaping both the perception of and the manifestation of architecture. In this seminar students will be invited to discover the interaction of design and communications. Students will be expected to take a critical position on the interaction between architectural discourse and built form.
Each session will focus on a specific theme: architectural rhetoric, storytelling and representation, architectural branding, curating architecture, and disseminating architecture. The chair/director will propose a storyboard that will frame architecture from the perspective of its representation and dissemination. Students will develop an understanding of existing case studies and communication approaches and challenges from class readings and from the professional presentations. Each conceptual session will have a multi-part design-led workshop counterpart that will engage students with a series of practical exercises connecting communication strategies to the contemporary practices of architecture and urbanism. A selection of readings about specific case studies and film screenings will illustrate representative/significant projects and/or analyze strategies, which should be developed in the practical component of the class. In response, students will present a lecture analyzing key themes, approaches, challenges, and opportunities for improvement.
Having a conceptual framework of existing types of representation, and implementation, students will develop a fictional scenario that requires a curatorial approach and graphic strategy. Here, they will have the opportunity to experiment with some of the tools and approaches about which they are learning and develop innovative ways to adapt existing frameworks of communication.
The course has multiple formats: a series of thematic presentations carried out by the tutor; a series of selected film screenings on relevant subjects; and desk critiques and video pin-up presentations. Students will work both individually and in small groups.