Kara Adams
Associate Adjunct Professor
kadesign1@clearwire.net
Time: Tu 9:00-11:50am
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course encourages your investigation into the theory, writing and building by architects from earliest times to the 21st century. We will explore these environments to see how theories may influence the world in which we live. We will reflect on historical examples of building to emphasis the importance of spatial composition (sketching). The course is speculative as opposed to being purely descriptive and you are encouraged to take risks.
This seminar offers a forum for you to articulate your interest within the field of architecture and develop a directed program of study while attending the University of Oregon, Portland Architecture Program. The theme for this seminar is “The Human Face of Building”. Since the earliest record of building with specific intentions (i.e. a temple), what do we, as individuals and communities, contribute to the natural and built world?
The first half of the seminar we will review architectural examples, discuss readings, and do individual reading/research. The second half of the seminar will require that each student present a Case Study in the form of research. In this Case Study, each student will develop a hypothesis based on questions that sharpen one’s line of inquiry. These questions will be considered through writing, diagramming and documenting (sketching). How might this influence one’s own design investigations? The course culminates with a written “manifesto” of your ideas and research. The manifesto should reflect your own ideas and concerns about architecture which also needs to draw on key issues we have studied in class.
The underlying investigation of the seminar will focus on the natural and built world we live in, on ecology through theories and design as they influence architecture and the urban environment.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Students will be responsible for doing all the reading/research/writing for the case study, participate in all the seminar discussions, make an interesting case study presentation and create a well written final manifesto.
COURSE EVALUATION
Attendance and participation in all seminar discussions
Quality of the Mid-term: written Case Study and verbal presentation
Quality of Final Paper and your graphics
* If your paper is late there will be a penalty: for every day it is late you will receive the deduction of a grade. For example, grade A will be A- (1st day), B+ (2nd day),, B, B-, C+, C, C-,etc.
HEIDEGGER
PERSONAL _Heideggers statement – ” To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free, the preserve, the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature.” This ties the user with the building in a personal way – the building creates a sense of peace and protection so that one can “dwell.” I think of personal interaction with a building as an action taken by a person/people using it that lies outside of the designer’s initial program for the building. For instance, graffiti – using large concrete walls as paint canvases, or homeless people living under freeway underpasses or bridges. This personal interaction with these spaces redefine the designer’s intent of a particular building/construction. A building that was a boring block of concrete, not particularly interesting to anyone on the street, attracts the eyes of the public. Homeless people living under a bridge transform the bridge from a public space for cars and people into an intimate dwelling – and challenge public ideas of what are the “minimum” requirements of shelter and what is the “minimum” amount of shelter that society should provide its people.
AUTHENTICITY & PERMANENCE – One aspect of “authentic” design is taking into account the natural surroundings and materials local to the site of a building.
Heidegger states –
“To save the earth is more than to exploit, or even to wear it out. Saving the earth does not master the earth and does not subjugate it, which is merely one step from spoliation.” –
Use of local materials which are natural to an environment can assist with the durability of a structural design – insuring that the structure lasts for a long while.