2000

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.
The course, Project 1: Dwelling, puts forward the study and practice of the necessary techniques for project design, in order for the architect to be in capacity of solving the problem of space and form of a building, both in its private and public dimensions and according to its use and dweller’s activities. The course gives the student the opportunity to reflect upon the meaning of dwelling, invites him to learn the principles of building organization according to its activity programs, making him conscious of the dimensions and proportions of architectural space in relation to it inhabitants, furniture and habits. This is necessarily the object of analysis, ordering, distributing, measuring, interpreting and composing, embracing the full complexity of the private building. 

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.
This course, as a course belonging to the Studio area of the formative cycle, aims to instil in students the sense of importance of technique in the formal definition of architectural projects. This is achieved through the logical use of constructive systems, structure and diverse systems of a building, enabling the appearance of a new set of compositional tools that generate more design principles. This course has the objective of understanding project-design techniques that allow for the construction of architectural form by means of the existing relation between materiality, the natural elements that govern an environment and the technical wisdom that enable the building of a project. 

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.

This course studies the link between place and the architectural project. The natural or urban place make up the places for architectural intervention where students in the formative cycle of the architecture programme must put forwards architectural solutions to different project exercises. The Studio also aims to weave learning networks between students of differing semesters with the aim of complementing the skills, wisdom and knowledge that can be obtained through the course.

Additionally, the course evidences the importance of place in the development of architecture projects through the understanding of the variables that shape, give form and determine the links between the project and the place. A triad of inseparable elements - place, tectonics and dwelling  is put forward in this course. The exercises developed during the course are based on the thorough understanding of the variables of such triad, which are wholly integrated in the final exercise.

The methodological proposal of the course states that students should generate their architectural projects based on analysis of place. Such strategy evidences the importance of a clear analysis and the exercises are part of a whole that is developed in a continuous way, encouraging the use of systematic design techniques. This workshop introduces the notions of morphology and typology, seen as design instruments that allow the architect to make a rational intervention in the city, attending simultaneously to factors of use and technical aspects as well as the pre-existing conditions of the place.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  HISTORY, THEORY AREA.

The course questions the different discourses on the idea of the origin of architecture that have structured as collective beliefs in different cultures, as well as the basis from which such discourses are born. In a first chapter, the course is centred around the western idea of architecture’s origin, founded upon two of modernity’s myths: The primitive hut and the noble savage. These ideas – still operative – are nevertheless insufficient to understand the origin and complexity of architecture and more so, become a burden for thinking.

It is necessary to travel backward ask a question prior to the apparition of architecture: Do we know what man is? What is specific about man and humanity? These questions (2^nd module) leads us to broaden the proposal stated at the time by Charles Darwin, as it is useless to ask about the origin of architecture if we ignore the biological and cultural singularities of man. The lectures will be based on recent discoveries in the fields of palaeoanthropology, archaeology and semiotics. We will discover that the fundamental difference between homo sapiens and Neanderthal man are to be found in cave and Palaeolithic art.

These gestures of writing would be the essential particularity of our species. This thesis introduces the third module of the course, where we build the hypothesis of the origin of architecture from these primary artistic manifestations of mankind. For this, symbolic connections will be established with the universe of oral traditions and their possible translation in the contemporary world; an inquiry which will lead us to the structures of cosmological myths, their rituals, the determination of spaces and times of the sacred and profane, up to the construction of architectural forms common to all society (The Tower and the Labyrinth) that force us to think deeply about the concepts of memory and sacrifice.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  HISTORY, THEORY AREA.

The course intends on studying the main ideas that weave the history of western architecture from Antiquity up to the eighteenth century. The course aspires to bring to the ideological and practical present the treatises, lines of thought and debates that are most representative of the different historical moments, paying special attention to the associations, sequences and ruptures between the various discourses and our present.

The idea is to build solid argumentative skills, both oral and written that enable the student to construct and defend his ideas in architecture, both theory and practice. Understanding the dialogue between the architectures of various periods in a shared real and imaginary space. Above all, the course strives to develop a student´s associative and analytical ability in a field complementary to practical exercises.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  HISTORY, THEORY AREA.

The idea of Modernity in this course is studied around the concept of the private dwelling; an area which was most certainly the great field for experimentation and area of greatest need and reflection for architects of the Twentieth Century. The label “Modern Movement in architecture” gathers the series of experiments which in Europe and North America happen in the first three decades of the twentieth century and that are made around the rationalization, standardization and serialization of architecture and which from 30s onward become generalized in the whole world. First called the ‘International Style’ – name given by Hitchcock’s MOMA exhibition of 1931 -, the movement groups a number of tendencies and responses to the world of industrialization and capital. Leonardo Benevolo, the historian which greatly promoted the use of the term, dates its start in 1919 with the creation of the Bauhaus school in Weimar.  Everything before this date must be considered a precedent to the movement: Industrial Revolution, Arts and Crafts Movement and the Avant-Garde.

In the course, the content will not be split into periods, tendencies or characteristics of the movements or people considered part of the Modern Movement. The idea is to develop along with students, the impacts of each architect on this period through chose examples. Lectures will focus specifically on the work of Le Corbusier. The students will on their part study different architects of the twentieth century. The sum of lessons and works of students will allow the discovery of what has erroneously been named “Modern Movement”.

During the formative cycle (semesters 3, 4 and 5) students may choose the order in which they enroll subjects until completing the total number of courses.

• ARQU-2310 Systems of Support + ARQU-2310C Complementary
• ARQU-2320 Systems of Habitation + ARQU-2320C Complementary 
• ARQU-2330 Systems of Construction and Budgeting + ARQU-2330C Complementary

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  TECHNICAL AREA.

The course undertakes the study of technique in architecture regarding the structural systems and the unavoidable link to the architecture Project. The outset and definition of space cannot be separated from its technical responsibility, and from this perspective, structure is presented as the organizing principle that enables the materialization of the project and integrates the elements that conform a building.

The emphasis of this course is centred around the conceptual understanding of architecture as a skill of an analytical and purposeful nature, which this course builds upon. The main aim is to understand the structural system as a fundamental piece of the building and as the organizer of space and giver of architectural form, having the purpose of positing a scheme which guarantees, among others, the security and stability of an edifice. The problem of structure is not exclusive to the engineer, but is also the architect’s responsibility since project decision imply in many ways the choosing of a structural system, a material and a constructive process.

By the end of the course, the student must have the aptitude of suggesting a structural solution, choosing rationally between the elements and basic systems of configuration that allows him to integrate in his architectural proposition, the adequate supports, floor and roofing which guarantee the transmission of loads, rigidity of the structure and resistance in any building. To achieve this, the student is shown basic concepts and is then confronted, during practical sessions, with the resolution of problems.

As basic concepts of idea, dimension and layout of the structural system are grasped, technical thinking becomes a new source of idea and argument and not a straitjacket for architectural thinking and Project developing.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  TECHNICAL AREA.

The course on Systems of Habitation engages the study of the three systems involved in architecture: interior, exterior and mechanical, exposing the general theory of systems that enables de deconstruction of each system into its components and rules of integration. The student acquires the analytical tools necessary to define a project’s materialization in a conscientious and clear way. Capable of understanding and modelling the physical and mechanical behaviour of architectural elements as well as their construction process, understanding that the constructive demands of the project and its materials generate different conditions and qualities of the built space.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  TECHNICAL AREA.

This course is advanced on the recognition of technics as constructive processes as well as the topological procedures integrated into the architectural project. The student will acquire the theoretical, analytical and instrumental skills that enable him to confront the conceptual, material and technical definition of a project, in a conscientious, well-founded and rigorous manner.
Conscientious because the student will be capable of understating and designing architecture out of technical principles tied to constructive reality. Well-founded because the course enables reasoned ideas based on physical and technical principles for the construction of an architectural body. Rigorous because the student is sable to recognize the project as a system of integrative components and processes to be solved technically and topologically.

With the contents of the course based on the principles of conscientiousness, argumentation and rigour, and aided by the learning of technical software and simulators, the Constructive Systems course intends on becoming a group of skills and knowledge that allow the student to recognize, understand and apply the wisdom to the estimation and budgeting of an architectural Project.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  TECHNICAL AREA.

Starting from the definition of technical systems and their components (facades, finishes, structure, etc.) students will evidence the importance of technical definition in architecture and its implications in the creation of form. Additionally, processes for the materializing of de building are studied.

A social housing project of intermediate height and made in a steel structure is suggested to students during the inter-semester period, which includes the full resolution of the project.

FORMATIVE CYCLE COURSE.  CITY AREA.

The courses of the City Area have the intention of teaching students the knowledge and attitude of understanding the city in a wholesome manner, in its own scale and in its relation with the territory in which it is set. Thus, they engage in the historical and theoretical approach to the urban affair, with its representation, analysis and interpretation as well as the responsibility carried by the intervention of it and the reality of facts.

Tthe course approaches the concept of landscape as the structuring element of cities and their metropolitan areas. Additionally, the concept of urban landscape and its components will be studied: ecology, social factor, built environment. The course will approach various scales of analysis and proposals for territory such as metropolitan, urban and local scales. Paying particular attention to the creation of public space.