Territory and Architecture: Interpretations and Interactions

The first part of the course develops the students’ skills to interpret urban and territorial situations, to understand what is the purpose of architecture in this understanding of places. It is made of eleven lessons organized according to four thematics: measures (places and links, built material, geometry and patterns); soil (nature, divisions, bases); boundaries (figures, edges, interfaces); time (memory, rythms). The second part deals with critical notions closer from the transformation process of territories. We’ll display the dynamics and interactions of urban processes. This part consists of four thematics, split into three chapters: balance (durations, hybrid phenomenons, habitat); ressource (geography, materials, reconquest); strategy (representation, scale of impact, process modes); paradoxes (ideality and contingencies).

The goals of the lessons are as follows: 1- Exploring some of the main territorial topics connected with architectural design; 2- Developing awareness, based on precise architectural references, that architecture goes far beyond the limit of the building, including infrastructure, landscape, soil, public spaces...; 3- Providing both theoretical references (texts and concepts), analytical capacity of territorial resources and more tools directly at stake in architectural design. 

In presence

85% Lectures
15% Practice

Written during examination