Writings in Architecture

ARCH-3017 – Writings in Architecture – Winter 2020
Writings in Architecture is a vehicle to explore key 19th, 20th, and 21st century theories in architecture. At times, the theories are written by architects themselves, although much of the time the works of architecture stand on their own while architecture critics acting as historians, place the work into a larger theoretical context. A crucial component of this course then will be to explore architectural theory as design as part of contemporary, social, cultural and/or political texts will also be explored and analysed. These ideas and theories will be discussed in a seminar format to foster in-depth examinations of each primary text. The goal is to understand and position the primary texts in relation to established course in architectural theory.

Course taught by Shannon Bassett.

ASG-2 - Portfolio Project Descriptions and Manifestoes

Students were charged with writing a series of project descriptions of three of their Architectural Design Studio project to date. These were to be abstracts of 500 words each in length. Students were given a framework for writing, and asked to, in addition to contextualizing their own design work through writing, to weave all of the projects together in their own design manifesto. Further, they were asked to speculate through writing on how these projects contribute to the larger contemporary architectural discourse on such global issues and concerns, including sustainability, resiliency, designing communities in the North, and within the context of the Anthropocene, climate change, social justice, etc…