2º Semester Assignment, Unit V&F

UCJC Arquitectura 2012-2013 (2 semester)

V&F Design Unit

Professors: Diego Fullaondo Buigas de Dalmau

            Joaquín López Vaamonde

Unidad V&F:

Reloading m³

“Suburban Built Equipment by the River (Villafranca del Castillo)”

In our V&F Unit this second semester of academic year 2012-2013 we are going to continue the Research by Design proposal called “Reloading m3”. We suggest that new students in the Unit quickly read the previous entries of this blog, particularly those at the beginning of first semester where we stated the general aims and goals of the program.

This new period is going to introduce two main changes in our Unit Global Strategy:

-          We’ve selected a new and single site as case study problem where all students will have to work during the whole semester. Therefore we eliminate the initial “short exercise” and we’ll concentrate all our efforts in a single proposal.

-          We’ll propose a new collaborative work methodology for the Unit to encourage all students to thoroughly develop their team work skills, with is definitely likely to be the most usual and positive environment where they’ll work in the future.

The SITE:

For this second semester we have chosen a MEDIUM SCALE architectural-zombie that is really close to our University Campus:

Equipment building by the north entrance of Villafranca del Castillo.

It’s an uncompleted structure, approximately a hundred meters long and forty meters wide with three floors with no particular architectural values at all. The construction of the building stopped a few years ago due to various causes which we shall have to precise. The result of this unsuccessful development is the presence of a big structure, standing completely a ruined and in quite dangerous physical conditions just by the entrance of a high standing suburban built environment.

We have chosen this new site for the following reasons:

-          PROXIMITY: It will allow us a deep knowledge of its physical conditions which we came to understand on site.

-          MEDIUM SCALE: The size of the proposal we are about to start will cover a wide range of scales, from site understanding to interior design.

-          LACK OF ARCHITECTURAL INTEREST: The original building designed for only partially completed, has no architectural interest at all. It’s extraordinary simple. So it is absolutely obvious that an intense reconfiguration of its physical characteristics will be needed in whatever proposal of use.

-          UNCOMPLETED: As it is not finished, on one had it is possible to actually see the constructive processes and systems used by the initial designers, and, on the other, we are obligated to complete/correct most of what’s been done.

The METHODOLOGY:

This semester our unit will concentrate its efforts in practicing and developing students’ abilities and skills inside a TEAM ENVIRONMENT. Instead of proposing a more traditional design unit methodology where each student toughly works alone in his/her single proposal from the beginning to the end of the term, form initial sketches to final presentations, we want to practise TEAM work in all the different stages of the development of an architectural project.

The autistic myth of the architect as an autonomous creator who is able to invent and complete great intuitions perhaps (I personally doubt it) had some sense a few decades ago. But it’s certainly impossible nowadays. Even the tiniest office of architecture faces the most modest and simple commission, using an adequate group of people and means for the task, working together and multiplying the benefits of their collaboration. The enormous complexity of the context where Architecture resides on, makes unavoidable the fact that its completion requires team work. Nevertheless, many academic assignments continue concentrating in developing only students individual skills.

For these reason our whole Unit, students and lecturers, is going to work this semester as if we were an Architectural Office that’s received a new commission. Students will be part of a large team with a problem to solve and a proposal to make. Along a single global design process, every student will have to assume different tasks and comfortably move from one to another when required. He/She will have to participate in discussions, propose alternatives, criticise ideas and make decisions, trying to conclude the best for the team, even if that means abandoning his/her own ideas and assuming others.

Therefore the Unit will focus more intensely on processes than in results. We will concentrate on the quality of partial documents more than in global coherence. We expect active participation of each team member and expert responses on specific issues that appear during design process. And, of course, students will have to learn to identify and recognise strength, creativity and new possibilities inside the most valuable ideas of each others work, and to negotiate the most adequate way to construct a global proposal which includes the most significant of them.   

The ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:

We have usually outlined the following aspects of student’s proposals as the ones that configure the assessment of their work:

- Rigor and precision through out all proposals’ development.

- Proposals’ creativity and innovation.

- Proposals’ adaptability to different situations.

- Technological viability and development.

- Communication and graphic general quality of proposal’s presentation.

These five aspects will certainly be assessed during this semester. But, due the Team Methodology we are going to use, we will apply these concepts to EACH STEP of the long process the whole Unit will develop, instead of referring them to the final design of each student. We will assess against these five criteria each of the single documents each student is able to construct along the procedure. Therefore we recommend a continuous and special care in all partial presentations and tasks during the semester.

Finally, there are some other aspects directly related specifically to skills and abilities required by an architect in a Team Work Environment that will also be assessed:

-          Attendance to team sessions (class)

-          Active participation in discussions

-          Uploading of new ideas or alternatives to de discussed

-          Critic and Self-critical capacity

-          Expert knowledge and Specialisation

-          Adaptability to new design requirements

-          Assumption of individual responsibilities

-          Leadership in design process when required

-          Negotiation and Integration Design Capacity

Madrid 4 february 2013