Dr Katharine Bartsch
Senior Lecturer
School of Architecture and Built Environment
University of Adelaide

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/katharine.bartsch

Katharine will be joined by a number of experienced Studio Leaders in 2016.

Please ensure that you refer to the most recent Course Outline and Learning Activities Summary on MyUni for full details about all lecture and studio activities (dates, times and venues) as well as the field trip.
This will be available on MyUni in mid-February.

As a six point course, Design Studio One is aimed at introducing the basic skills, concepts and approaches essential to understanding and engaging with contemporary architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. The course learning objectives are specifically aligned with the thematic content of the lecture series, the self-directed study (including required reading and journal tasks), the studio exercises and the objectives of the assessable tasks. In pursuing these, the student will gain the following knowledge and skills:


1. The students will develop comprehension skills in ‘reading’ a landscape and other urban open spaces.

2. The student will develop understanding of natural, social and cultural systems and how design can impact, interact and
improve environments.

3. The student will be able to appreciate context — macro and micro — in the development of a design response.

4. The student will be able to communicate and represent design strategies according to disciplinary conventions.

5. The student will develop abilities in deriving form from verbally stated requirements (a brief).

6. The student will be introduced to the studio environment and, in turn, develop their inter-personal skills, verbal
communication skills and critical thinking.

7. The student will be able to communicate critical design thinking through appropriate modes of representation; drawings,
models and graphics.

8. The student will be able to explore creative processes and idea generation.

9. The student will develop a sense of scale and proportion.

 
The knowledge and skills acquired in this course provide a fundamental basis for your understanding of architecture, landscapes and cities. This knowledge and the related skills constitute a seminal part of your design education in the Bachelor of Architectural Design. The skills acquired are the foundation stones of your future career as a designer.

 

1. Ching, Francis D.K. Architecture: Form, Space and Order. Fourth Edition. Wiley, 2014.

This key reference is updated with contemporary examples and interactive 3D models.
View http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118745086.html
It is available at Unibooks and several copies are available for loan in the Barr Smith Library.


2. Waterman, Tim. The Fundamentals of Landscape Architecture. Second Edition. Bloomsbury, 2015.

This new text is available from Unibooks and other vendors.


3. Ching, Francis D.K. Architectural Graphics. Sixth Edition. Wiley, 2015.

View http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119073383.html


4. A4 Visual Diary, unlined, spiral bound  (eg. Winsor and Newton, available from Officeworks)

Detailed information about further resources will be available on MyUni.

This includes a detailed bibliography of relevant sources that will continue to inform your studies.

The top 5 for Design Studio I (and future courses) include:

Ching, Francis. Design Drawing. Wiley, 2010.

Dee, Catherine. Form and Fabric in Landscape Architecture: A Visual Introduction. Taylor and Francis, 2001.

Frederick, Matthew. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School. MIT Press, 2007.

Littlefield, David and Pamela Buxton. Metric Handbook: Planning and Design Data. Routledge, 2012.

Radford, Antony, Amit Srivastava and Selen Morkoç. The Elements of Modern Architecture: Understanding Contemporary Buildings. Thames and Hudson, 2014.

 
Academic Support
Consult “The Writing Centre” for on-line resources re: essay writing guides, study guides, referencing. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/.

Face-to-Face writing support is also available from Hub Central, Level 3. The Writing Centre provides academic learning and language support and resources for local, international, undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students enrolled at the University of Adelaide.

The Writing Centre offers practical advice and strategies for students to master reading, writing, note-taking, and referencing techniques for success at university. Please note, the drop-in service is not an editing or grammar checking service but the Centre can help you develop your written English.

No appointment is necessary. For greater assistance, please bring your course guide, assignment question, comments from your lecturers/tutors, and drafts of your writing.
 

Speaker Series
The School has a fortnightly lecture series where respected practitioners and academics from the field deliver a public lecture on contemporary practice in architecture and landscape architecture. In order to expand your knowledge of contemporary directions in design it is recommended that you attend these sessions. The exact detail of dates and speakers is available from the School website and the Front Office.

University Email
The school uses the University email system to get in touch with the students. So it is imperative that you check your email regularly and keep up to date with any new announcements.

MyUni
In addition to the above resources, further assignment resources are available on MyUni. These may include further reading material for the lectures and studios, reading material that will assist with the preparation of assignments and appropriate links to assist students with academic writing including essay writing as required.

MyUni is an essential online tool which will be used to communicate information regarding the course including details of assignments and interim grades. There are many other learning resources and assessment pieces that rely on the MyUni system for delivery. Therefore it is recommended that you familiarise yourself with the various functions of MyUni and employ it to its fullest extent. https://myuni.adelaide.edu.au

Discussion Board
The MyUni Discussion Board can be used to interact with other students and is an essential tool to discuss information and increase your understanding of issues.

Lecture Recording
In certain cases the recording of the lectures is made available in electronic format for students to listen through on their own time and make notes, and is provided through the MyUni system. However, this service may not include guest lectures. Furthermore, where the presentation content is subject to copyright or the guest speaker is uncomfortable with the recording of the content, the lecture recording will not be made available online. So students should not rely solely on this mode of learning and arrange to attend or get lecture content from peers.

Noticeboard / Handbook
General information about the activities at the School is available online from the Student Noticeboard which can be accessed
at  https://unified.adelaide.edu.au/group/professons-studentarchitecture/
current-student


Students can also access a copy of the Student Handbook at the following link:
https://unified.adelaide.edu.au/group/professons-student-architecture/enrolments

Design Studio I  focuses on student-centred learning and teaching. In “What the Student Does: Teaching for Enhanced Learning” Biggs (1999) advocates a systemic approach which takes into account all aspects of the teaching context—course objectives, teaching and learning activities and the assessment tasks—as a strategy to move away from passive, uni-directional,
teacher-to student transmission of knowledge. This is the aim of the teaching and learning mode of Design Studio I.
Importantly, Biggs stresses the need to embed the course objectives in the assignment tasks. Thus, formative and summative assessment tasks are designed to engage students in activities which will develop their knowledge and skills which are aligned with the course objectives.

The knowledge base begins with the lectures and the required reading material. However, these are intended as a point of inspiration and a starting point for students’ independent learning which is demonstrated in the assessable work. They are not intended as a comprehensive, finite review of the content.

Knowledge, skills, and assessable work are carefully integrated to achieve the intended holistic approach to learning and teaching. Moreover, according to Biggs, assessment must generate higher level cognitive learning activities, specifically, theorising, applying, relating, understanding or explaining distinguished from describing, note-taking or memorising. Student-focused learning strategies, embedded in the assessable work, are essential to bring about higher level cognitive learning.

Biggs, J. (1999). “What the Student Does: Teaching for Enhanced Learning.” Higher Education Research and Development Journal, 18 (1): 57-78.

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements. The University expects full-time students (ie. those taking 12 units per semester) to devote at least 48 hours per week to their studies. Accordingly, students undertaking this 6 unit course are expected to devote 24 hours per week to contact activities and self-guided studies.

Based on this framework here are some figures that might assist workload management:

Total workload hours:       
24 hrs per week x 13 weeks = 312 hrs

Total contact hours:                
6 hrs per week x 12 weeks = 72 hrs

Total self-guided study:                           
312 hrs – 72 hrs = 240 hrs

Please organise your time wisely.

 
Assignment #                   Task                                        Weighting             Approx. self-guided ‘study’

Assignment 1                    Shelter                                        30%                                       83

Assignment 2                    Campus Furniture                       25%                                       62

Assignment 3                    Garden Festival                          35%                                       95

                                          Participation                               10%

Details of all activities will be available in the Course Outline on MyUni in mid February 2016.
See pages 7-8 especially.

The Week 2 Field Trip to Glenthorne Farm is compulsory. The date is Thursday 10th March (Depart campus at 9.00am and return by
approximately 1pm). This site is private property and it cannot be accessed at any other time. The site is the ‘ground’ for both Assignments 1 and 3. All details about the site visit will be available on MyUni.

If you choose to visit other specific sites (buildings and landscapes) on campus or around Adelaide, ensure that you exercise respect for the owners and patrons, obtain permission to enter the building if required, and observe an appropriate duty of care during your visit. Failure to attend teaching due to medical, compassionate or extenuating circumstances is dealt with the School Policy, administered by the School Office. Submit the appropriate application for supplementary consideration together with the original
signed medical or other relevant officer, to the School Office. If you foresee a problem contact the Course Coordinator BEFORE the problem actually occurs. Otherwise, contact the Course Coordinator as soon as possible and submit the appropriate application for supplementary consideration to the School Office. 

Assignment 2 requires students to collaborate in small groups (of approximately 5-6 students). Students will be required to undertake research of contemporary design precedents and relevant anthropometric data, to conduct relevant in-situ analysis and testing on campus, and to generate a design for an item of campus furniture. Together, students are required to make a model of the furniture. The entire design and research process will be captured in a photographic/visual essay.

The union of teaching and research, combined in a search for impartial truth, was fundamental to the modern research university ideal. A small group of students, meeting to work at the discovery of new knowledge under expert guidance, was the centrepiece of the university experience. Yet in Australian and UK universities from the 1980s, with the massive growth of university
enrolments and the addition of many applied disciplines, research became increasingly detached from teaching, and a division was created that has widened ever since. Today despite oppressive research pressures on staff, research is almost wholly absent from Australian undergraduate teaching.

The University of Adelaide promotes small group discovery and aims to become a model of the teaching/research union, to show how universities can recapture what was once the defining characteristic of the research university. This does not mean merely inviting students to study an individual topic in depth, with initiative and creativity. In a true research university, the study of existing knowledge is secondary to the making of new knowledge. Moving away from knowledge delivery, now increasingly eroded by the universal availability of free online content, a university should focus on the essence of what research offers: the rigour of the scientific method, the search for empirical evidence, the beauty of logic and of patterns, the value of innovation, the creativity of problem solving and the intrinsic worth of knowledge. The University of Adelaide will return research to undergraduate teaching, so that every student in every program comes to experience the scholarship of discovery as the highlight of their learning experience.

For many undergraduate students, this will take the form of an individual research project in their final year, for which the preparatory research skills and experience necessary will be built through smaller exercises in the earlier years of their course. As a key format for delivering undergraduate research, the university will commit to increasing the centrality of small-group learning, in which students address the scholarship of discovery with other students and a staff mentor. While content will increasingly be delivered in other formats, every student in every program should experience such small-group discovery as a key part of their learning experience.

Assignment 1                    Shelter                                      30%                  Week 5                   

Assignment 2                    Campus Furniture                     25%                  Week 8                  

Assignment 3                    Garden Festival                         35%                  Week 13                   

                                         Participation                              10%                  Accumulative

Refer to the Course Outline on MyUni for specific dates and details (available mid-February).

Students are expected to attend all lectures and studios. Class rolls will be maintained to monitor attendance. Membership of studios is to be finalised by the end of the first week of semester 1. Students wishing to swap between studios after this time are required to present their case to the coordinator (Katharine Bartsch), but should be aware that such a request may not be approved. It is important to maintain a good staff to student ratio.

There are well publicised School policies for registering non-attendance for legitimate reasons, and you are strongly encouraged to formally acknowledge non-attendance reasons as soon as is practicable prior to planned absences or after your non-planned absence. The Medical and Counselling services, as well as the Education and Welfare Office of the University, are available to assist you free of charge in regard to medical or counselling matters.

Students are required to attend all scheduled teaching; and lectures, tutorials and other classes will proceed on the assumption that students have done so. Attendance at tutorials, seminars, practical work and studio sessions is taken into account in decisions about offering Replacement/Additional Assessment and/or examinations.   Students who regularly do not attend sessions and do not carry out the associated work may be precluded from and regarded as having failed the course. Students should take advantage of the educational opportunities offered by all classes, including the opportunity for interaction, and learning from each other. Compulsory attendance is necessary at all practical work sessions for a number of reasons: to achieve this interaction, in particular in group work;
because of the sequential nature of work in some courses; because of the need for students to provide an audience and feedback for other students presenting work; and to ensure the authorship of project work on which assessment is based.

All details about the individual assignments including an overview of each assessment task, the task type (e.g. summative, formative), due date, weighting, and identification of the learning objectives addressed by the assessment task are provided on MyUni.

Final results for the course will only be available through Access Adelaide and students SHOULD NOT contact the course coordinator or the tutors for the same.
 
Most assignments will be marked within 3 weeks of the submission and the interim grades will be made available through the My Grades system. Students are expected to inform the Course Coordinator if there are any errors with the marks entered on the system. The best examples of students’ work will be included in the All-In Exhibition to be held at the end of term alongside the best works from other courses and year levels.

All details about the assignment submissions will be provided on MyUni.