Interiors, Buildings and Cities MSc 1 Design Project

Interiors Buildings Cities

Interiors Buildings Cities focuses on buildings and interiors that accommodate the different scales and gradations of public life within the city, from the street to the public interior. It addresses how people within or affected by the scenes made by architecture can be situated in relation to place and conditions, time and the historical moment, and social and material culture.

Thinking beyond individual students and courses, Interiors Buildings Cities considers its educational programme as a collective and reflective space of study and discourse: an attitude that is intended to encompass the work of both students and staff. Interiors Buildings Cities engages in common questions concerning the city and its territories, public space, the public interior, questions of interiority, and relations within the social and physical fabric of the city. It does so with the well-being of the entire environment shared by people and other living beings as a central concern.

MSc1 House

The House of the MSc1 project is neither the representative monument of collective public life, nor is it the private house of an individual. Instead, it suggests and considers those buildings that stand between; intimate figures, which both inform and are informed by the physical and social fabric of their immediate locality.

Such buildings are carefully wrought and spatially rich, both generous and adaptable, yet they also embody a degree of typicality and a measure of the material culture of their place. Their interiors host the rooms and spaces that structure and draw a community into consciousness of and in dialogue with itself.

Through a process of iterative drawing and large-scale modelling, supported by lectures and workshops, students will resolve the design and technical integration of such a building and its principal interior spaces, considering it as a figure set within the immediate context a carefully documented urban setting.

The product to be assessed is the final design proposal, which is the result of an iterative design process and is represented by model photos, drawings, a written description and the project journal (process document).

The assessment criteria are:

• Coherence and Significance: Within the context of the project and the design task, there is a meaningful theme, which gives direction to and is recognisable in the concrete design. The various relevant aspects and scale levels (domains) form a coherent whole.

• Correctness and Elaboration: The design is based on relevant knowledge, which has been properly applied. The relevant aspects and scale levels are elaborated.

• Presentation: The design, the themes and the research are documented, visualised and argued in an insightful way, using appropriate means.

• Study: Within the context of the project, the design task and the theme. Relevant aspects have been analysed and relevant questions formulated and researched. Experiments have been conducted: various ideas and variants were explored and evaluated at the relevant scale levels.

Each student receives an individual grade.  All assessment criteria contribute to the final grade in an equal share. The contribution to the collective part of the project from are considered under the assessment criterion of ‘Study’, with a share of 50% of that aspect.

The assessment is carried out by at least two tutors (4-eyes principle). The final responsibility has the coordinators of the course.

The design project is awarded a grade that is a whole or half number between 1.0 and 10.0. Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a grade below 6.0: students who presented assessable work during the course are allowed to do a repair to change the grade into a ‘pass’. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again.

Student work may be used for educational purposes, and students must self-notify the coordinator/ lecturer of the course if they do not wish to give permission to do so.