MSc2 Public Building Design Studio Multiplicity and Identity

In envisioning radical solutions for the public domain, the MSc.2 Public Building Design Studio investigates the emergence of new building typologies as a response to the urgent problems that many cities face nowadays: climate change, environmental pollution, spatial segregation, invasive privatization, etc. More specifically, the Studio focuses on architecture's ability to resist shocks and adapt to future changes. In other words, the Studio tackles resilience as a tool as well as a design goal.

Emphasis will be placed on hybrid complexes where different functions and users coexist, embedded with a wide range of spatial articulations, including living, working, leisure and culture. Topics such as climate-adaptability, design for disassembly, and flexibility will be explored. The Studio adopts multiplicity as crucial property of architecture and its elements. Multiplicity endows built environment with more conducive, transformative, and resilient qualities: it provides conceptual tools for creating new places, buildings, and building elements; reinvents conventions, and questions the present toward the future.

Each year, the Studio is set in a different city, exploring the unique site conditions as a foundation for innovative architectural proposals that act as a catalyst for new urban dynamics.

Assessment of the student's work will be based on the following:

1. Oral presentation;

2. Design output: drawings and images, compiled in presentation posters, physical model(s), material samples, etc.;

3. Written statements and analyses.

The design proposal is individual.

The assessment process implies:

• in-class participation on a weekly base with public discussion of in-between results;

• Midterm and Final Reviews.

The final grade reflects:

• Critical analysis and the urban context (25%)

• Design quality of the final proposal (50%)

• Teamwork, Booklet, and presentations (25%)

Repair regulations 

A sufficient result is achieved by the student with a result from 6 to 10. 

The student has the possibility to take a repair 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. Mentors record on which criteria/parts the result was unsatisfactory; the student needs to address these comments and hand-in the repair within 10 days after the final presentation.