This module is part of four design modules open to first year BSc Architecture students.

The main intention of the Year 1 Design Projects is to explore ‘ways of seeing’ – understanding and interpreting objects, events and places and learning to look beyond the visible into the unseen and ‘absurd’ qualities of things. In this way, a place can also be seen as something with its own identity which each student can personally interpret. The importance of ‘character’ and personality is emphasised throughout the design process, whether it concerns analysis, site interpretation or architectural vision. A range of recording techniques are used as a way of clarifying the subject rather than using these techniques as purely formal graphic representation. Through being aware of the possibilities and limitations of various techniques, each student learns to express – and then develop critically and appropriately, through their own intuition – an idea for an architectural proposition.

Inventiveness and imagination are cultivated through a series of design projects which are constructed and represented through models or drawings and which tackle a range of architectural scales and spatial experiences. In addition, a series of lectures and workshops on ‘architectural media’provides students with a wide range of skills to undertake investigations and representations of architecture as part of their course submission.

In the first projects of Year 1, each student is asked to undertake a series of personal investigations of objects and places, a group installation and a carefully surveyed section through an existing building/space. Initial observations are explored, investigated and documented through a series of techniques – sketching, drawing, photographing, slicing, disassembling etc.The historical and social context of the findings have to be presented alongside the initial observations and investigations. Each project should be unique and a personal reading is essential. Students must demonstrate that they are developing a personal way of working. Students are advised to take risks and to try out new techniques of exploration and documentation. The installation has to be documented individually in the portfolio. Within their submission, each student should describe their own role, personal ideas, and fabrication responsibilities throughout the development of the installation project.