NIGK19000U Urban Intervention Studio

The course gives the students insight into and experience of how small scale interventions can act as agents of change in areas in transition, and how art, architecture and landscape can provide a site-specific response to place and program.

Students will explore various tools and media for engaging with a local context, identifying spatial qualities and deepening site understanding.

Students will apply a variety of design tools and methods developing their strategic design approach and their design interventions from mapping, drawing, model making and building.

Students will engage in group work exploring how different competences and skills combined can strengthen collaborative project work.

Students will develop their abilities to translate and conceptualize spatial insights into designs interventions focusing on aesthetic qualities and how interventions can affect site.  

Students explore how an iterative design process of prototyping can be an effective method for testing potential design solutions.

Students will be in contact with citizens, municipalities, sponsors etc. and thus train skills of communicating and interacting with local stakeholders.

Through fieldtrips, students will be exposed to relevant projects and cases that can fuel course discussions and provide context and references for their own design interventions.

Students will practice communicating concepts, ideas and designs through graphic representations, 1:1 mock-ups, text and oral presentations to fellow students, supervisors and local stakeholders.

Students will engage in peer to peer feed back, theoretical discussions and ongoing group reflections around course themes.

Students will apply a strategic design approach to the case area, synthesizing, mapping and drawing future development scenarios.

Students will explore 1:1 design solutions and engage in building activities strengthening capacity for planning, designing and executing a full-scale design intervention.  

Students will read and discuss literature on e.g. urban transformation and design approaches with the aim to actively use theory to discuss and reflect on site and project.   

Knowledge:
Students will get insights into various ways of approaching and intervening in sites in transformation through design strategies, cultural innovation and temporary interventions.

Students will gain knowledge of the potentials and conflicts that exists around integrating temporary projects as part of long term planning strategies.

Students will gain insight into the interrelation between spatial appearances and the underlying site policies and agendas.

Skills:
Identify potentials and qualities in transforming urban landscapes through spatial site analysis and stakeholder interaction.
Translate findings into architectural and strategic concepts for short term and long term interventions.
Work independently with concept development, material and design exploration and construction of small scale architectural installations
Develop and draw wider design strategies for areas in transition
Collaborate with student colleagues as well as local actors

Competences:
Translate empirical experiences into theoretical reflections – and reverse
Work conceptually with artistically founded site specific architectural interventions and prototypes in combination with other representational modes of the discipline

Draw and map design interventions into the context of wider area development strategies
Design and build installations in full scale incorporating design decisions and process management
Interact and collaborate in a complex setting of students, teachers and often a wide range of external stakeholders

Examination will be an assessment of project report and assignments produced and handed in throughout the course and the oral presentation of these. Evaluation is based on the analytical, conceptual and aesthetic qualities of the students’ collective work, which includes assessment of the coherency in both the process and the final project and proposal. Criteria are based on the specific content and annual theme of the course as well as the overall aim of the course.