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About the programme
At Spatial Design, we focus on the complex relationship between people, context, and building.
The students employ anthropological methods to understand past and present spatial practices so that they can design built environments that can accommodate future needs. By taking a point of departure in the human scale and diverse bodily perceptions, the students engage with urgent agendas, such as spatial inclusion and the transition to more sufficient dwelling practices.
At Spatial Design we understand context as an ongoing negotiation of spatial agencies that make places, informing how they have been, currently are, and could be used in the future. We are also interested in the spatial conditions that arise between interiority and exteriority, which we view as relational rather than a binary opposition.
The students engage with the making of built environments through hands-on experiementation at 1:1 scale, exploring novel materials, tectonic approaches and detailing. Time is spent between the studio and the workshops, encouraging the students to think through making as an active part of the design process.
The climate crisis demands that we investigate more sustainable building practices and at Spatial Design we explore innovative spatial and material approaches that carefully consider our resource consumption. The students are also encouraged to engage with the often overlooked social dimensions of sustainability.
Structure
Structure
The programme is organized over four semesters entitled, “Context”, “Production”, “Practice”, and the final “Thesis”. While the first year is focused on establishing common working methods, the second year is focused on positioning and specialisation within the field of Spatial Design:
Semester 1: “Context”
In the first semester, we focus on analysing, and conceptualising spatial situations within a site-specific and theme-specific context. Through collaboration with external partners the students engage with a multitude of contextual layers present at a specific site, including the spatial, the material, the cultural, the anthropological, the social, the historical, the ecological, the political, to name but a few. This holistic understanding of a specific site will inform the development of a spatial design proposition that responds to the given site’s contextual layers.
Semester 2: “Production”
In the second semester, the students develop a spatial design proposition through full scale engagement, exploring the relation between the production of spaces and material practices within a given context and its stakeholders. The students investigate the role materials play in the production of space through careful consideration of the relationship between craftsmanship and industrial production, as well as historical references and technological advancements.
Semester 3: “Practice”
In the third semester the students develop their own theoretical positioning through a written assignment (10 ECTS) and a project programme that forms the point of departure for their studio project (20 ECTS). Over the course of the semester, the students explore current paradigms and ‘state of the art’, in both theory and practice within the field of Spatial Design. Through an engagement with contemporary discourses related to Spatial Design practice, the students position themselves within the professional field. This also involves identifying a topic to explore through an architectural/design project, as well as relevant stakeholders.
Semester 4: “Thesis”
In the fourth semester, the students develop their own thesis project based upon the methods and leaning outcomes from the previous semesters.
Courses
Courses
All students have a desk of their own in the studio space and are encouraged to work there full-time. The students are involved in a variety of teaching activities over the two years including studio tutorials, common crits, lectures, seminars, excursions, site visits and workshops. During the third semester a theoretical assignment (10 ECTS) is undertaken in tandem with the semester brief (20 ECTS).
Design Studio Teaching involves, individual and group supervision focused on the student’s specific assignments over the course of the semester. Method Courses (3/4 weeks) occur once a semester, during the first, second, and third semesters, and are used to provide the students with specific working methods related to Mapping, Making & Positioning. Theory Seminars (1.5 days) occur twice a semester during the first year of the MA, with the content being defined in relation to the overriding theme for the academic year and in collaboration with research centres / clusters. Shared readings are supplemented with lectures from researchers and experts (internal & external).
Design Mediation Workshops (2/3 days) occur once a semester, over the full course of the two year MA programme, and are focused on rapid ideation with a specific medium (1:20 axonometric drawing, 1:1 full scale, inhabited perspective, etc). Each workshop concludes with a symposium centred upon peer-to-peer mediation.
Study Trips (3 – 10 days) occur twice during the first year of the Masters’ programme, with one being Nordic based and one being EU/International.
Instruction includes courses related to facilities on campus, including, the wood workshop, the metal workshop, Rhino 3D course, as well as a Career Workshop for the design track students.
Language
Language
The programme is taught in English.