Studio

URBAN DESIGN | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

About the studio + Learning Objectives

Studio Urban Design | Landscape Architecture focuses on the professional fields of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture and its goal is to educate architects with specific compe-tences within these fields. The students will spend most of their time developing a semester project which takes departure in actual development problems (both Danish and internation-al) and thus the approach of the studio is closely related to the professional practice of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture. The studio always works together with the practicing architects from leading design-firms within Urban Design and Landscape Architecture through lectures, visiting critics, mentors etc. What differs from a strictly professions-oriented educational approach is that an impor-tant part of the goal of the studies is that the students will be encouraged and trained to develop their own architectural ‘project’ training them to become architects with an inde-pendent and critical attitude towards the practice of architecture. The specific content and focus of the individual projects are not given, but are developed by the students in dialogue with the supervisors. The studio focusses on teaching the students the ability to work on a project from analysis over concept to design. There is a focus on actual design-competences and the studies are project-oriented. The development of design-com-petences is trained through desktop supervision and specific dialogue around the solution investigated by the students themselves.

The Theme of the Academic Year 2015 / 2016: MOBILITY

Mobility is a key component in Urban and Landscape Planning anchored in an overall discus-sion of Urban Flows and Nodes Building on the previous semester in spring 2015, where the Studio addressed Aarhus Air-port, we continue in the two upcoming semesters to address urban and landscape spaces linked with infrastructural corridors and intersections. In the fall semester 2015, the main themes revolves around the The Aarhus Light Rail Project, and in the spring semester 2016, the main theme is Bicycles and Shared Cars in the North Harbour of Copenhagen. Taken to-gether, the three consecutive semesters form a trilogy on urban mobility and infrastructure.

In relation to the themes of the two upcoming semesters, it is central that the students both study and understand the strategic aspects coupled to the large urban infrastructural in-vestments; from the regional and municipal perspective, but also at local scale in terms of programming and design of individual intersections. As such, the students need to take into account multiple levels of scales.A fixed requirement in both semesters and anchored in a broad sustainability perspective, the students must consider and integrate a densification process concerning selected stations/intersections. It is important to emphasize that ‘density’ is a multifaceted concept relating to various parameters such as: the plot ratio, the greenery/biodiversity, the social mix, the diversity of functions and programmes, and the density of experiences/attractions. These densification parameters should be integrated in a broad and dynamic sense, which demands of the students a development of different scenarios of densification. The course introduce students to a municipal planning- and urban design practice. The fall-term assignment and the students’ work are done in dialogue with the Aarhus which is cur-rently in the process of planning and discussing light rail and its urban space. The interaction with an actual planning and design process is another important part of the learning perspec-tive of the semester. In the spring semester the students again deal with an ongoing planning effort in the Northern harbour, and through our collaborators, which are the architects plan-ning and designing, the students again will get an insight into planning practices.SubthemesThe themes of the assignments of the academic year, is as a point of departure linked to a Danish and western urban culture. Within this they represent a relatively broad introduction to the subject urban space.

The themes are:

New coherent urban landscape structuresMobility and urban space

Collectivity, the social and urban spaceSafe, robust and accessible urban space

Sustainable urban spaceTemporary vs. Permanent urban space

Silent urban spaceFrom infrastructure to urban space

Transformation

Parking

Studio

URBAN DESIGN | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Phase 2: Site Exploration + Input from Berlin (week 40-41)

The second phase of the semester introduces students to the mobility of the metropolis as a reference. Berlin is visited (mandatory) and the students are asked to study particularly interesting and complex urban spaces around stations. The studies must explain concrete materials, spatial transitions, acoustics, flow, how the station appears aesthetically and how it affects behavior and the use of space. Notations and material from Berlin is embedded in the Aarhus context. Notations and registration methods will be linked to Critical Written Reflec-tion course.

Phase 3: Programming of selected key Nodes in Aarhus (week 43-45)

The group of supervisors will select a number of stations which students are asked to work on. In a two-week phase of the project, the students are asked to develop and process a concept that includes basic architectural principles, structure, typology, and programming. The focus is on a concept with a clear architectural vision behind.

Phase 4: Workshop, Multicultural suburban space (week 46-47)

The workshop is a continuation of the DemokraCity process that ran on AAA last year. One of the results of the work with the user-driven processes in the DemokraCity project was the identification of a lack of a central urban space in Tilst that is useful for many different user groups with many different cultural backgrounds. The conception and design of such a space is what the workshop revolves around. The workshop retains focus on urban space, but leav-ing the light rail issue. Tilst is in many ways a typical suburb, and an example of an urban area that does not get new development opportunities through infrastructure investments as opposed to the urban spaces that we otherwise work with the semester assignment. With Jes Vagnby as teaching companion and coordinator the workshop contains introduction to the method of user involvement.

Teaching goalsIt is intended that the students through project work, lectures and exercises acquire: - knowledge of urban design and landscape architecture both as an academic fields and areas of professional practice. The students acquire knowledge about how ur-ban design and landscape architecture is defined and understood internation-ally, the main paradigms that have characterized the field, the current practice in Den-mark as well as ongoing projects and their related issues. - skills in urban analysis, preparation and presentation of landscape architecture and urban design projects and analyzes the use of Danish and international terminology in the field, using relevant IT tools. - concrete design skills which spans in scale span from 1:50 to 1:1000 as well as the project presentation techniques and communication related to this scale field. - skills in concept and design development LanguageThe language is both Danish and English. The curriculum will be avail-able in English and the majority but not all of the presentations that will be held will be in English. All assignments are presented in English. The students can choose whether they want to discuss and present their work in Danish or English.

TeachersSupervisors in the fall semester are Birthe Urup Nygaard, Tom Nielsen and Jens Christian Pasgaard.

Subthemes

Fall semester 2015Phase 1: The Overall Light Rail Strategy (week

38-39)In collaboration with the municipality of Aarhus background knowledge of the light rail pro-ject is built. There will be a focus on the overall strategic thinking, practical traffic challenges as well as studying the individual location of stations and their future importance in Aarhus. The students divided into small groups and given the task to make selected mappings and selected sections through the city. A ‘catalogue’ for a series of particularly interesting stops is developed. The intention is that the students begin to modify or add layers to the existing

light rail strategy.

Studio

URBAN DESIGN | LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Springsemester 2016Focus will be on integrating urban infrastructural systems in a dense new urban develop-ment. The semester project departs form the challenge of integrating shared electric cars and bicycles into the urban space of the Northern harbour of CopenhagenThe semester includes study trips to Copenhagen and to Barcelona.Students will be introduced to the urban spaces of CopenhagenThe Northern harbour is currently planned and developed by the architects SLETH and COBE. We will collaborate with them om the Design Realisation

The design realisation target a discussion of dynamic 3D-local planning.

Phase 5: Design Proposal and Finalisation (week 46-47)

In this last phase, the focus is to complete a final design proposal for an urban space in the planned light rail network of Aarhus. The proposal must reflect the entire semester span from the strategic angle to the concrete design. The aim is that the material is presented down to a detail of 1:200, but with openness on the final deliveries in relation to each project’s specific approach and focus.

A parallel-running theoretical track

Weekly Theory- / CWR-sessions.

Discussions of literature relevant for the specific phases and as an introduction of the theory and history of the fields of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture.

Weekly exercises / assignments which are reflective / programme-generating