The course will enable access to a film or a text the way one might enter an abandoned spaceship: as a faceted volume to be examined with a sense of slowness, attention and wonder.
Viewpoint in Shapes of Fiction 01 : 'If Only You Could See What I Saw With Your Eyes'

This course examines fabrication techniques as potential activators of material systems. Working at the interface between fact and matter, computed geometry and machinic properties, we will develop material catalogues translating visible and invisible properties into variables of effect, behaviour, scale and articulation. We will use Rhinoceros, laser cutting, and CNC technologies to create a series of ‘data prototypes’ demonstrating possible design negotiations between the machine and the material.

The course will focus on the re-design (copy) and fabrication of an existing chair. Each student will select an original (chair) and work towards a translation and a fresh construction strategy for the fabrication of this Replica Structure. Our sole material will be 12mm sheet material (birch plywood). All components will be designed and produced with the use of CNC milling technology in mind. Issues of weight, porosity and composition should be considered. The course will culminate with a fabrication trip to Hooke Park.

This course will focus on the manipulation of digital geometry using scripted techniques within a NURBS modelling environment, using Python for Rhino. We will cover the basics of scripted logic to customise geometry using iterative logic. Students will also be introduced to the basics behind the theory of computation and processing as a means to establish intelligent geometrical systems, and its application to their on-going unit projects.

Escape the AA, draw on the riches of national collections nearby to discover new ways of seeing. We will develop ways to draw with authority, to author drawing that stands on its own. Hand drawing is the architect’s most powerful tool -- find your drawn-voice here at 2nd Year. "So much more than I expected from a 'drawing class', a new perspective in visualization was unravelled."

This course will explore painting as a means of design that goes beyond the representational and into the prototypical. We will examine the fundamentals of painting and drawing; line, tone, colour, and begin to explore how these techniques of painting can be utilized in the creation of physical objects. The paintings will go through several iterations on the digital canvas (Photoshop) before being translated through a series of soft and hardware, (3D Max, Zbrush, illustrator, CNC) into their final state.

This is a roller-coaster journey from the inherently 3D of a perception based architecture, to its 2D representation and analysis, into a 3 or possibly 4D fragment. We will be working with the precise settings of visual perception and its manipulation throughout the centuries from anamorphic projections, to the vertical skewing of Disney’s castle. The course is twofold and aims to articulate a chosen example of a perception manipulative architecture through a set of planimetric drawings and finally, the design of a 3D printed object, able to translate and reverse articulate the 2D analysed mechanisms of perception and manipulation into a 3 or even 4D fragment.

The course is interested in computer-vision as a means of exploring new architectural forms by implementing the work with the aid of computational techniques. This term students would use X-Box’s Kinect sensor to extract ‘live’ physical data and embedding these as digitally scanned architectural geometries. Processing’s rich algorithmic and graphical capabilities would be utilized to allow direct application to students’ on-going unit projects.

It’s of no surprise that when we talk about video, we use not only the language and conventions of cinema but of literature, fine art, theatre and photography too. Walter Benjamin thought watching a film was akin to moving through a building and required a similar pattern of habits and thought processes. With this in mind we will construct together a journey with camera and in post-production that re-tells a space's story.