The assignment based on ‘Project 360°’ by Frank Dresmé and produced a psycho-geographic mapping of a route through the CBD as well as dialogue with the public through distribution of these maps in the city. I mapped out… [more]

The building is the first stage in a long term strategy, a system that can grow at a economically sustainable rate and take on the shifts in consumer habits and trends. A franchise network of alternative fuel stations spreading from… [more]

Leebus Woods’ Architecture School 401 is a series where he discuss this strategy and show examples of what he has been doing with his classes. Work that show how his classes learn both technical and theoretical lessons through more or less abstract projects. The closest I’ve been myself to these sorts of approaches have been through my 3rd semester ‘Urbanism and the City’ course with Adrian Lahoud and Frank Minnaert at UTS where we made a Psychogeographic Map and a video presentation of our reading of the city.

Lately I’ve seen several voices that comment on this kind of approach and in Germany this summer the DIA holds a conference called ‘Design Education as Research Lab’ with speakers from many of the most famous schools of architecture around the world.

I’ve visited an exhibition and synopsis at HCU Hamburg ‘Explorationen: Tendenzen und Potentiale der Architekturforschung’ and ‘Stop Making Sense’ which showcased a project of theoretical work with essays and graphics.

It’s fascinating to see good fusion of theory, design and built items and I really hope for less separation of the parts in school as well as a more research oriented approach in the earlier stages of architecture school. The essentials of architectural practice should be possible to teach through more though provoking means than emulating the work life and also be valuable to the schools research output in the long run.

I’m a norwegian architecture-student at AHO in Norway after starting my education at UTS in Australia in 2007. Both sites include a little online gallery where some student work is available. The AHO Arena is currently updating with work from the last weeks Diploma project Exhibition.

I hope I’ll update the blog with content from my production as well as links to curiosities i come across. At the moment my class is doing our preliminary research for the semesters design assignment based on 70°N arkitektur‘s 1st Prize proposal for Nordhavnen development in Copenhagen, Denmark. I’ll try to update on the status of that as the assignment progresses.

That’s all for now, hope it’s gonna be many shorter, single-theme updates instead of this length from now on.