Continuity, Integration, Integrity

Please note, this option studio will meet on an irregular schedule. Instructors plan to meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Official schedule to be confirmed.It takes deep thought to weave into a culture. As architects, we love the opportunity to spend time evaluating a new place, its territory, its form, its formation, its culture, colours, texture, scale and character. When we see images of cities destroyed, obliterated, we realize how buildings \’hold\’ culture and civilization. Buildings are the mirrors of values. They tell the story of our lives in built form. With globalization, Architecture\’s role to \’hold\’ culture is even more critical. We walk through and feel places with our whole bodies with all our senses, not just with our eyes or with our minds. We are fully involved in the experience – this what make us human. When Architecture is referred to as the mother of the arts, it is describing the all-encompassing nature of building, which actually envelops you, doing so over time, each day, throughout the seasons. Architecture is a shield and a protector of our humanity. As more of the natural world disappears, what we do as architects in making this new landscape of buildings has deep, societal repercussions.The location for this Project is in the university city of Toulouse, France, which pre-dates the Romans . It has integrated into its built form, layers of expressions over centuries of continuity. There will be a student site visit to Toulouse to study its nature and character, to experience and record it both scientifically and emotionally. Each student will personally document and interpret specific Elements of Toulouse as an integral part of their design methodology.Individual student design work will, from the outset, be carried out concurrently at a range of scales – from large scale to small scale – allowing students to explore ways of simultaneously creating space and making buildings. Parallel with the design of the building Project, students will undertake in-depth case studies of chosen references to re-discover the integrity of buildings as intellectual and physical architectural experiments, with specific emphasis on the impact on space of context, use, structure, and the physicality of materials.