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Architecture History and Theory
Architecture History and Theory reflects on historically significant buildings and development of architectural design within the framework of cultural and societal themes. Key areas of studies are architectural theory, heritage studies, philosophy of design and architectural criticism. The module introduced to students the timeline of architectural development and factors that provoked the changes, especially investigation of materials, construction methods, human needs and many other.
I appreciated the way Times portal information on the module was organised and distributed among boxes, meaning students were able to find lectures, tutorial activities, digital badges and assignment briefs by clicking on the right box.
I'm completely satisfied with work and contribution of tutors and module coordinator in supporting students to achieve good academic results. During the semester the groups of students had a different tutor for each of the projects what allowed us to look at the task and its performance from different perspectives.
As official social media sites we used:
- Microsoft Teams for conducting tutorials, sharing the important announcements, posting tutorial progress and attendance exercises.
- Facebook for distributing the announcements and scheduled meetings.
- Telegram for delivering the announcements and straight communication among lecturers and students.
In my opinion the digital badges were created to support students to acknowledge architectural vocabulary and specifically names of architectural elements and names of heritage buildings, for example I passed the crossword where I extracted names of architectural components. Later on, it significantly simplified my research as I understand the context with these terminologies.
I acquired the sign Knight 0319
Project 1: Sketching Analysis.
The project aimed to introduce to students mainly architectural elements, basic types of materials, construction methods, design artefacts and timeline of development.
Except for famous buildings which were symbols of their epochs in history the project also presented typical plans and organisation of buildings of particular time period in history.
Students were given five categories of historical epochs with a list of building from which students needed to choose only one building from a category and provide research on few items: building name, type location, fast facts of the building, building function, architectural layout, organisation, geometry, materiality, construction methods and etc.
Most importantly student were encouraged to acknowledge architectural elements/components in order to understand its intention, aesthetic and structural qualities.
Reflection
Reading architecture history and theory books architectural terminologies can be found in every sentence, and during the project research I observed that I'm improving on my understanding of architectural elements and their significance in architecture advancement. From using heavy solid materials for construction without support of machineries humanity aims to achieve sophisticated simplicity and efficiency of design and construction techniques for comfortable and sustainable life. Aesthetic values dramatically increased throughout the time, initially people had been erecting stone walls and shelter to survive through weather conditions and protect themselves from animals, and nowadays humanity achieved the epoch of enlightenment where sustainability, comfort and sensorial experience gained its apogee.
Project 2. Analysis Report.
Since Malaysia got independence on 1957 the old colonial towns transformed into modern cities which became symbols of nationhood. But most of heritage buildings were not documented and in this project it was important for students to record the heritage buildings in comparative analysis context before it lost and destroyed by the time.
The targets of the project were to present chronological account of Malaysian architecture, ability to present research analysis through assemble and evaluation of information, condensing and organisation, to be able to properly organise information within suitable layout composition, also visualise collected information through diagramming.
The project contained of few main parts which are:
- History of the building.
- Architectural layout.
- Building construction, structure and material analysis.
- Architectural elements/ components analysis.
As a final outcome as a group we were assigned to produce A4 sized illustrative chronology booklet of 25 pages. Each group chose two specific building to provide comparison between them. I and my group were researching on modern Stadium Negara and gothic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Reflection
The project helped me to improve my critical thinking and understanding of relevant and important information which response to project objective. In a group I was working on architectural elements part where I acknowledged how architectural elements could change according to climate what makes them unique and create indisputable character of the building and how few architectural styles can be assembled together.
Exercises
The exercises given to us after lecture helped us to remember the information and provided understanding on the historical timeline, especially on different periods specifications, for example exercise with comparative analysis among architectural styles, how each style derived from the previous one and how they influenced each other throughout the time.
Reflection
Personally I benefited from the module in many ways. I think as any human I was admired by the noble history of the heritage buildings destroyed or currently existing, understood the value of conservation of heritage structured either in its existing form or in old written texts and drawings. Nowadays humanity achieved the innovations in construction industry thanks to the experience of the past, and still we know and remember the notable names of architects who created the unique design of their epochs. Accordingly, the module assessments helped me to develop my research skills - knowing how to find correct and relevant information, how to think critically and extract the appropriate information, condense it, support with architectural graphics that visually explains the written text.
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