Architectural Design Theory Fundamentals

48 Undergraduate Students

Fall 2024, RAIC Center for Architecture, Athabasca University, Online

Academic Expert: Alireza Shahbazin

Representative Student Projects by Lewis Golding

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          Introduction        

 

         Within this course, I guide students in exploring the creative design process through readings and analysis of architectural ideas, forms, and relationships. Using case studies, primarily from regionalist architecture, I demonstrate how architects like Anna Heringer, Charles Correa, Glenn Murcutt convey societal values through built forms. I help students recognize architecture as a cultural artifact and think critically about architect’s design decisions. The course textbooks are Architecture: Form, Space, & Order (2023) and Precedents in Architecture: Analytic Diagrams, Formative Ideas, and Partis (2012).

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        Throughout the course, students complete four collections. For each assignment, I help students to develop an objective awareness of natural and built environments. Collection 4, the final assignment, requires 3,500 words and up to 25 figures. In Part 1, I mentor students in crafting a critical commentary on three case studies: Parekh House (1968) in Ahmadabad, India, by Charles Correa; Sage House (2008) in Taos, New Mexico, by Antoine Predock; and Tye River Cabin (2006) in Skykomish, WA, by Tom Kundig and Kirsten Murray. The focus is on how local environmental conditions shape each project’s architecture.

 

In Part 2, students evaluate and compare the environmental considerations of these projects, using maps, sketches, and images to highlight key features and interrelationships. I support them in applying concepts from Ching’s Architecture: Form, Space, & Order (2023) to analyze proportions, scale, ordering principles, as well as to explore vernacular and indigenous design elements alongside sustainable building techniques.

 

Explore a sample of Collection 4 below to see how these concepts come to life.

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