Ma cc semester1 brief

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3.0 Critical Context Migrant Narratives. From the Topological Atlas Project by Dr Nishat Awan Image from: http://www. topologicalatlas.net/hotglue/ mn_exhibit/

18/10/17 - 10/01/2018 OVERVIEW The MA Architecture and MA Interior Design courses allow you to develop your practice systematically in both project work and writing. Each semester you will be asked to undertake a specific research and writing task. As you move through the course, the research and writing should become increasingly connected to, and embedded in, your project work. Critical context teaching across both MA courses is comprised of three components, one per semester. In semester one, we will hold a series of literature seminars, in which we will read texts that explore theories of interactivity, design, nature and the environment. These are intended to help you to position your practice and will serve as a grounding for your research and studio work throughout the course. Following the seminars, you are asked to prepare and submit a ‘literature review and position statement’. This should take the climatic conditions you are researching for your ‘climates brief’ as a starting point of inquiry, building on the presentations you have already given. The literature review should give an overview of your field, outlining the main arguments and your position in relation to them. Your position statement should set out the theoretical concerns and issues you seek to address in your studio work this year, and how it responds to the literature in this area. The literature review and position statement in semester one, is followed by the Research Thesis in semester two, in which you will conduct a detailed research project, written as a 6000 word thesis. The agenda for this research is set by you, it should follow the insights gained through the literature in semester one and should also be developed in conjunction with your studio practice. The final cultural context component in semester three concerns the development of your Research Folio. This is a concise and coherent document that explains your research agenda, how this is manifest in your practice-based research, specifically your final studio project. The three critical context units across the year are intended to help you establish a knowledge base and framework, from which you will be able to situate your own ideas. You will be introduced to each of the critical context units at the outset of each semester. Success in Critical Context will depend on you actively engaging with the seminars, reading extensively, visiting projects and exhibitions and studying closely the projects that you select as objects of study for your literature review and thesis. The learning hours for this unit suggest that you should be spending on average 20 hours per week - think of that as 2-3 hours of reading, research and writing per day. These activities should be supplemented by visiting, drawing and discussing texts. You should anticipate some intensive writing towards the end of each semester. 1

UCA Canterbury School of Architecture // MA Interior Architecture & MA Architecture // 2017-18


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