graduation-projects

A voice

out of this world

calls on our soul

to wake up and rise

this soul of ours

is like a flame

with more smoke than light

blackening our vision

letting no light through

lessen the smoke and

more light brightens your house

the house you dwell in now

and the abode

you'll eventually move to

now my precious soul

how long are you going to

waste yourself

in this wandering journey

can't you hear the voice

can't you use your swifter wings

and answer the call

Jalaluddin Rumi

Yasser Elsheshtawy

Associate Professor

UAE University. Dept. of Architecture

sheshtawi@uaeu.ac.ae

EXPERIMENTAL ARCHITECTURE STUDIO

This studio will adapt experimentation as its main theme. It reflects not so much on the content or approach - rather it is an "attitude," a way of thinking, a mode of research and inquiry, as well as a design methodology. In any discipline, experimentation is a way for advancement through the testing of new ideas, the challenging of pre-conceived notions, and going beyond the ordinary and the "traditional."

Think of this design studio as a laboratory where you will be able to test new ideas and approaches that you where always thinking about. It is your opportunity to be truly creative. Experimentation occurs at a number of levels. From the project selection till the final design solution. You might select a traditional or conventional building type (for example a museum or library). In that case you will begin to search for ways to go beyond the ordinary function of that building type - i.e. experimentation - for example through an unusual site or location (below ground, inside a mountain, above water etc.), an innovative structural technique, or a creative use of a material. You might add non-expected functions, establish links to the public realm. You might adapt the idea that architecture has the capacity to heal, to shock and to transform. Spaces are designed to test these hypotheses. The idea of rehabilitation in a prison for example could be tested by juxtaposing and overlapping the rehabilitative and the punishment spaces - thereby creating a psychological shock and so on.

Experimentation occurs also at the level of research where we will look at design as a mode of research; experiment with innovative graphic techniques to present data Presentation of design projects will include traditional techniques as well as 3-dimensional displays (or installations). Examples for all of these will be presented to students throughout Graduation I & II.