Basic Studio 2019
Yun-hee Choi , Seung-Mo Seo
1st Semester
Body as Interface
In the Basic Studio, the students are encouraged to explore ‘ways of seeing’: understanding and interpreting objects/space/place in their own way and learning to look beyond the obvious and visible. The students will be asked to identify the characteristic elements of things and places throughout the research and design process. It also aims to blur the boundaries between discipline and practice, examining opportunities where architecture can meet fashion or paintings meet film and music.
The studio will start with students looking at the relationship between the ‘body’ and ‘device’. Initially the students will carry out analytic studies, carefully observing and measuring specific body part(s), learning that our senses are the key to perceiving and understanding our body and surrounding space. Students will each design and make a device which will enable extension of and/or add limitations to the body with respect to form, functions, movement and materiality. Students will go through the process of drawing, making and re-drawing, tackling a range of scales and skills via various means of representation and production.
The notion of the ‘body’ will be then explored further in two inter-linked sections in designing an inhabitable enclosure/space. The first exercise will be about examining the relationship of body in space (singular), and the second exercise about the body’s relations with an occupation of space (plural) and an interaction with its surrounding environment.
2nd Semester
Architectural Exploration
Observation, Perception, Representation
The studio will explore architectural space selected from one of the three chosen built projects – Whanki Museum, Arumjigi Headquarter and National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Based on the research into the background of when each building was built, students will be asked to question ideas and meanings in the design process and examine the impact on the built environment, space and place after its completion. Through this process of architectural exploration, students will learn about architectural elements, the structure of space, architectural devices, and a sense of scale. This process will help students discover ways of extracting values and issues in multiple layers and dimensions, which will eventually help them form their own ideas and concepts. Students will further develop their projects by transforming, combining, and integrating forms and elements, based on their own understanding and interpretation of the values and meanings behind their chosen building.
Through this exploration, students will be able to identify the potentials of site based on the basics of architectonic principles, to reinterpret and to represent the relationships between the architectural space and natural and artificial surroundings.