task manual

II

tasks timetable & stages

The project is divided in 24 tasks grouped in 2 categories: specific [general & seminarial], and production [reference, drawing, writing and apparatus]. The production tasks are equally divided in four stages: 1-cartographic; 2-data; 3-fantastic; 4-meta. The timetable below shows the development of each task during the semester.
w1 t1 t2 t3 t4 r1 s1 d1 w1 a1 r2 d2 w2 a2 d3 w3 a3 r3 r4 s2 a4 d4 w4 t5 s3 w2 w3 w4 w5 w6 w7 w8 w9 w10 w11

tt
tasks timetable w12 w13 w14

SYNTHESIS NARRATION ARCHEOLOGY

III

specific tasks - t
t1 mapping the line
Students map a virtual line within the area surrounding one of ten given Swiss urban centers. They evaluate the intensity of four parameters (density; diversity; heterogeneity; accessibility) within one of the areas, in an attempt to unveil, and define, a location with the highest gradient of urbanity. Using the same method, students locate, within a 30km radius around the first point, a location with the lowest gradient of urbanity. Between the two points, they then trace a 20km line that passes through a series of gradients of urbanity. Before beginning their archeological investigation, students list the necessary material and gear to complete their walk and define a series of methods and devices to be used on-site, and focus points to use as benchmarks. Shaping the epistemological position of each searcher, these methods, devices and focus points become partial hypothesis on the eventual form and nature of the finds. Students, however, remain open to unexpected observations and discoveries, challenging their constraints, the pre-conception of the walk, and their own preconceptions.

w1

w1

t2 archeological tools

w1

w1

t3 walk the line

Students accomplish their archeological investigation on the linear field they have designed. Material traces become clues to social fragments and have to be considered accordingly. Using the tools and the methods previously developed (t2), students remain attentive to the physical environment and record, document and classify the necessary material for further analysis and mapping (D1). During their investigation, students narratively record their experience of the territory producing textual fragments using their finds in a process of ontological reconstruction to question the axiomatic of the social body.

w1

w2

t4 smart grids
Students come together to build a common reference basis: a structural stage and fly system, to support the apparatus of the Metamodel throughout the semesters. Using standardized material provided by the Teaching Team and the woodshops (ECAL & EPFL), students design and realize one podium structure and one hanging gridiron deck of 450 x 225 x 25, which will sever as supports for the apparatus and the ongoing Metamodel development. Students build these structures with great care for they will be supporting heavy weights over the semesters.

w2

w5

t5 prepare show n tell

In preparation to the Show n Tell sessions (w8; w13), Narrative Teams prepare a synthetic yet comprehensive presentation of the current state of their work to be presented in class to the fellow students and the teaching team. For their presentation, each team prepares an abstract (1200 characters) explaining their achievements and doubts about their project, a slideshow of 20 key images and 20 short texts, one for each image. The length of each text should correspond to 20 seconds of presentation speech. 20 images x 20 seconds = 640.

w7 w12

w8 w13

IV

specific tasks - s
Seminars are held three times throughout the semester (on W3, W7, W12). Students are strongly encouraged to acquire the books for S1 in the first week of the semester. Cheap paperback editions are available in most bookstores or can be ordered online. Ebooks can also be bought online. We will provide pdf s of the essays (S2) to be downloaded directly from the ALICE y4 website. The group also organizes screenings of the selected movies (S3). Teaching team can provide DVD copies.

s
w1

seminarial tasks

s1 seminar texts analysis i

narrative fragments

Each student chooses a novel and prepares a short summary (one or two A4 pages) to be presented in the context of the seminar. The aim is not to summarize the story itself. Rather, the analysis should be based on a thematic approach (architectural artifacts, spatial qualities in relation to social interaction, representations of the city and narrative techniques, etc.). It is encouraged to document oneself on the authors in order to place the novel in the wider context of its production. Participation in the discussion is important : each student brings a personal contribution.

w3

s2 seminar texts analysis ii

utopian realms

Students choose an essay from the proposed selection and prepare a short presentation (a few A4 pages). The aim is to summaryze the key theoretical notions or ideas put forward in the text. Focus should be on spatial strategies in relation to social configurations and modes of human interaction. Students document themselves in order to place the essay in the wider context of its production. Each student brings a personal contribution.

w5

w7

s3 seminar texts analysis iii

science fiction

It is recommended that students view all three selected films. However, each student focusses on a chosen work in order to prepare a presentation for the seminar discussion. once again, analysis should focus on a specific theme or key notion. The aim is to grasp what we, as architects and citizens, can learn about ourselves and the world we live in from looking at this film. Group screenings are organized by the students themselves (for ex. at lunch time).

w10

w12

production tasks - r
In order to participate actively in the elaboration of the research database, students bring their own references to the project by cataloging a series of existing projects using a bibliographical referencing system (Cf. I1). They are thus extending the Virtual Library (VL) to be used for the development of their ongoing project and studios to come.
r1 cartographic references
Cartography and mapmaking is the praxis and study of graphical translation of space, time and society through representational apparatuses. Accordingly, mapslanguagebased representations characterized by the construction of an image analogue to a specific spaceintegrate, as a reality, different regimes of truths, while being unable to contain the complexity of the space they describe. Each dimension of the map: scientificity, aesthetic, technique, epistemology, and power; can each induce different references, challenging its components: ref-space; scale; transposition; metric; thematic; semiology.

r
w1 w2

references tasks

w4

r2 data references
After extraction, data can either remain raw (or un-treated) or treated (or translated) though visual or audio information apparatuses (images, graphs, animations, audio recording, etc.). While raw data usually have to be treated to be easy to read, it is also possible to extract data from treated data, so to use them differently, or to re-translate them into new means of communication. While the Internet can provide an interesting share of treated and non-treated data, in Switzerland, and in many countries, Federal Offices also publicly share their data through specific e-portals of published documents.

w7

r3 fantastic references
Each project is by definition a vision, a virtual reality, a projection in a potential time to come. However, some projects are conceived to go beyond the projection of themselves, and also embody the projection of a larger social reality. Sometime referred to as fantasies, utopias and dystopias, these prospective visions focusing on the consequential social and physical dimensions of manmade conditions can be traced back in most cultures around the world and at every era. The Apocalypse, Platos Republic, Mores Utopia, Saint-Simons movement and Le Corbusiers Ville Radieuse, are only a few of these manifestos.

w5

w7

r4 metareferences
In the last phase of the writing development, students operate a reset of their visions in regard of what has been produced by the whole group and start re-assembling fragments archived in the Virtual Library (VL). Students thus re-work previously written material and produce new text fragments from other documents (data, drawings, references) to develop a more comprehensive and synthetic version of their vision. Through the metawriting task, students tightly bind all other produced material and generate a body that can be used independently or in conjuncture with the apparatuses in the Metamodel.

w5

w9

VI

production tasks - d
Students produce diverse graphical representation of their work. Students go beyond these usual categories and explore new means of bi-dimensional, and tri-dimensional representation tools. Multi-scalar, multi-metric and multireferenced spaces are to be use wisely and carefully as means of representation, exploration and design.
d1 cartographic drawings
Following their archeological walk (t3), students draw a series of descriptive and narrative mappings with the material they have found or extracted from their finds. Using the data recorded and the textal fragments written, they produce partial and synthetic bi-dimensional representational and exploratory documents with tools at their disposal, and begging to translate their experience into visual analysis and narratives. Keeping with a critical stance on their own interpretation, students rigorously and methodically develop and identify their translation process and record it by writing or drawing.

d
w2 w3

drawing tasks

w6

d2 data drawings
Students base themselves on the data they collectively find and archive (R2) and treat them into synthetic visual material. Medium can include drawings, models, videos, animations, etc. Specific attention should be brought to data related to each Narrative Team?s Thematic Focus (TF) and should help them understand the underlying issuesat-stake and potential strategies to be developed, and their scale and spatial development. Using the material produced, students start developing their narrative through data manipulation and translate their vision with similar means of representation.

w9

d3 fantastic drawings
Following and in parallel to the previous drawing tasks (D12), students illustrate with different medias their vision for the Swiss territory in regard of their teams Thematic Focus (TF). To generate these visual manifestos, students take a critical stance from the actual state of the social fabric and environment, and from the previsions portrayed in official and academic publications. They base themselves on an archeology of the future to envision unexpected and counter-intuitive conditions to social, political, environmental and economical sustainability.

w5

w9

d4 metadrawings
For the final phase of the projects, NTs assemble the visual documents produced and being produced by the whole group to further develop their narrative and fully exploit the potential of their apparatuses. Using the material of the Virtual Library (comprising their previous work), students synthesize the visual components of their vision into key exploratory and presentation documents. Integrated into the Metamodel, these documents also have a level of autonomy that allows them be the used independently from the texts and outside the apparatuses.

w7

w14

VII

production tasks - w
The aim of the writing tasks is to provide the project with a subtle and almost imperceptible transition between reality and imagination. Blurring the boundaries of collective representations, ideologies, observations, descriptive analysis and personal vision, writings bound social, temporal and spatial dimensions.
w1 cartographic writing
Students gather the textual fragments produced during the walk (t3) and retrospectively add other. They then start to shape a descriptive narration of their experience, raising questions on social concerns. Students to explore hidden meanings of socio-territorial preconception as they describe their experience and analyze their own discourse by deconstructing spatial interrelations that emerge from it. Keeping this in mind, they use different narrative stances to try to understand the limit between reality and imagination, putting forward the relation between here, there, and elsewhere.

w
w2 w3

writing tasks

w6

w2 data writing
Students use data they have collected in the Virtual Library (VL) and the visual documents produced with it (D2) and interpret them through writings. Using text to bind data and data-based drawings, descriptive and narrative fragments, and a critical epistemological and ontological stance, students begging to analyze data material and bind it to its larger social, historical and spatial contexts. Gradually, students use the writing produced and the positioning hence developed and start developing a more narrative and visionary interpretation of what, why and how data would be in 2048.

w9

w3 fantastic writing
While working on the visual depiction of their vision (D3), students produce series of manifesto-like narrative texts that engage the latter. Using the work previously done, students explicitly put an emphasis on the utopian dimension of their project, slightly letting go with the constraints of historical and spatial process, and develop an ideal depiction. The ethical and ontological dimension of the discourse is design with care and students part the ideal and non-ideal components looking at their role in a larger social, spatial and temporal frame.

w5

w9

w4 metawriting
In the last phase of the writing, students operate a reset of their visions in regard of what has been produced by the whole group and start re-assembling fragments archived in the Virtual Library (VL). Students thus re-work previously written material and produce new text fragments from other documents (data, drawings, references) to develop a more comprehensive and synthetic version of their vision. Through the metawriting task, students tightly bind all other produced material and generate a body that can be used independently or in conjuncture with the apparatuses in the Metamodel.

w7

w14

VIII

production tasks - a
Apparatuses are technical devices that develop the synthesis of empirical observations (R D W ), data analysis (R D W ), and narrative fragments and projective visuals (R D W ) into multilayered communication tools. They form sets of discursive strategies and thus bare a social and political dimension.
1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3

a
w2 w3

apparatus tasks

a1 cartographic apparatus
Following the archaeological tasks (t123), students combine text fragments and mappings produced and start to create narrative-driven meaning through technical superposition. Keeping with the empirical observations of the first set of tasks, students gradually start to detach from their localized walk context and bind their observations to broader inductive and deductive analysis. Students thus create new means of cartographic representation of space, time and society, combining the material at their disposal: texts, images, recordings, videos, etc.

w5

a2 data apparatus
Data apparatuses emerge from a combination of Cartographic tasks (1) and Data tasks (2) and install a greater lever of complexity within the Metamodel and its narrative. Students use Data References (R2) that they have referenced in the Virtual Library (VL) to diversify the built and social readings of their projects. Unlike Cartographic Apparatuses (A1), which focus on local and contemporary empirical analysis, Data Apparatuses can use various data sets describing a plurality of spaces and scales and timeframes (past, present and future) and link them together.

w9

a3 fantastic apparatus
Keeping with the development of the cartographic and data components of their apparatuses, students radically use Fantastic Reference material (R3) and their own vision (W3D3) to explicitly present the engaging nature of their project. Student set up a clear and coherent discourse of their vision for the Swiss territory valorizing an imaginary development to spatial, social, economical and environmental sustainability. They must here depict all side of their envisioned society, the risks they represent and the strategies that could lead to them.

w5

w9

a4 metaaparatus
After having continuously developed their apparatuses within both their Technical Unit (TU) and Narrative Teams (NT), students combine all necessary devices produced and altered by the group to fully exploit the library of apparatus. As the last stage of apparatus development, Metaapparatus should basically be a finalized version of the apparatuses to be used in the Metamodel. Students alter and adapt their apparatuses in regards of their Thematic Focus (TF) and projects orientation.

w6

w14

IX

semester stages & studio hours

The fall studio semester runs on 14 weeks and is divided into three stages: Archeology, Narrative and Synthesis. Each stage starts with a lecture (LEC), comprises a workshop (W) and a text seminar (S), and ends with a formal review. Studio is held two days a week: Tuesdays from 8:30am to 6pm and Wednesday from 8:30am to 1pm. Two intermediary reviews are programmed during the semester (W4/9) on Wednesday mornings. Week 13 is class-free and fully dedicated to studio work.
w1 t1 t2 t3 t4 r1 s1 d1 w1 a1 r2 d2 w2 a2 d3 w3 a3 r3 r4 s2 a4 d4 w4 t5 s3 w2 w3 w4 w5 w6 w7 w8 w9 w10 w11 w12 w13 w14

SYNTHESIS NARRATION ARCHEOLOGY

X

follow-ups & evaluations

table reviews
Every week, students meet individually, in Narrative Teams (NT) or Technical Units (TU) with members of the Teaching Team to discuss their projects. The reviews are held informally on Wednesday mornings in the studio. Students present their work using their Portfolio (PF), the Blog (BL) and the physical models and apparatuses. Every piece of material presented during Table Reviews (visual or textual references, completed writings and drawings, etc.) must have been added to the Virtual Library (VL). Guidance can be requested with the Teaching Teams outside studio hours. In order to prepare their second intermediary (W9) and final (w14) reviews, students are asked to make a very short presentation at Weeks 8 and 13. For these presentations, Narrative Teams (NT) prepare twenty key-images of their work and discuss every image during twenty seconds. Presentations last 640 (20img x 20sec). After every presentation, all students participate to an open discussion over other teams work. Prior to the presentation, all documents are uploaded on the Blog (BL) and referenced in the Virtual Library (VL).

wednesdays

09.19 / 09.26 / 10.03 10.17 / 10.24 / 10.31 / 11.07 11.21 / 11.28 / 12.05

w1 tuesdays
11.06 / 12.11

w12

show ntell

w8 wednesday
10.10

w13

intermediary joint reviews i & ii

Two Intermediary Joint Reviews are programmed during the semester (W4 & W9). In the morning, y4 Studio students present their work to a jury panel composed of experts and members of the Teaching Team. Presentations should last about 20 minutes and be accompanied with a slideshow properly referenced and uploaded on the Blog (BL) the previous day before 7pm. Presentations are to be made in English and should be well prepared, rehearsed and professional. In the afternoon, studio students are asked to actively assist to Diploma Students reviews.

w4/9 wednesday
11.14

evaluation of process and organization

During the semester, student will be constantly evaluated on the organization of their bibliographical references in the Virtual Library (VL), and Blog (BL) material. Active participation, attendance, professionalism, seriousness and rigor are also evaluated criterions. Students are expected to autonomously share common tasks and requests from the Teaching Team and personal implication within the Narrative Team (NT), Tech unit (TU) and the group is very important. Students should feel confident to discuss any studio-related matter with the Teaching Team.

w1 thursday
12.20

w14

final review
On Week 14 a fully day is dedicated to Final Reviews. Students present the final version of their work including their narrative vision and their Metamodel (MM). Portfolios (PF) are updated to their final state and may serve for the review. Metamodel are fully operational and are reviewed by the jury before presentation. All documents (PF, MM, Presentation, References, texts etc.) have been finalized and uploaded to the Blog (BL) and referenced in the Virtual Library (VL) on the previous day before 7pm. No uploads are allowed after the deadline and students use the presentations on the Blog.

w14

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