Architectural Design 2
An architect is primarily responsible for designing and overseeing the construction of buildings and urban spaces. Throughout this endeavor the architect may choose to use the vehicle of the building as a means for questioning and evolving aspects of their society: its beliefs, institutions, technology and science. Although this process can be fueled by discussion, readings and other types of research, for the architect, the form of this questioning is primarily visual, making use of drawing, model making and eventually actual construction as a means to speculate on the form and operation of potentially useful and/or revolutionary buildings and urban spaces. It is architectures position, balanced between the everyday and the exceptional that is its greatest and most defining opportunity. From this position architectural research can speculate on new possibilities with an informed critical understanding of the present and past.
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1.0 Introduction
The M2 design semester provides an opportunity to use the architectural project as a vehicle for speculation into the potential for architecture to help form and question a society's processes and philosophical aspirations. While it is always valued as a moment for research into the limits of inspiring architectural form, it is also an opportunity to undertake the detailed design of a building or public space using the skills, tools and attitudes specific to the domain of architecture. The goal is both the production of drawings and models that describe a potential building or space and contributing usefully to an area of architectural research and debate.