Module Breakdown: 1st Year
Hi everyone!
This post is more specific to students starting their architectural studies at the University of Westminster, as I go through a breakdown of all the modules and submissions that you complete in first year. Of course they might be changes to some modules or adjustments to submissions (especially during COVID-19) so make sure to go over your own course handbook you're provided with as this is to just show what our first year modules consisted of.
Introduction to design and skills (DES1A)
Design 1A includes Design Studio (70%), Digital Studies (10%) and Sketchbook Studies (20%) which you undertake in Semester 1.
Digital Studies is a class that was very scattered, but roughly every 3 weeks we would have a 9am morning lecture for about an hour and a half. The aim of the module was to teach us how to use Adobe Photoshop and Indesign through a series of online tutorial videos, and lectures, where for Indesign we had to submit a composed and organised A2 panel (containing title, images and text) and an A2 with print screens of the process. For photoshop, we had to submit an urban mashup collage. These were all due to be submitted after the Christmas holidays before second semester started.
Sketchbook Studies happened once every two weeks. The year group was split into two and we would alternate each week. Every workshop we had, there was a new brief, soby the end of the semester we had a sketchbook full of 6 exercises that we needed to submit around January so we could get a provisional mark. This provisional mark was for our own benefit and allowed for us to improve our work until the final submission.
Design studio was the biggest part of DES1A as it is made up of 4 briefs that we had between September and December. Design studio was taught in two studio days a week (Mondays & Fridays) where we would have tutorials and crits. Semester 1 started off with 2 briefs that were completed in groups and focused more on understanding scales and the presence and movement of the human body in a given space. We drew 1:1 drawings of students in our groups and added measurements to these diagrams; studied existing projects and made a 1:1 floor plan in masking tape of these case studies in one of our basement spaces at university. Brief 3 was called furnitecture and it was an individual project. The brief was that we had to design a piece of furnitecture into an existing case study. It had to accomodate a challenge or opportunity that the case study building presented, combining space and function into the design. Lastly, we had Brief 4, ‘Urban Bothy’ where we had to make a proposal for a multifunctional retreat and social space for our specific client demographic. Some of the client group options were dog walkers, bus drivers and street performers.
DES1A is compulsory for both BA Architecture and Bsc Architecture and Environmental Design and it accounts for 40 credits.
Design Materials and Fabrication (DES1B)
Design 1B includes a design studio brief (70%), Digital Studies (10%) and a material study (20%) which you undertake in Semester 2.
Semester 2 Digital Studies had the same format as semester 1. The aim of this semester’s digital work was to teach us how to use Adobe Illustrator and VectorWorks through a series of online tutorial videos, and lectures. For the Illustrator submission we submitted an urban map that we edited, cleaned and organized alongside an A2 sheet with the print screens of the process. For VectorWorks, we had to submit one of our floor plans from our design project, with context and texture, a worksheet and a series of objects created watching the assigned tutorials.
Our Material Studies module was taught by the same team that led Sketchbook Studies. The initial brief was revised as the pandemic began to spread and therefore we moved to a complete digital layout instead of experimenting with materials in the Fabrication Lab. Instead, they wanted us to pick a construction / façade material to study and research it in-depth. This material could be linked to our design studio brief if we wanted to, but this was not necessary. Material Studies were taught in group tutorials, 3 of them to be exact, over the course of a few months, where you would discuss your idea, show any relevant work you have and ask any questions you wanted to know. This continued over Blackboard once the university closed due to Covid-19. The submission was a 6-15 page document with an introduction, precedents of the material and research of the properties. This could include it’s characteristics, qualities, finishes, the environmental impact etc. with most of the research being backed up with diagrams, good quality sketches and photographs.
Design Studio was the biggest part of DES1B. Unlike semester 1, where we had 4 briefs, this was 1 brief for the whole of semester 2. It was more in depth and detailed with the work we produced. Brief 5 consisted of designing a whole house for a client. The client varied across the different studios, and included collectors, artists and sculptors. We had to respond to their needs, paying more attention to the programme and public and private interface, as well as being more conscious with how the design responded to the site. The deliverables included client research; site analysis; programmatic, concept and design development; and final representations through collages and models. Site analysis was done in groups, but the rest of the brief was individual work. A few site visits were arranged by our tutors to see our actual sites to choose from around Bethnal Green, and some existing exhibition spaces in galleries, museums etc. to take inspiration from. Before the pandemic, a physical final model was compulsory, but when we moved to remote learning, we were allowed to submit an alternative 3D model (e.g. digital models or axonometric drawings). In total, we had tutorials twice a week and two crits for this project before submitting our digital portfolios online.
DES1B is compulsory for both BA Architecture and Bsc Architecture and Environmental design and it accounts for 40 credits.
Introduction to Technical Studies (TS1)
Technical studies is a module, in the format of a series of lectures that explain structural form, the basic physics of building (like triangulation) and materials technology. Throughout the year you have around 12 lectures, one per week, from September to February.
For this, there are two submissions that go together hand in hand. This coursework was due towards the end of february and was required to be completed in pairs. For the first submission you need to construct a skeleton that can hold an orange using structural principles and typologies. This model was required to be at a 1:1 scale as our second submission was to make a poster of this explain how it would be held together, including orthographic drawings like an elevation, a plan and an axonometric drawing.
TS1 is only compulsory to BA Architecture students and accounts for 20 credits. Despite this we often had Bsc students voluntarily join the lectures to be proactive with their learning.
Technical Environmental Studies (TES1)
TES is only compulsory for BSc Architecture and Environmental Design students. It counts for 20 credits.
TES1 largely consisted of weekly 2 hour morning lectures on the principles of Environmental Design. We had to produce a separate portfolio to Design including three individual courseworks.
Coursework 1, the Laboratory Journal, included a collection of lecture notes and documentation of workshops that showed evidence of engagement and understanding of the content. First semester was largely taught by our tutors, whilst guest speakers led the majority of our lectures in the second semester. We learnt how to make sun-roses and use heliodons; had tutorials on the structural elements of our designs with a structural engineer in practice, and the content of our lectures ranged from the use of bamboo in architecture to BIM or existing architectural projects that consciously implement environmental design features.
Coursework 2, Laboratory Report 1, was a collection of site sketches showing the spatial orchestration for four different sites across London - this year, we visited the British Library, St. Marylebone Parish Church, the Royal Festival Hall and Sir John Soane’s Museum. For the third site visit, we were required to analyse the environmental conditions across the site e.g. surface/air temperature, humidity and luminosity and represent our findings graphically.
Coursework 3, Laboratory Report 2, was where we applied these principles by testing our own designs from our Design modules. After briefly introducing the environmental aspects of our site, we tested how light interacted with our design and analysed the thermal, ventilation, daylight and structural performance of our projects. We used some programs to test these aspects of our design such as Optivent.
A History of Architecture (CC1)
Cultural context is the history based module of the year. The teaching is formatted as one lecture per week and a tutorial group with your tutor once a fortnight. The lecture lasts 3 hours as they cover two topics on one day, with a break in between. You will have 14 lectures in total and this is starting from september till the christmas holidays.
For your CC1 submission you will have to submit two different pieces of work. The first is a workbook which is made up of a series of exercises that you complete between september and christmas holidays. You complete these exercises based off of set reading and site visits that you have once every few weeks after the lecture. The site visits have previously been to the Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Arts and the Barbican. Set reading can be from the university archive or just a PDF copy of an architects book. You then check your exercise or discuss the site visit with your tutorial group the upcoming week. Once you've completed all these exercises, you combine all of them together to form a workbook. This is the first due piece of work and you submit it in January after the christmas break.
The second piece of work to submit is due for March and it is a 1500 word essay. After February you don't have any lectures so the essay is definitely more of an independent piece of work as you have to use multiple sources to quote in the bibliography. Sources can be found from the library, journals, the internet and the archive. You pick your essay title from a range of options you are given in the lecture.
CC1 is compulsory for both BA Architecture and BSc Architecture and Environmental Design and it accounts for 20 credits.
That’s it for today’s post guys! We hope this has explained what you can expect from your first year of studying architecture at Westminster, whether you’re a BA student or a BSc student.
We know that after a long break from education, whether you’ve taken a gap year, you’ve just finished your A-Levels or had your studies cancelled by COVID, it might be daunting to go back to studying, especially when everything works so differently to what you might be used to already.
If you have any questions about first-year or studying during a pandemic, make sure to let us know on our Instagram @archidabble.
