Abstract:

This presentation will examine one approach to introducing personal investigation
and research into a beginning design studio. I will be looking at a specific workshop
from a second semester design foundations studio entitled “Books on Landscape Cultural
and Personal Perspectives from the Middle East”. This workshop ran for five weeks in
the School of Architecture and Design at the AUS in the United Arab Emirates. The
topic of landscape was set for this project to force students to examine and question not
only how they perceive and filter external information, but also how they explore internal
issues relating to self and identity. This workshop was designed as a capstone project for
my students Foundations year experience. I placed an equally strong emphasis on the
development of their ideas through out the process and the quality of their craftsmanship
in the final outcome. My students were to develop a series of images or ideas through a
planned deliberate process of transformation, exploration and experimentation. They
were to incorporate drawing, photography and the creation of three dimensional book
forms to communicate their point of view. A high level of craft in the construction of the
book forms was essential. There had to be a relationship between the overall form of the
book and the content found within.