No_6_June_1968 — Page 18

Fifth year thesis-publishing house and printing works-model of design

As the teaching and learning takes place practically in the heart of a big city, its many peculiar facets will find and will have to find a precipitate in the work and in the teaching of those advanced students, who will soon take up their proper position and responsibility in its metropolitan society.

Design projects and planning exer- cises are therefore generally based on the realistic conditions as they exist locally. They deal mostly with econo- mical and technical solutions to the problem of building on restricted or difficult sites.

They are supposed to enable the student to experience the realities of surroundings, land form and land conditions, orientation, economical factors, building laws, local prefer ences and many other relevant factors. At the same time, the student is sup- posed to gain further skill in the handling of complex circulatory and functional problems.

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The students themselves are mostly responsible for the choice of subjects and their programming. These aimed at acquainting them with the major aspect of the architect's con- cern, the problems of community, and to make them aware of the variety of needs in this community through a programme of research, planning and familiarization with these needs in order to enable him to participate in collaborative discussions.

Teamwork is encouraged because it is felt that the student may profit from an opportunity of working in groups, or side by side with students in related fields, or by engaging with local individual and/or Governmental instances in collaborative projects.

Both individually and as a team member, the student is given the op- portunity to analyse community needs and growth, which include factors re- lated to land use, zoning, traffic, housing, etc. and to co-ordinate the physical environment through general and specialized ideas, designs and plans.

It is through these that he learns to organise space for human use and to organise architectural volumes in relation to the needs of people and

examples and influences abundantly present, such an analysis and under- standing of the local scene is well suited to teach the students many of the problems they will have to face. Above all it teaches them much about themselves.

Research

These projects take up normally half of the fifth year's study while the second half is devoted to research projects and a number of intermittent sketch designs of various kinds, aimed at giving the students a chance to demonstrate their all round ability, or to qualify particular inclinations or talents.

All the schemes are proposed on the basis of potential contributions to advanced thinking in an overall ap- proach to orderly architectural de- velopment in which the student is ex- pected to expand the concept of primitive shelter to include all of the world of form, from the intimacy of the room to the complexities of a metropolis.

Through personal research and group work he is urged to reflect in architectural terms and through in- dividual expressions, the way in which people live, like to live, or should live in the houses and amenities of to- day's community.

It is hoped that the final outcome

perspective of entrance

is intimately interwoven with the individual and his personal thinking, because the finalities of three-dimen- sional design make clear decisions a necessity.

The fifth year student as the next architect in line will have to face these responsibilities. He stands or falls by his awareness and by his knowledge and his proficiency in meeting them.

Architecture as any expression of cultural import is the ultimate result of the individual's expression of his belief, his conditions and his know- ledge. These are not merely individual statements; they are, above all, state- ments concerning a particular the students' era, an era which already has established a new and dynamic architecture, the forms of which are generally recognized and accepted.

The work of fifth year students therefore is expected to demonstrate that forms and philosophies of creative individuals and their spirited expression do not remain subject to hollow imitations, that architecture is not merely form and structure, but that it possesses a vitality which dis- tinguishes it from the mere craftsman- ship taught somewhere else.

This vitality cannot be handed down from teacher to student directly. It has to be rediscovered as the student responds to the forces of his environment of his culture and of his society.

He is given the opportunity to translate the meaning of these forces into architectural form and to express in a personal way the integration of the pertaining areas of thought. One of the functions of teaching architec- ture to advanced students is to pro- vide the setting in which this expres- sion is encouraged through the pro- vision of intelligent and experienced direction and criticism.

It will nevertheless ultimately re- main for the student to produce architectural answers consistent with the artistic, technical and functional requirements he has to face, and with what he has been able to learn and to absorb in the previous four years of study.

community. With good and bad Fifth year thesis-Hong Kong Zoo-perspective of entrance

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Far East BUILDER, June 1968.