Undergraduate Course: Environmental Practices (ARCH08051)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Environmental Practices introduces students to a range of theories and practices concerned with interpreting the environment as a dynamic context. Students respond to weekly themes, from which they undertake a series of site-related investigations, testing a range of observational and representational techniques. The course allows students to better understand how to initiate design thinking through critical site-related investigations, while developing awareness of their own creative agency, documenting this process in a critically reflective portfolio. |
| Course description |
Environmental Practices introduces students to comparative forms of creative practice, covering the allied fields of art, architecture and landscape architecture. From this students undertake their own field based explorations, testing a range of visual techniques introduced through the course. The course asks students to consider how a design process evolves from a critical interpretation of the environment, predicated on the creative use of visual skills to articulate observable actions and interactions between people, place, and nature.
Drawing and fieldwork hold fundamental significance within the course structure, allowing students to test and develop ways of expressing ideas through direct engagement with the environment. Students are encouraged to explore other representational methods, to experiment across a range of expressive forms and build awareness of visual communication and creative agency in their own practice.
While the course acts as an introduction to current environmental theories and practices, it also offers students an introductory step in understanding the role designers play in addressing the current biodiversity and climate emergencies. Current professional guidance promotes the role of design to preserve, integrate and enhance natural habitats which encourage biodiversity and support access to green infrastructure space for communities (ARB, Architects Registration Board), while developing understanding of natural processes and ecosystems with opportunities for improvements to biodiversity through landscape projects (UK Landscape Institute).
Environmental Practices responds to these criterion by setting out weekly themes that explore the ways in which humans, non-humans and environmental processes intersect with the surrounding world in dynamic ways. Indicative weekly themes include: Shadow / Rock / Water / Sun / Field / Soil / Vista / Living Matter / Darkness / Time. Supported by course tutors, students respond to these weekly themes through a series of investigative site-based works, to cumulatively build up a portfolio that documents their own investigative process, underpinned by written critical reflections.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | This Course requires additional costs to be met by the student.
Travel and Accommodation: There are no travel costs associated with [field-trips / visits / work experience..
Student will be expected to support the cost of local travel by [public transport / car)
Equipment and software: Most equipment and software required will be provided by the School, but student will be expected to provide some specialist equipment including [e.g. laptop headphones, SD cards].
Materials: Students will be expected to fund the purchase of general art and design materials, such as sketchbooks, paper and pens. Students will be expected to fund purchase of some specialist materials required by their course. Course Organisers will support you in meeting intended learning outcomes while keeping material costs to a minimum, encouraging sustainable, responsible sourcing through Free Use Hub but students will be expected to fund optional material costs as necessary for their own project work.
Printing: Students are expected to fund occasional printing of [A4/A1 printing, booklet binding¿etc].
To fully participate in this programme students are recommended to budget a minimum of £270 for MA1, £400 for MA2, £350 for MA3 and £600 for MA4 |
| Additional Costs | Field trips (£30 approx.), drawing and modelling media, printing of materials to be presented and handed in |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 20,
Fieldwork Hours 10,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2,
Formative Assessment Hours 1,
Summative Assessment Hours 1,
Other Study Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
141 )
|
| Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Other Study Hours: 1hr (workshop induction)
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Formative Assessment:
A mid-semester formal review at which students must present individual coursework they have developed. Feedback/Feedforward appraisal will be verbal and written.
Summative Assessment:
100% Coursework
There is a single component of assessment. This is a curated portfolio of your work, including written critical reflections, that comprises 100% of the total mark for this course.
The portfolio will document the project outline, process of investigation, articulate the findings and include a written critical reflection. The portfolio may be of mixed media work, models, drawings, and installations.
The assessment of the portfolio is based on the learning outcomes for the course. Each of the learning outcomes are weighted equally in assessing the course. |
| Feedback |
Students receive feedback regularly through informal studio weekly tutorials. The mid-semester formal review is the main opportunity for formative feedback, which is followed by individual verbal and written feedback.
Students receive written feedback at the end of the course following the assessment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate through critical reflection an understanding of concepts, principles and terms related to contemporary environmental thinking.
- Develop and apply representational skills for observing and analysing environmental phenomena.
- Communicate ideas and completed exercises configured in a portfolio of work.
|
Reading List
Decolonizing Nature - Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology (Sternberg Press) by T. J. Demos (2016)
Art and Ecology Now (Thames and Hudson) by Andrew Brown (2014)
The Artistic Progressions of Ecofeminism: The Changing Focus of Women in
Environmental Art (The International Journal of Arts in Society, Volume 6 Issue 1) Jade Wildy (2011)
Experimental Drawing (Watson-Guptill Publications) by Robert Kaupelis (1992)
Lines: A Brief History (Routledge) by Tim Ingold (2016) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. A critical understanding of contemporary environmental issues and theories.
2. Ability to contribute effectively in peer discussion.
3. Ability in articulating and effectively configuring creative works.
4. A creative engagement with a wide range of representational methods.
5. Be critically self-reflective in addressing ethical, social and sustainability issues.
|
| Special Arrangements |
This course is only available to students on UG Programmes in Architecture and Landscape Architecture. |
| Keywords | Landscape,Architecture,Environment,Climate Change,Biodiversity,Sustainable Design |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Tiffany Dang
Tel:
Email: tdang@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Chloe Hancock
Tel: (0131 6)50 4124
Email: chancock@ed.ac.uk |
|
|
University Homepage