Undergraduate Course: Design: Practices of Speculation (ARCH10068)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Part-year visiting students only |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | Design: Practices of Speculation is a 3rd year landscape architecture design studio that builds on foundational knowledge and skills acquired during the pre-honours curriculum. This course presents students with the opportunity to consider alternate realities and possible tomorrows, questioning the very structures or systems within which we normally design landscapes. Students will be guided to identify and debate critical issues of the future as well as to challenge prevailing narratives of how we respond to them. |
| Course description |
All landscape design requires imagining what doesn't yet exist, from working out a technical detail to envisioning a new public space that plays a central role in the life of a community. Moving beyond a simple problem-solution framework, Practices of Speculation presents an opportunity to consider alternate realities and possible tomorrows, questioning the very structures or systems we normally design within. The studio course invites students to 'suspend disbelief' for a semester, giving them license to explore outlandish ideas that push the limits of what's considered 'realistic'.
Whereas in other landscape design courses fieldwork plays an important role, students are now required to build an image and understanding of a site that is remote or unfamiliar to them, without ever visiting it. Instead, desk-based research methods (for example utilising remote-sensing technologies or archival material) will form the basis of the interpretation.
Engaging in fictioning and storytelling through a combination of writing and model studies, students will be asked to very quickly develop a site-specific, formal design concept. This concept will then be challenged by a number of unexpected what ifs changes, for example, in social, ideological, economic, ecological, climatic conditions. Each will prompt a separate response, resulting in a series of scenarios that together aim to provoke discussion around how the future of a landscape is steered.
Talks and workshops on specialised research methods or topics such as model photography, digital fabrication and worldbuilding will support students' self-led investigations into speculative design within landscape architecture.
Weekly tutorials provide a chance to discuss design development whilst pin-ups and reviews held at key moments of the semester help students position their work within the wider context of the studio.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | Students will be expected to have/purchase general art and design materials, such as sketchbooks, paper and pens. Students will also be expected to fund specialist material costs necessary for their model work (e.g. wood, metal, synthetic materials, plaster, card, depending on project). Course tutors will support you in meeting intended learning outcomes while keeping material costs to a minimum, encouraging sustainable, responsible sourcing through Free Use Hub.
Estimated spend £50-100.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students must have completed 2 full years of an accredited Landscape Architecture or Architecture programme, and have achieved grade of B or above on all design courses obtained for entry to this course. This course has limited available space and there is no guarantee of enrolment. Enrolment is subject to Course Organiser Approval. Enquiries about enrolling in this course must be sent directly to the CAHSS Visiting Student Office at cahssvisitingstudents@ed.ac.uk to seek permission. This course is primarily project-based with accompanying course lectures, so it is relatively easy for visiting students to join. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Construct a rich context that has the capacity to visually and narratively support a speculative design project, relying solely on desk-based research methods.
- Appraise and deploy advanced analogue and/or digital model-making techniques to develop and test a speculative design proposal.
- Formulate a speculative design that can convincingly respond to scenarios involving a range of material, immaterial and temporal conditions.
- Create compelling visions of alternate realities by using audio-visual storytelling techniques.
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Reading List
Avery, Charles, Mackay, Robin & Williams, Gilda (2016) Onomatopoeia: its people and its surroundings. Amsterdam: Frame Publishers.
Calvino, Italo (1997) Invisible cities. London: Vintage.
Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona (2013) Speculative Everything. Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ghosn, Rania & Jazairy, El Hadi (2018) Geostories: another architecture for the environment. New York: Actar Publishers.
Marcinkoski, Christopher & Hands, Tatum L. (eds.) (2022) LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture, no. 16 Speculation.
Morris, Mark & Aling, Mike (2021) Worldmodelling: architectural models in the 21st century. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Critical Thinking: Speculative design acts as a tool for questioning. Through speculating on existing and proposed landscape scenarios students will develop independent thought, question norms, practices and opinions. Fictioning and storytelling methods will ask students to confront bias, acknowledging the significance of what is being expressed or suppressed.
Adaptivity: By engaging with speculative design students can learn to examine the implications of an emerging condition before committing to specific applications or research directions. This explorative emphasis will build adaptivity ensuring that students' design proposals remain flexible as circumstances change; building resilience in coping with uncertainty and ambiguity.
Communication: Through imagining, visualising and presenting visionary proposals students will gain in confidence and capacity to articulate compelling speculative futures to a range of audiences and stakeholders. |
| Keywords | speculative landscape design,fictioning,scenario-thinking,model-making,immersive storytelling |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Milja Tuomivaara
Tel:
Email: mtuomiva@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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