Undergraduate Course: Design Thinking: Narrative Making (ARCH08068)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Design Thinking: Narrative Making, encourages students to think deeply about the role architectural drawings and models play in creating a narrative about a project. It asks students to become aware of how these narratives work, where they act and why they matter. In paying attention to these techniques, approaches and strategies, students can learn how to interrogate and leverage them to tell their own stories, building capacity, increasing credibility. Design Thinking: Narrative Making promotes a deeper understanding of the inter-relations between showing and telling, making and doing to help us to build, promote and expand horizons for architectural discussion and production. |
| Course description |
Design Thinking: Narrative making asks students to familiarise themselves with the ways in which architectural representation can reinforce, support or promote particular narratives, or readings, of buildings. In doing so, it encourages students to think about how representation works, prompting them to experiment with its parameters and possibilities to develop, establish and argue for their own critical response to the contemporary built environment.
In the first stage of the project, Students will form research groups to discuss and analyse a precedent, developing a palette of narrative strategies, representational approaches and critical responses. This work will be supported weekly by group tutorials, workshops and lectures, concluding in a review and Formative submission
In the second stage of the project students will select and develop one strand of investigation from the group work, building on interests generated in stage one and to articulate and refine an individual approach. This work will be supported by weekly individual tutorials. resulting in a Narrative Document and an individually produced exhibition quality drawing or model. These components will be reviewed by internal and external guests in week 10/11 to permit further refinement prior to submission during the Exam Diet.
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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 | Much of the materials required for this course will be required for core and compulsory courses taken in parallel by students on the MA (hons) Architecture and / or BA Architecture. Students should budget for a spend of £50 on materials for this course. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 3,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 9,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 77,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2,
Summative Assessment Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
103 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
This course has [2] components of assessment.
1) Narrative Document : 20 x A3 illustrated pages, 600 words 55.56%, Exam Diet, assessed against Learning Outcomes 1 and 2. Students will build on interests outlined for Formative submission and report on its development across the semester. Individually assessed. This component must be passed.
2) Critical Narrative: 1 exhibition quality drawing or model, 44.44%, Exam Diet, assessed against Learning Outcome 2 and 3. Individually assessed. This component must be passed.
Further information:
Narrative Document: This will comprise an updated and refined reflective report (max. 600 words) on the work produced across the semester incorporating relevant visual material in support of the final Critical Narrative drawing or model.
Critical Narrative: Students will create a single exhibition quality model or drawing which translates their critical narrative into a visual and/or physical manifestation. The final presentation drawing or model will be of an appropriate quality, scale and form to convincingly communicate the stated narrative.
To help students with making each submission, we will study examples in class and discuss possible workflows including both analogue and digital options. Students wishing to produce analogue or mixed-media outputs may use the ECA wood, metal, casting, photography and print workshops in addition to their allocated studio space. For student who prefer to work digitally, workshops on digital tools will be provided during the course. ECA Digital Media Skills offers workshops on various software, including InDesign, which is available for free to ECA students.
Resubmission Information
The resubmission arrangements for this course are as follows:
[2] components of assessment.
1. Narrative Document : 20 x A3 illustrated pages, 600 words 55.56%, Exam Diet, assessed against Learning Outcomes 1 and 2. Students will build on interests outlined for Formative submission and report on its development across the semester. Individually assessed. This component must be passed.
2. Critical Narrative: 1 exhibition quality drawing or model, 44.44%, Exam Diet, assessed against Learning Outcome 2 and 3. Individually assessed. This component must be passed.
Further information:
Narrative Document: This will comprise a refined reflective report (max. 600 words on the work produced across the semester incorporating relevant visual material in support of the final Critical Narrative).
Critical Narrative (drawing/model): will be of exhibition quality and must accurately translate a critical narrative into a visual and/or physical manifestation. This drawing /model will be of an appropriate scale and form to communicate the proposed critical narrative.
Students will receive further resubmission information as per University regulations as necessary.
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| Feedback |
Formative Feedback
Students will receive verbal feedback from the Course Organiser during weekly tutorials and studio sessions. Students will be encouraged to offer verbal peer feedback at all stages of the development process, much of which can be valuable and can help build a spirit of collective critical endeavour among the studio group. Verbal feedback from teaching staff during tutorials and during formative reviews is intended to help students improve their coursework ahead of summative assessment submissions but can also help to inform the development of work on future courses.
There will be two formative reviews and one formative submission during the semester.
During formative review 1 (indicative date Week 5) students will present their draft 'Critical Narrative' on the given project which may incorporate a selection of drawings, models and analytical diagrams. Further to feedback from staff this work will be updated and formalised for Formative submission in week 6.
Formative Submission: This will comprise of a record of study up to Week 6: including - but not limited to - subject research, proposed narrative frame, proposed method[s] of representation. The document should present a mixture of text (max 600 words), drawings, visuals, sketches and images. The document will be submitted to Learn. Written feedback on the Formative Submission will assist students in developing their work in the latter part of the semester and provide formal guidance on the translation of their approach into the Critical Narrative and Narrative Document components.
During formative review 2 (indicative date Week 11) students will be asked to present their final drafts drawings and / or models. Students will receive verbal formative feedback to assist with refining this work ahead of submission during the Exam Diet.
Summative Feedback
Summative written feedback will be provided by the Course Organiser for each assessment component.
Written feedback will be useful for students as they progress into Level 10, Year 3 studies where further autonomy and criticality is required. All written feedback will refer to Learning Outcomes and suggesting ways to improve achievement against these areas of learning in future projects.
Summative feedback will be provided according to University regulations.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Research and appraise works of existing architectural design to understand how representational strategies reinforce narrative goals.
- Propose and trial a representational strategy which aligns with a particular narrative about, or response to, a work of architecture.
- Create an exhibition quality drawing or model which clearly articulates a defined narrative.
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Reading List
Adams, Kevin. Great Windows in Modern Architecture. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2024.
Böck, Ingrid, and Rem Koolhaas. Six Canonical Projects by Rem Koolhaas': Essays on the History of Ideas. Vol. 5. Berlin: Jovis, 2015.
Cadwell, Mike. Strange Details. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007.
Ryan, Marie-Laure, ed. Narrative across Media: The Languages of Storytelling. Lincoln, Neb. University of Nebraska Press, 2004. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Curiosity: Engaging with questions of 'for what' and 'towards which ends', students will develop a curiosity for questioning the reasons behind the selection of representational strategies and approaches within historic and contemporary architectural discourse.
Adaptivity: Through thinking about the range ways in which a design project might be presented to a variety of audiences, for a variety of purposes, students will become aware of the adaptation required by designers to make a project legible, attractive or acceptable depending on context.
Individuality: Through finding ways to critical locate and visualise a particular response to an architectural narrative, students will begin to identify and recognise their individual approach, gaining in credibility and confidence.
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| Keywords | Architectural Argumentation/Representation,PersuasiveNarrative,Informed Design Critique/Technique |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Kevin Adams
Tel:
Email: Kevin.Adams@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Chloe Hancock
Tel: (0131 6)50 4124
Email: chancock@ed.ac.uk |
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