Summer Design Studio 10
Trauma - A Place for Healing
Dominik Holzer
Studio Outline:
How can we design for people who have gone through severe trauma or injury? What architectural response can provide an environment of ‘perfect happiness’ to support the healing process of patients? This Summer Intensive will address how to advance a design proposition based on in-depth research about the psychological and physical effects of (architectural) design on healing and recovery. Students will then propose an individual architectural project in the vicinity of Melbourne that accommodates their interpretation of a place for healing.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will learn how to translate research outcomes into a tangible architectural proposition. Based on the bespoke topic of ‘Trauma’ students will grasp the cognitive and functional requirements associated to healing and recovery of Trauma patients. They will research how spatiality, materiality, light, sound and other environmental factors influence the recovery of body and mind.
Process:
The semester will kick off with a four-day group research about Trauma and its effects on the human body and psyche. In this period external guests will join class to talk about the effects Trauma patients associate to their immediate built surrounding. Based on their stories and associated literature review, students will work individually from week 2-3 to start conceptualising and advance their ideas. Digital tools for form-finding and analysis will play an important role to explore design morphology and to take an abstract proposal to concrete steps of realisation.
Prerequisites for the Summer Intensive:
- A curious and open mind
- Expert Rhino Skills
- Grasshopper/and or scripting Skills
- Hands-on with digital tools
- Ability to advance design based on research
Studio Leaders
DOMINIK HOLZER is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne. Dominik completed a Masters and PhD degree at RMIT; his interests center around understanding how parametric and other rule-based techniques can assist the architectural design process. Next to his role in academia, Dominik consults on various Design Technology related matters in practice.
ST1/10 Monday 10:00 - 14:00
ST2/10 Tuesday 10:00 - 14:00
ST3/10 Thursday 10:00 - 14:00
From Tues 2 Jan - Fri 6 Jan classes will run
9am - 5pm each weekday.
All classes in MSD Room 142
