366 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
Phase 3: Constructing a “project” brief by public / private relations.
For a “project” based education, it is crucial for the students to get exposed to the
formulation of a brief, a framework of directions and priorities. They were asked
to formulate such brief in terms of preferable relations between public / private, a
sort of transferring of knowledge acquired up to this phase. What it is important to
mention at this point is that by formulating a brief by relations of public vs. private
and not by a quantifiable manner, a “project” brief was constructed rather than a
building brief.
The “project” brief was created on two levels: On a group level, where all students
working on each case study had to decide amongst them a priority of relations and
then on an individual level where each student could add a personal level on her /
his brief.
What was very interesting with the “project” brief was that it became a sort of
a road map for the students who could consult it on an individual basis and read-
just their directions and priorities. The role of the tutors was to bring them back to
their brief when necessary with a sort of an intermediate role, rather than that of
a Master.
Furthermore, the construction of a language around public/ private relations
through the various phases, enabled the students to include in their briefs a range
of very generic and very specific issues. The potential users of the building to design
had names and specific characters: Mr Kyriakos and his mother in case study No 1, Mr
Giorgos, his wife and two kids in case study No 2, Mr Argyros as a lonely guy in case
study No 3. The public vs. private way of entering the project facilitated them to cir-
culate continuously from the specific to the generic, from the detail to the whole.
Phase 4: Plot assignment
The students were assigned a plot within Orphanides Hypermarket (case study No 4)
(images 09, 10) where they had to design an activity of the same sort as the case
studies plus a living space. The plot given was in fact the smallest possible built plot
in Cyprus which is 10.5 X 24 metres, (image 11). Through some simple rules they
could operate within that plot perimeter and on a vertical level (three levels). Plus,
they had to incorporate a small garden which forced them to introduce natural light,
a sort of openness within an artificial environment.
Three plots where assigned, one for a pastry shop (case study No 1), one for a
coffee shop (case study No 2) and one for a tailor shop (case study No 3). The exact
position of the plots was given by the tutors attempting to relate the character of
each insert with the existing context. The Pastry shop plot was amongst the shelves
of sweets and chocolates in the supermarket, the coffee shop plot was at the cash-
iers’ counters enabling the coffee shop activity to take place not only within the
supermarket but also within the rest of the shopping centre. Lastly, the tailor’s shop
plot was located above the shopping centre’s escalators encouraging the students to
readjust the role of the tailor.
Phase 5: Contextualising an insert
The design of an insert in the given site had to go through a series of transformations
of the public-private relations in the project “brief” into architectural form. In order