Study Guide

Learning outcomes

The student is able to:
- history of wood in architecture
- regional differences
- future vision for use of wood and other natural material in architecture

Implementation and methods of teaching

Online lectures and independent learning activities. Conversational online lectures, quests for students and student groups, students own online presentations of found information based on quests, videos, forums for knowledge build-up. From students we call for active participation, independent knowledge search, source criticism and genuine interest in the subject.

Learning material and recommended literature

Vitruvius; on Architecture
Various online sources including: RT Building Information File, Puuinfo, Aalto University, Divisare etc.

Alternative completion methods

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Working life cooperation

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Exam retakes

-

Learning environment

Online like Zoom, Teams, Google Meet etc.

Contents

What is Architecture? What is wood architecture? What are the mechanisms behind us ecperiencing some buildings pleasant, some ugly? What is experienced as meaningful is subjective, hence no single right style or estethic principle can be defined.

Architecture is about precision; precision of thought and precision of execution. Another way to define architecture briefly might be a genralist discipline, a holistic approach to a given problem. Architecture is notoriously difficult to define.

In this course we will take a wide look into the world of architecture and get to know buildings and the architects behind the buildings. No material has its own right in buildings or cities. Even though the title of the course is wood architecture we will take a broader look on architecture, architects and construction materials.

That said, wood has been – and still is – a very important material in architecture, especially in Finnish architecture.

Wooden elements haven been used in architecture very long. In this course, we will look architecture and wood architecture broadly; together we search historical and contemporary examples of wood architecture.

History is an essential part of the building process of understanding and knowledge; there are plethora of innovations and beauty in history that have either been forgotten in the course of history or are unknown to us because of different cultural and geographical locations. Together with students, we try to gather and share broad showcase of historical and contemporary cases of wood architecture.

Assessment criteria

Heuristical assesmant of student performance, including student activeness during quests, groupwork, lectures and documentation.

Assessment scale

1-5