Structure and length of course
The course consists of three regular semesters, a field trip and a masters thesis on a topic chosen by the student. The Joint Master of Architecture takes two years of full-time study and three to four years part-time. Students must acquire 120 ECTS points, which corresponds to around 3,600 hours of work. Students who complete the course are awarded the title of Master of Arts BFH/HES-SO in Architecture.
Practical education
The teaching staff and guest lecturers in the Joint Master of Architecture programme offer an education that is oriented towards practical application. The aim is to educate architects who think in terms of interconnections, who can develop solutions for new problems and do so creatively and responsibly.
Work and study – made-to-measure education
The course is set up as a series of modules, allowing each student an individually calibrated curriculum, adapted to the most varied requirements. As the workload changes, so the part-time models can be modified as the course continues.
Design projects
Design work is consciously positioned between two poles: the project, PRO, and research (Forschung), FOR. Each design developed by students also serves as an object of enquiry into theoretical issues that arise in the context of the task at hand. While research is carried out on design projects, focal points for research are developed as design projects within defined research projects.
Infraurbanism
Traffic infrastructures are treated as a motor for current urban and architectural developments and form the basis of the research. Over the course of more than one semester, the design project deals with current urban and architectural developments. Urbanisation is particularly marked along transport routes, especially where various forms of transport run parallel in close proximity. The design studio consequently focuses on developments in urban building and territorial projects alongside transport infrastructure. Switzerland, with its extremely dense transport network, offers an almost ideal field for experimentation in the area of INFRA-URBANISM. Projects on the busy transport nodes of Wankdorf City and Kirchberg Far West are examples of such projects. Every semester, students develop a potential urban project for these areas.
Infratourism
The theme of this research is tourism as a stimulator of migratory movements and a medium for cultural transfers. Increasingly, tourism is breaking out of its traditional boundaries. To create relevant development strategies, the various forms of transitory momentum in tourism are being investigated and critically considered for their social and cultural implications, as is the significance for existing buildings and spaces in the landscape. The focus is directed at «tourist spaces», the spaces that are shaped by travellers, the local population and those who provide services. Attention is also given to the less obvious layers of the tourist experience, that area where wishes and needs must be created and simultaneously met. The design projects delve into these developments over the course of several semesters in the form of ZOOM-IN studies. External specialists add their knowledge to the project-specific inputs of the internal teaching staff, so that the students’ projects are given interdisciplinary consideration. Short field trips to look at projects, that can be either completed or still under construction, form an important link (IN-SITU) between theory and practice.
elope
One of the key competences of today’s university graduates is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teamwork. elope (embedded learning oriented project environment) provides a learning and teaching environment which enables the students of the master course to a first hand experience this kind of teamwork. elope combines project work with active research simultaneously. Central to the project studios is the implementation of a real project with actual clients. elope begins in the spring semester 2009 focusing on architecture & health. Students from an international network and from various disciplines will be working together – both in real terms as well as virtually.
Masters thesis
The masters thesis is the modern equivalent of the medieval apprentice’s journeyman’s piece: it shows what the student has learnt. It combines a design project, which includes research work, with related areas of art, the humanities and social and natural sciences. At the end of the course, students can demonstrate their newly acquired abilities and competencies independently and in depth, and apply these concretely to a complex architectural project. Each student frames a question on an architectural theme and then spends a semester scrutinising and pursuing it strategically. The student is responsible for each step, from analysis to implementation, the inclusion of elements of research, the final presentation and the involvement of external experts.
The thesis requires an entire semester for full-time students. Part-time students may extend this to one year. The theme is formulated autonomously by the student, is refined with input from lecturers and anchored with a binding timetable. Students start to look for suitable themes and issues and tackle the basic texts and methods in the Profile Search modules from the very beginning of the course. During the rest of the course, this search is part of the continuous preparation for the final thesis.
Profile search
The Profile Search module is a brick in preparing the masters thesis. It has two parts: the first serves to prepare and present each student’s work materials and is an important instrument for shaping the progress of the individual student’s study. A personal portfolio is ultimately created. The second part takes the form of a seminar on scientific method. The students work intensively on scientific texts and methods, refining their ability to proceed scientifically in a flawless way.
Events
Field trip: «He who lives, sees much. He who travels, sees more», says the Arabic proverb. Students on the masters course spend a week abroad in which they focus intensively on a city, an urban region or a stretch of countryside. Their eye is trained on issues outside their familiar environment as they conduct research into and analysis of the architecture, urban and space planning, landscaping and culture of the unfamiliar location. Their impressions and experience are evaluated and documented so as to be used for personal reflection in further design studio work.
Hotshop: The two-day Hotshop seminar deals with areas close to architecture, such as communication and art. The three design studios in Burgdorf, Fribourg and Geneva are brought together once a year for this seminar, away from the three schools. The aim is an exciting and intensive discussion of a topic in the form of visits, group work, discussions and contributions from specialists and experts. The Hotshop is part of the design studio and allows students to deal with, experience and discuss architecture freely in an interdisciplinary setting.
Exhibitions, lectures, and publications: Lectures with invited guests are held regularly on topical focal points that, in parallel with the course programme, provide additional inputs. Exhibitions of project and thesis work also give students and the public a chance to see work done as part of the Joint Master of Architecture course. Twice a year a magazine is issued, reflecting and publishing the content and research focus of the Joint Master of Architecture course.
Research
Research and teaching are closely linked in the Joint Master of Architecture course at Burgdorf. The term research thus crops up twice. Once in the project studio: the PRO FOR studio motto, «Project as Research, Research as Project», sums up an approach to work that combines design and research activities in architectural and urbanistic projects; then in direct cooperation with the Architectural Processes research unit, which is part of the competency centre for planning, construction and fabrication. The research unit’s interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge and technology forms an interface between application-oriented research and teaching, as well as internal and external institutions and private organisations and companies.
The thematic focal points of the research activities in the Joint Master of Architecture course at Burgdorf are INFRAURBANISM and INFRATOURISM.
The initial problems and research issues deal with the realities of architectural, socio-economic and cultural practice. Newly acquired knowledge gained through interdisciplinary cooperation with partners flows back into teaching and practice, directly or indirectly benefiting a specific group or society as a whole.