Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The School of Architecture, Universitas Pelita Harapan at Karawaci - Indonesia is a dense, vibrant architectural laboratory devoted to improving our understanding of the built environment. The most essential research activity breaths the first semester students’ training and pedagogy. The vast changing the society and the environment due to pandemic surely affects the way architecture is being researched and being taught. This paper presents the experience in the first-semester Architectural Research Studio conducted from August to December 2021. This undergraduate level Studio is being arranged to provide wide possibilities for the students to engage the issues of sensing and of observing within hybrid situations and experiences. This paper becomes a case study on how understanding forms, crafting forms as thought and thoughts as forms. On the beginning of the studio, the students are challenged to observe and to express their understanding of their own physical body. The understanding of the body then being extended to the understanding of their own favourite pets, plants, or food. The interactions and sensations between their body and favourites are translated into formal elements and language. On the next phase of the studio, the students are being challenged to create a hybrid understanding of mechanical and industrial objects, and this conclude in their own artistic, formal and graphical engagements, expressions, and narratives by the end of the semester.