What is Thesis Design?
· Thesis is the last design project of the five year degree program in Architecture. In this project, a student has to demonstrate his/her ability to handle independently, all aspects and design phases of a reasonably sized project. This is a minimum requirement.
· Beyond the minimum requirement lies an open invitation for those who are ready to take up the challenge, to show off their skill and talents as a designer. A project of choice with ample time and minimum restrictions, Thesis project is an opportunity and demonstrate their skills as designers.
· In order to provide maximum flexibility, all decision making is left with the student; from the choice of the project and development of requirements to the mode of fine presentation. It follows that the students is responsible for reasonableness of all decisions as well as their effects and implications.[1] Students must remain aware of this dichotomy of opportunity and responsibility.
Synopsis:
Synopsis is a proposal for Thesis project. It should indicate the project and describe its scope. A synopsis is best limited to a single page. Its primary purpose is to communicate the nature and extent of the proposed project to the advisors to enable them to judge its suitability as a thesis project. A synopsis must be approved before a student is permitted to take up a project.
Preparing a Synopsis:
Synopsis can be quite useful to write a preliminary overview of the Thesis report as well. A synopsis not only helps students systematize their preliminary work, it helps them recruit the most appropriate project type/ topic. The synopsis can be a simple, one-page outline that evolves through discussions with potential mentors, peers, and others. It lists the proposed topic, problem, methodology, and schedule as follows:
Proposed Topic
After assembling a list of possible topics, students should assess each topic for feasibility and practicality. Before finalizing, the following questions should be considered:
· Is this a topic of interest in the field of architecture?
· Does a body of literature exist to support a scholarly investigation via design and research?
· Is it possible to focus on a small enough segment of the topic to make it doable as a Bachelor's thesis?
· Will it be possible to draw conclusions that other reasonable people can agree with?
· Does the methodology involve skills that I already have?[2]
An explicit and honest exploration of such questions at the outset will help the student inpreparing to develop the proposal and subsequent thesis.
Proposed Problem
It is important that the proposed problem be clear and specific in scope. In architecture, a thesis problem that might be demonstrated by virtually any approach to design or any building programwill not prove very significant. On the other hand, a problem that is dependent upon a single method of investigation, a unique design project, or specific building site is probably not appropriately framed.
Proposed Methodology
The methodology chosen, which must be appropriate to the problem under investigation, will have a profound effect on the process and the product of the thesis. In general terms, themethodology in an architecture thesis will most likely be qualitative, focusing on understanding a indigenous, historical and contemporary situations, rather than quantitative, focusing on measurement and statistically significant relationships.
The particular types of methods students will have to pursue include:
· Case studies(observing and analyzing a particularly similar projects)
· Comparative (comparing and contrasting two or more similar projects)
· Designand demonstration (creating and describing a new project)
· Evaluation (assessing the effectiveness of a design or policy)
· Developmental (charting and reporting spatial changes over time)
· Exploratory(investigating new directions in architecture)
· Historical (studying the influences of traditions, past and prevailing movement, etc.)
· Methodological (examining new approaches to design especially through digital technologies)
No one methodology is better than another; rather the methodology follows from the nature of the problem. Students might elect to utilize multiplemethods but care should be taken not to generate irrelevant information that can affect the final product presented.
Within a particular type of method, students will elect certain procedures for collecting or creating data e.g., using computer models to design an energy efficient library, using time-lapse photography to evaluate the design of a public space, interviewing the users of a space you will design, observing interactions at a series of community design meetings, reviewing main stream and community newspapers for reports of a particular project. As noted previously, the procedures selected should draw on the student's unique technical competencies.
Pre-Design:
Generally presented as (Part of) a report, the pre design phase of a thesis project is directed towards data collection and analysis for the purposes of:
· Project definition
· Data collection
· Analysis and description of aspects of the project which requires such study
· Development of requirements and analysis of requirements.
During this phase, all information which the architect might require for designing the project is procured. After this phase, only studio work should be needed to complete the project.The pre design work is generally presented in the report in three parts:
1. The architect’s brief: This is instruction and information generally provided by the client to the architect. It includes definition and description of project, location and site, available funding, phasing and the precise description of its scope.
2. The Architect’s attempt to understand the project: Analysis of functional and qualitative aspects of the project, elaboration of any specialized aspects, as well as information gathering/ data collection about aspects which require such activity.
3. Pre-design conclusions: these include architect’s design philosophy/ intended approach towards design, detail building program and its area assignment (requirements) and analysis of the building program indication functional and physical grouping of requirements.
Criteria for choice of Thesis project:
Thesis topics may vary in scope and depth, limited only by the need to focus on an area that has relevance to the practice or theory of architecture. Because architecture is a broad field, the range ofappropriate topics is broad. Because a thesis is the capstone ofadvanced study, students are advised to identify a topic that draws upon their prior preparation andexperience; ideally, it reflects the student's long-term interest, utilizes that person's unique technical competencies (e.g., computer modeling, photography, or interviewing) and serves to advance a future career direction:
1. Primary orientation of project must be physical design. Thus pure historical researches, documentation and other such projects which do not have substantial physical design content are not suitable.
2. Project volume should be reasonably large. A project which is too small does not permit the students to show his/her command over design, whereas aspects of a very large project are likely to remain unfinished.
3. Generally, a good project will have a reasonable balance of three components, each of which should be significant. These are: layout, building/ physical design and any special aspect.
4. Novelty/ complexity/ challenge: A thesis project must involve significant design problems. Then a solution of these problems would demonstrate to the examiners, student’s ability to solve design problems. If the project is too plain, is not complex enough, doesn’t involve any challenge, has not novel aspect requiring special study or expertise, then it may not be very suitable.
5. Doable.
6. Must be chosen to show off designer’s strength.
7. Must have a statement to make.
8. Availability of data/ information (practical).
9. Feasible (being a live project doesn’t insure feasibility).
10. Must be based upon reasonable assumptions.
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