ABB101 Design 1: Space and Scale
To view more information for this unit, select Unit Outline from the list below. Please note the teaching period for which the Unit Outline is relevant.
| Unit code: | ABB101 |
|---|---|
| Equivalent(s): | DAB101 or DLB101 or DTB101 or ABD101 |
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Timetable | Details in HiQ, if available |
| Availabilities |
|
| CSP student contribution | $1,192 |
| Domestic tuition unit fee | $4,704 |
| International unit fee | $5,436 |
Unit Outline: Semester 1 2026, Gardens Point, Internal
| Unit code: | ABB101 |
|---|---|
| Credit points: | 12 |
| Equivalent: | DAB101 or DLB101 or DTB101 or ABD101 |
| Coordinator: | Sheona Thomson | s.thomson@qut.edu.au |
Overview
This unit introduces key principles of spatial design, exploring how space and scale shape experience across architecture, interior, and landscape contexts. Through project-based learning, you will investigate spatial organisation, materiality, proportion, and introductory tectonic and stereotomic approaches while developing design ideas, methods, and representations.
This unit introduces professional knowledge aligned with AACA National Standard of Competency for Architects, Performance Criteria 18, relating to the communication and representation of ideas through appropriate modes and media.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit you will be able to:
- Identify and apply key concepts of spatial organisation, materiality, proportion, and basic tectonic and stereotomic approaches to forming space, and explain how these shape spatial experience.
- Develop and document an iterative design process that responds to spatial and scalar challenges, showing how your methods inform your design decisions.
- Investigate and analyse two- and three-dimensional spatial relationships across different scales, drawing insights from built environments, interiors, landscapes, and natural systems.
- Communicate design ideas and project outcomes clearly to tutors, peers, and visiting reviewers using visual, verbal, and written modes of representation.
- Evaluate your use of a deliberate design process, and explain how it shaped your project outcomes and your understanding of space and scale.
Content
Areas of knowledge and skill developed in this unit include:
- the spatial design process, including observation, research, analysis, ideation, experimentation, iteration, and reflection
- understanding space, scale, and the human body across architectural, interior, and landscape contexts
- spatial organisation, form-making, abstraction, and proportion
- perceiving and experiencing space, light, materiality, and scale
- representing, testing, and communicating spatial ideas in two and three dimensions using drawings, models, and digital or physical media
- introductory tectonic and stereotomic approaches to forming space
- materials, making, and assembly as drivers of spatial expression
- reflection, self-evaluation, and documentation of design process
Learning Approaches
Learning in this unit is studio- and workshop-based, centred on hands-on design projects situated in real-world contexts. You will engage in individual and collaborative work supported by lectures, readings, demonstrations, and critical discussion with tutors, peers, and visiting reviewers.
Studio and workshop sessions connect theory to practice and support the development of spatial thinking through making, drawing, testing, and iteration. You will be expected to bring work-in-progress to class each week and to actively participate in discussions and reviews.
Reflection and documentation of your design process form an important part of learning in this unit, supporting your ability to evaluate design decisions and articulate how your understanding of space and scale develops over time.
Feedback on Learning and Assessment
Feedback in this unit is provided through multiple channels to support your learning and progress:
- ongoing formative feedback in studio through desk critiques, pin-ups, and group discussions
- peer feedback during collaborative reviews and presentations
- general feedback provided to the cohort via Canvas
- summative feedback on submitted assessment tasks using criteria-referenced assessment rubrics
Week 9 Progress Checkpoint (formative)
- In Week 9, you will participate in a compulsory, formative checkpoint focused on Project 2. You will present work-in-progress for feedback on your design process, spatial thinking, and readiness to complete the project.
- This checkpoint is not graded, but it is an expected part of the assessment process. It is designed to help you identify strengths, gaps, and next steps before the final stages of the project and to support successful completion of the unit.
Assessment
Overview
The summative assessments in this unit build your understanding of how architectural space and scale are shaped across architectural, interior, and landscape design. Through two spatial design projects, you will investigate how space is created and expressed through spatial organisation, materiality, proportion, and both tectonic and stereotomic approaches to forming space. Across these projects, you will be asked to:
• generate and develop design concepts
• apply design methods and techniques
• engage in a continuous, iterative design process
• communicate ideas through models, drawings, and verbal presentations
• reflect critically on your design process and project outcomes
• articulate your growing understanding of space and scale
• participate in peer discussions and use feedback to strengthen your work
Unit Grading Scheme
7- point scale
Assessment Tasks
Assessment: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study)
In this first project, you will design a small-scale spatial chamber shaped to receive, frame, or transform light. You will explore how spatial organisation, materiality, and proportion influence the way light behaves and how this affects the experience of space. This project introduces tectonic and stereotomic approaches to forming space at an intimate scale, establishing conceptual and technical foundations for Project 2.
Throughout the project, you will maintain a structured record of your learning, documenting your design process, methods, and emerging understanding of architectural space and scale.
Ethical and responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools is authorised in this assessment. Assessment 1 details in Canvas specify the conditions for this use.
This project is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.
Assessment: A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space)
Building on the ideas developed in Project 1, this project asks you to design a body-scale spatial threshold positioned as a gateway or marker within the campus environment. You will explore how spatial organisation, materiality, proportion, and tectonic or stereotomic strategies can shape transitions, guide movement, and create meaningful encounters at the scale of the human body.
You will investigate how occupation, approach, and passage influence spatial experience and communicate these ideas through models, drawings, and verbal presentations. As with Project 1, you will document your design process and reflect on how your decisions shaped the project’s outcomes and your understanding of architectural space and scale.
Ethical and responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools is authorised in this assessment. Assessment 2 details in Canvas specify the conditions for this use.
This project is eligible for the 48-hour late submission period and assignment extensions.
Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is a commitment to undertaking academic work and assessment in a manner that is ethical, fair, honest, respectful and accountable.
The Academic Integrity Policy sets out the range of conduct that can be a failure to maintain the standards of academic integrity. This includes, cheating in exams, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, collusion and contract cheating. It also includes providing fraudulent or altered documentation in support of an academic concession application, for example an assignment extension or a deferred exam.
You are encouraged to make use of QUT’s learning support services, resources and tools to assure the academic integrity of your assessment. This includes the use of text matching software that may be available to assist with self-assessing your academic integrity as part of the assessment submission process.
Breaching QUT’s Academic Integrity Policy or engaging in conduct that may defeat or compromise the purpose of assessment can lead to a finding of student misconduct (Code of Conduct – Student) and result in the imposition of penalties under the Management of Student Misconduct Policy, ranging from a grade reduction to exclusion from QUT.
Resources
- Materials and equipment for manual drawing, drafting, model-making and other physical making.
- Prescribed and recommended texts and readings.
Resource Materials
Prescribed text(s)
Plowright, P. D. (2019). Making Architecture Through Being Human. Taylor & Francis. (VitalSource eBook available through QUT Bookshop.)
Other
You will need drawing equipment to complete your assessment for ABB101. The equipment required for ABB103 Create and Represent: Process can also be used in ABB101. These items can be purchased in a pack through the QUT Supply Store or independently from another retailer. Details of the required items are listed in the ABB101 Canvas site.
Risk Assessment Statement
Health & Safety Inductions
ABB101 involves working in the J Block Fabrication Workshops and students must complete the following:
- Health & Safety Induction (minimum required score of 18 out of 20): enrol via Laboratory and Workshop HSE induction (Canvas)
- Fabrication Workshop Induction (minimum required score of 20 out of 20): enrol via Fabrication Workshop (J Block) Induction (Canvas)
In addition to the above, an in-person Fabrication Workshop Orientation Induction will occur in week 1 of the teaching period.
This unit has no out-of-the-ordinary risks associated with lectures or studio classes. You should, however, familiarise yourself with evacuation procedures operating in the buildings in which you attend classes and take the time to
view the Emergency video.
Course Learning Outcomes
This unit is designed to support your development of the following course/study area learning outcomes.AB01 Bachelor of Built Environment (Honours)
- Apply theoretical, practical and cultural knowledge and skills across a range of disciplines and specialist knowledge and skills in one built environment area.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Design and critically evaluate sustainable and creative solutions to social, economic, technological and environmental challenges.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Communicate knowledge, ideas and creative solutions in diverse modes, for a range of contexts and diverse audiences.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Plan, develop and complete research and other projects.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space)
AB05 Bachelor of Architectural Design
- Apply theoretical, practical and cultural knowledge and skills in architecture.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Design and critically evaluate sustainable and creative architectural solutions to social, economic, technological and environmental challenges.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Communicate architectural knowledge, ideas and creative solutions in diverse modes, for a range of contexts and diverse audiences.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space) - Plan, develop and complete architectural research and projects.
Relates to: Chambers for Light (Small-Scale Spatial Study), A Threshold for the Body (Body-Scale Space)