| Subject | Design Dissertation |
| Term | I |
| Academic Year | 2022-23 |
| Date | September 2022 |
| Participants | 5th year students |
| Semester | IX |
| No of Periods per week | 1 session |
| Faculty | Subject coordinator: Ajita Deodhar Guest lecturer: Aastha Deshpande |
Pillai College of Architecture and IIC, PiCA in collaboration organised a 5-day workshop on Architectural Thesis Writing in the month of September 2022 for semester IX students. It was conducted by write and architect Aastha D. It aimed at developing creative and formal skills that the students can incorporate into their DD book and complete the book by end of the month.
The 1st session commenced the workshop with a very interactive and interesting dialogue with students and interacted about their thesis topics, their approach, and the stage they were at. As already informed by her the focus was on two major aspects of design research and thinking—the individual and the collective. Her approach to guiding the students was through prompts, examples, discussions, methodologies, and readings. Students were able to explore more angles to their topics and work on their own methodologies. Students were given time to write in the studio itself which was discussed and critiques were given individually by the speaker.
Aastha asked students to mind map their ideas at this stage again to refine their objectives and research questions. They then worked out their table of contents in detail and re-wrote the 1st chapter. She gave them assignments to work on chapter wise covering all the chapters by end of the month. All the writings were read and discussed in common. The conduct was the same for all the sessions. In the next 3 sessions, she discussed all the important topics like the introduction, abstract, case studies, etc and checked the student’s work, and gave comments.
She also explained how to identify reliable and valid sources, primary and secondary sources, and how to cite them in the book. She handed over a set of guidelines to students to format their book formally without missing any of the points. The workshop definitely proved quite informative and enriching for students and helped them be more effective in writing their DD book.
