Introduction to cultures of form in architectural design, representation, and production, including material cultures, geometric discourse and analysis, Western and non-Western modes of perception and representation. Through a series of acts of forming and making, provides a primer and venue to rehearse skills such as 3D modeling and the reciprocity between representation and materialization. Exercises accompanied by lectures from practitioners, who each represent a highly articulated relationship between form and material in a body of design research or built work.

Provides an introduction to visual communication, emphasizing the development of a visual and verbal vocabulary. Presents the fundamentals of line, shape, color, composition, visual hierarchy, word/image relationships and typography as building blocks for communicating with clarity, emotion, and meaning. Students develop their ability to analyze, discuss and critique their work and the work of the designed world. 

Overview of design as the giving of form, order, and interactivity to the objects that define our daily life. Follows the path from project to interactive product. Covers the overall design process, preparing students for work in a hands-on studio learning environment. Emphasizes design development and constraints. Topics include the analysis of objects; interaction design and user experience; design methodologies, current dialogues in design; economies of scale vs. means; and the role of technology in design. Provides a foundation in prototyping skills such as carpentry, casting, digital fabrication, electronics, and coding.

Provides instruction in architectural design and project development within design constraints including architectural program and site. Students engage the design process through various 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional media. Working directly with representational and model making techniques, students gain experience in the conceptual, formal, spatial and material aspects of architecture. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication provided.

Introduces fundamental design principles as a way to demystify design and provide a basic introduction to all aspects of the process. Stimulates creativity, abstract thinking, representation, iteration, and design development. Equips students with skills to have more effective communication with designers, and develops their ability to apply the foundations of design to any discipline.

“Architecture &” is a course framework that situates architecture (and cities) relative to a shifting subject that ranges from material, light, use, limits, time, memory, narrative, posthumanism, thresholds, etc.

This course is an exploration of the later stages of architectural design that occurs in architectural detailing and construction mock-ups. To initiate this course, students will select a building threshold from a project that they have previously designed and use it as a basis to produce 5-10 new threshold variations. The threshold variations will be a detailed response and study of select architectural precedents. For the final project, students will select one threshold design to build a physical model at full (or half) scale.

This course offers students the opportunity to explore the design potential passages, openings and closures. Choosing and isolating the threshold allows for an in-depth study of the passage between interiors, and exteriors, and the space in between. Each threshold is on the verge of; as illustrated in Marcel Duchamp’s door 11 rue Larrey from 1927, it is both an opening to and closure of and holds the space between two conditions.

Students will design and detail openings in response to atmospheres and spaces and inhabitants. Students will also explore multiple design options as each design will be approached through a different tectonic lens. Students will not redesign the entire building—only the threshold. Since the threshold is from a design that each student gave much consideration previously, each speculation on the threshold design hints toward alternative design approaches and potentials for building design.

The approach to tectonic studies is informed by a range of precedents from literature, mathematics, art, music and architecture. In art and music, instructional compositions informed by repetition, variation, and singularity (uniqueness) from the chance compositions of John Cage to the wall drawings of Sol Le Witt. Other models for this exploration are the books Elements of Style by Raymond Queneau and 99 Variations on a Proof by Philip Ording, two works that begin with a simple premise that is reinvented one hundredfold by a new set of principles, techniques, contexts, and histories.

Queneau the cofounder of OuLiPo (workshop of potential literature) begins with a narrative, while Ording begins with a theorem, yet each uses the same method to generate new perspectives of the original through an exploration of style. The OuLiPo group applied constraints and mathematical rules to conceive of and structure narratives. Architectural precedents will be drawn from editions of GA Detail, Global Architecture, El Croquis, and when possible, detailed vernacular, traditional African, Islamic, Japanese, and European examples. 
 

Master/Piece wordshop will study 6 buildings that are considered seminal in contemporary architecture, built by architects that remain active in practice. We will discuss why those works are key and the chain of reactions and trends that detonate in architecture culture, their traces and impact in peers and in other projects. We will focus deep in the conceptual to constructive scales and the masters will join the class to culminate the analysis and conversation.

How to re-design garbage into a living creature? The workshop introduces a workflow combining hands-on artwork-making and digitalization tools like 3D-scan and AI-generated rigged models.
     
This is a three-day workshop from Jan 10 to 12 (Wed to Fri):

• Day one: Collect or bring the trash you want or unwanted. A tutorial on the 3D-scan tool will be provided.
• Day two: Paper mache techniques. Turn trash into mesh by hand and by scanning.
• Day three: Animate your paper mache with generative AI!