Courses

This intensive seminar will contribute directly to a wider exhibition project titled Reyner Banham: A Set of Actual Tracks. The concept that lies at the core at the exhibition project is to investigate and question through fresh critical lenses the attitude and research method of one of the most relevant architectural and design critics of the 20th century, Reyner Banham. 

Creative and critical thinking in architecture occurs through both visual representation (drawings, models, etc.) and full-scale construction. 

Media 2 builds on the techniques of basic architectural representation covered in the previous course.  As a primary learning objective, students will produce detailed 2D representations with vector-based design tools used to construct digital drawings.

The course gives students the opportunity to learn the basic aspects of a skill that can prove of extraordinary value not only for representing real-life objects or scenes, but also for thinking and observing. Through a series of lectures and weekly practical exercises, students will be able to sketch throughout the semester, from live scenes to abstraction and imagination.

This course introduces basic concepts and techniques for designing, constructing, and programming objects, spaces, and media that sense and respond to their physical surroundings. 

Landscapes are sites that people often take for granted; they are frequently understood as spaces in-between other things, or places that somehow exist in suspension: unchanging and untransformed. When we look more closely however, we find that landscapes are neither neutral nor empty. They are, rather, teeming with complexity and life. Indeed, landscapes are sites of intervention and negotiation: among humans, and also between humans and numerous living others.

The second semester of the junior year focuses students on the development and refinement of an architectural design based on a deeper understanding of architectural space. The specific spatial qualifiers that we will address in studio are site, structure, and the integration of various building systems.

This course will explore how mass media communicate ideas, attitudes and values about the built environment to the public. Human experience and perceptions are documented and communicated in mass media, particularly those incorporating moving images. 

This course will explore a variety of techniques in ceramic fabrication that cross digital craft and traditional production methods. This course requires a willingness to experiment with both analog and digital fabrication methods. 

This course will investigate the theoretical frameworks of architectural materiality as they emerged during the era known as the “Enlightenment” (modernity, in other words), leading to the suspicion towards that commitment that emerged in the post-WWII period.

Students will be asked to work collaboratively & develop ideas for design competitions.

This course will explore a unique model for community‐engaged architecture education while engaging the confluence of history, preservation, hands‐on skill building, design and construction. 

The final course in the media sequence exposes students to more advanced parametric modeling techniques as they pertain to architectural design and representation. Building on the introductory skill-building exercises in Media 5, this course is structured into a series of in-class workshops that provide students with hands-on experience with Grasshopper 3D. 

This course focuses on construction materials, systems and integrated design.  Through the careful study of buildings that relate concept to construction systems and tectonics, students develop an appreciation for the value of fully resolved execution.  This study locates architecture at the juncture of design intention and technical means. 

This course provides an introduction to the environmental and the design aspects of architectural lighting and acoustics. The series presents both qualitative criteria relating to architectural concepts and computational analysis to assist design. Students will develop an understanding of interior lighting, daylighting, room acoustics and noise control as components of architectural design through a structured program of lectures, readings, exams and projects. 

This course will focus on the professional practice of architecture including (the following are the NAAB Student Performance Criteria addressed in the class) an understanding of the fundamentals of building costs, such as acquisition costs, project financing and funding, financial feasibility, operational costs, and construction estimating with an emphasis on life-cycle cost accounting.

In this course students will then learn how to build a model from start to finish using Autodesk Revit to create construction documents and details, model custom components, link models together, create renderings and walkthroughs, and touch on site placement. 

The focus of this studio is integrated architectural design - a synthesis of concept and construct addressing design strategy, program, site, construction, and technology.   Students’ work will be informed by exploration of urban issues, history and culture as well as materiality and craft. Design proposals will be expected to address structure and environmental systems, life safety, accessibility, and material assemblies.  

This course will explore and support and development and use of student’s skills in Rhino 3d. Students will explore new modeling techniques in digital interface and methods of physical output. There will be an emphasis on design for digitally fabricated models based on the techniques in the digital models. 

Encompassing the period from about 1840-1900, Victorian architecture is characterized by a wide range of interpretations and re-combinations of distinctly different historical traditions.  

This course focuses on researching and representing ecological systems and phenomena, with a concern for how visualization practices can reveal and synthesize complex social, political, and environmental relationships.