Courses

ARC 101 introduces a variety of architectural concepts and principles with a primary focus on four elemental aspects of architecture: space, site, use, and materials. The course helps students build a vocabulary of fundamental architectural terms and definitions that students carry throughout their development and careers as architects. Students are also introduced to a variety of drawing and modeling techniques, as well as decision-making strategies and design processes. Learning is both individual and collaborative. 

Let’s celebrate the 105-years-old Dom-ino system by Le Corbusier. By this prototype, we are freed from the traditional practice of building facade, liberated from the conventional dependence on tectonics, and released from the plan typology. Before the Dom-ino system, the structure, history, and authority were evident on the facade, but Corbusier saw this system as a ‘free facade’ and ‘free plan’ toward the architecture of the new industrial era. 

Overview on interrelationship of the physical environment and buildings, specifically examining site design and environmental technologies, as they relate to environmental building systems design. More specifically, will develop an ability to respond to site characteristics including urban context, developmental patterning, zoning, soils, topography, ecology, climate, and building orientation. Students will also be introduced to the environmental technologies of lighting and acoustics including criteria relating to concepts and analysis in support of building systems design. Includes lectures, labs, field work, readings, exams, and projects. 

The studio will begin with the construction of buoyant vessels which will be floated at Gallagher Beach and raced as part of an annual regatta. As an instrument, they are ideal objects from which to investigate many fundamental questions that pertain to the tectonics of architecture – space and geometry, structure and skin, form and function, material and construction, etc. As an introduction to a semester-long pedagogy focused on tectonics, students will work collaboratively to design, fabricate, and float a 1:1 wooden vessel.

A compendium on buildings, summarizing the essential information a developer needs in order to participate with other team members in the design of buildings, presented in a concise and comprehensive manner. 

The driving force of cities arises from collective energy. These days, that energy might be social, economic, political and environmental, with increased urban density increasingly being seen as a key to ecological sustainability. Because of its collective character, one of the challenges of the city is the balance between the public and private realms, an issue that is central in the design of urban housing. 

As a continuation of the media course sequence, students will continue building proficiency with 3D modeling techniques as they pertain to architectural visualizations. The primary focus of this course is to practice modeling with intention, by incorporating the design of architectural form, structure, and skin into a single coordinated process. Hands-on tutorials and weekly exercises are intended to assist and reinforce the studio agenda, while covering a variety of technical topics that are relevant to the current digital architectural toolset.

This seminar will focus on tectonics, the convergence of poetry and technique in architecture. The course will explore innovative uses of materials through the examination of a series of contemporary buildings by distinguished international architects. It will seek to develop an understanding of how technical decisions in the deployment of materials, construction systems and details can be directed towards conceptual and cultural ends.

This is the second course in the Structures sequence. We will begin the semester by learning what types of loads are applied to our structures by using Building Code prescribed loading criteria such as Dead, Live, Wind, Snow and Seismic Loadings. The course will then move to develop an understanding of how these applied loads are resisted in structures using various materials such as wood, structural steel, reinforced concrete and Masonry. 

This is the third course in the structures sequence and will attempt to connect the basic understanding of structural behavior acquired in previous courses to the design-related thinking integral to the production of architecture. Thus, although focused on the study of structures, this course will investigate the relationship between structure and architecture. 

This course will focus on early career development in the profession of architecture. The goal is to help students understand the various professional trajectories available and provide guidance as to the necessary steps to follow the path they would like to pursue. Through presentations, readings and weekly discussions students will become familiar with both traditional and alternative career paths in architecture and design.

The seminar gives students an opportunity to explore and improve techniques for assembling legible, clear, graphically engaging work portfolios. The capacity to produce, format, manipulate and present design work is a key skill in the visual communication and conceptual narrative of an architect's career. 

School buildings play a key role in the learning experience of millions of children in the United States. Therefore, school facilities offer a unique opportunity to engage in a national-scale effort to transform learning environments for children. This special topic seminar aims to experiment with such transformation, beginning with a K-4 public school facility built in a Northeastern suburb in the 1950s.

The studio will emphasize critical thinking on basic architectural issues through the design proposal of a group of three houses and three workspaces (painting, writing, and music composing) for three very different families that will be sharing a single undivided lot in the east side of the city of Buffalo. 

This course will expose students to a variety of methods used in architectural representation, both 2d and 3d. Students will learn various techniques to communicate spatial conditions and concepts, including, but not limited to, drafting, photographic manipulation, color theory, and techniques for model making. 

In the first half of this course, we will develop our own surveying tools in the shop to investigate a portion of Silo City in Buffalo, New York. Tools developed in the class will incorporate traditional remote sensing and surveying equipment (for position), digital and analog monitors (for phenomena), and will be recorded on a digital or paper template. In the second half of the course, students will learn to integrate and interpret these data using traditional software tools like GIS. The final project for the class will support the designs of the EP GRG studio; co-registration with the EP GRG studio is required.

The Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group Fall 2019 Studio will start a year long project to design an architectural and landscape intervention that facilitates observation of both the landscape and local wildlife in Silo City. This studio will address how one turns a once functioning industrial site into a site of ecological renewal. 

This studio will explore the design of a Gallery Complex as a means to investigate the incorporation of various technologies into the integrated design of a building. 

This studio will be about design for creativity and entrepreneurism. It will explore the creation of a student oriented small business incubator for UB. Three sites will be studied, one on each of the three campuses. The project will include research and analysis, visioning exercises, space programming and building design. UB’s Capital Planning Group and other university units will participate. 

The studio will foster material research in architecture as an integrated endeavor between scientific, tectonic and cultural readings. Students will exercise to express theoretical and spatial concepts through physical artifacts. Insights will be triggered by working within the material specificity and fabrication techniques of paper casting / fibers / pulp.