Architecture Courses
ARCH 101G-01
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-02
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-03
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-04
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-99
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 103G-01
GRADUATE CORE 3 STUDIO: CITIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Core 3 Cities studio uses the lens of housing and housing policy to dissect the ways in which these architectural choices impact residents' access to dignity in their cities. In the market of the built environment, where does architecture start? You may think it is the napkin sketch or AutoCAD but think instead of something more mundane: the government official's zoning map or the development firm's financial projection. In the architectural profession, we often lament our lack of agency in the creation of space. The architect must wait for the client, the request for proposal, or the competition. We are then at the mercy of local, state, and federal policy-responding to regulations, sightlines, zoning, and more. But how can we see the mechanisms of governance and finance as inherent parts of design? The Core 3 Cities studio uses the lens of housing and housing policy to dissect the ways in which these architectural choices impact residents' access to and dignity in their cities. Through assignments, readings, and discussions we will explore what is at stake in the urban environment and endeavor to discover new forms of design intervention that respond with nuance to those stakes.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 1513-01
*JAPAN: DESIGN, DEGROWTH, DEMODERN JAPAN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
How would we happily degrow?
How do we design a new future?
The Industrial Revolution rapidly modernized Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, Japan's modernization began in the late 19th century, with a century delay from that in Europe due to the 200-year isolation of the Edo period. Since the country opened its border in 1854, Japan's growth snowballed and became the world's second-largest economy during the so-called "Japanese Economic Miracle" in the late 20th century. With its peak in 2008, however, Japan's population started to decline, dragging everything else on the same track. Cities are shrinking; rural communities are disappearing; houses, schools, and stores are unoccupied; the economy is stumbling.
Moreover, the ultimate comfort, convenience, mass production, and overconsumption became the products of industrial modernization at the cost of environmental degradation and human health threats. Globalization has concurrently led to a loss of cultural identities in many parts of the world, and Japan is no exception. The shrinking society also contributes to a potential loss of tradition and cultural practices.
The architectural critic and historian Kenneth Frampton elaborated the concept of critical regionalism, which refers to the regional styles created with influences of global ideas but personalized by the specific contexts. He claims that the concept of local or national culture is a paradoxical proposition not only because of the current apparent antithesis between rooted culture and universal civilization but also because all cultures, both ancient and modern, seem to have depended for their intrinsic development on an inevitable cross-fertilization with other cultures. He cites Paul Ricoeur, "Regional or national cultures must be ultimately constituted as locally inflected manifestations of 'world culture.'"
During the industrial modernization of the late 19th Century in Japan, the country built infrastructures incorporating Western models and modernized the society at an unprecedented speed. These physical outcomes that formed their built environment reflected the local and global hybridization before the International Styles took over as cities continued to urbanize.
How do we look for cultural identity when global influences are inevitable? What are the opportunities for designers to address degrowth in the pressing environmental crisis? Where do we find cultural appreciation and appropriation in future design approaches? This course claims that those physical outcomes that helped modernize the country may be the more explicit representation of Critical Regionalism. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has named buildings, facilities, machinery, and equipment that represent the process of Japan's industrial modernization as "Heritage of Industrial Modernization" in 1990, certifying 1115 items across the country. Students will visit some of these sites and find the cues in the design of the built forms that reflect the locality and the global influences, which may give insight into how we intervene as designers in the future.
Students must complete an application through RISD Global to be added to this course. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required, good conduct standing, and permission of the instructor. GPA, Student Conduct Standing, and standing with Equity and Compliance will be verified and may preclude a student from participation, either before or during the term. Most courses are open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental and Foundation Studies.
Elective
ARCH 1560-01 / ID 1560-01 / IDISC 1560-01
*PORTUGAL: DESIGN WITH AND FOR NATURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this 3-week, 3-credit summer course, we will learn about design with nature, by designing for nature inspired by the Azores. We will explore the potential of biofibers working with our partners from University of Azores. Biofibers were for centuries one of the primary materials used in the design of ordinary products and building components. With the introduction of plastics and other synthetic materials at the advent of the 20th century, the use of the natural materials declined. But thanks to a growing environmental consciousness and new attitudes, traditional crafts are being reconsidered in innovative ways. In the Azores and Portugal, the traditional handicraft culture is still thriving. Artisans continue to create beautiful objects including wonderful woven baskets, hats and fiber dolls. We will explore these traditions and then look at new approaches that use multiple techniques for a varied set of applications that range from pressed composite containers, algae based fabrics, to 3d printed woven and compressed building components.
Through multiple field trips, we will learn about the island’s rural and urban landscapes. We will examine the crossovers between our communities and study the intersection of ecology, traditional economy, and contemporary cultural activities. The main focus of this research is to use the invasive Conteira plant (Kahili ginger) as a resource for the development of a bio-based composite using biopolymers (i.e., PHA, PLA, cellulose, or starch) in order to produce a new sustainable material for biodegradable building solutions, such as textiles (netting) and other malleable surfaces. We also will visit with, and work in the studio of, a local arts organization called Walk&Talk who will be hosting their annual summer arts festival. In addition, students will be exposed to local craft traditions from wood working, basket weaving, to embroidery as a means to learn from past and to look toward an ecologically hopeful future.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00
Elective
ARCH 201G-01
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course connects the methods, traditions, and conventions of architectural drawing with contemporary technology and representational cultures. This course recognizes that for architects to operate productively, politically, socially, and ethically given the ubiquity of the digital image, both an advanced command of computational techniques and drawing techniques are immediately and primarily necessary. The digital image is the standard by which aesthetic content is transmitted, published and processed. Its pervasive role in contemporary architectural culture-and humanity-is mediated and confronted in this course. Relatedly, material drawing traditions are essential, valuable and provocative. The techniques covered in this studio-taught course include the manual and automated manipulation of digital images and material drawings at dramatically varied scales and dimensions. A structure of creative prompts continually positions the drawing and the image in parallel, with an emphasis on developing students' sensibilities, and capacity for both improvisational and scripted constructions. Students will create from memory, from life, from imagination, and from reference. As a result, students develop an architectural language that can engage multiple media and subjects.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 201G-02
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course connects the methods, traditions, and conventions of architectural drawing with contemporary technology and representational cultures. This course recognizes that for architects to operate productively, politically, socially, and ethically given the ubiquity of the digital image, both an advanced command of computational techniques and drawing techniques are immediately and primarily necessary. The digital image is the standard by which aesthetic content is transmitted, published and processed. Its pervasive role in contemporary architectural culture-and humanity-is mediated and confronted in this course. Relatedly, material drawing traditions are essential, valuable and provocative. The techniques covered in this studio-taught course include the manual and automated manipulation of digital images and material drawings at dramatically varied scales and dimensions. A structure of creative prompts continually positions the drawing and the image in parallel, with an emphasis on developing students' sensibilities, and capacity for both improvisational and scripted constructions. Students will create from memory, from life, from imagination, and from reference. As a result, students develop an architectural language that can engage multiple media and subjects.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 201G-03
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course connects the methods, traditions, and conventions of architectural drawing with contemporary technology and representational cultures. This course recognizes that for architects to operate productively, politically, socially, and ethically given the ubiquity of the digital image, both an advanced command of computational techniques and drawing techniques are immediately and primarily necessary. The digital image is the standard by which aesthetic content is transmitted, published and processed. Its pervasive role in contemporary architectural culture-and humanity-is mediated and confronted in this course. Relatedly, material drawing traditions are essential, valuable and provocative. The techniques covered in this studio-taught course include the manual and automated manipulation of digital images and material drawings at dramatically varied scales and dimensions. A structure of creative prompts continually positions the drawing and the image in parallel, with an emphasis on developing students' sensibilities, and capacity for both improvisational and scripted constructions. Students will create from memory, from life, from imagination, and from reference. As a result, students develop an architectural language that can engage multiple media and subjects.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 2101-01
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2101-02
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2101-03
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2101-04
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2101-99
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2103-01
(COUNTER)COSMOGONIES: RITUALS FOR THE (UN)DEAD
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Rituals are performed in our day-to-day lives. They are both sacred and profane, loaded with ecumenical meaning, and/or devoid of theological origin. Rituals can be both ordinary and extraordinary, quotidian and divine. They come in different forms, and accordingly, rituals determine different forms and forms of life. This semester we will research mythologies embedded in our daily life. Ceremonies and rituals will serve as the chassis for us to plumb how we hold myths and stories in our imaginaries and our bodies. Rituals are spatial, temporal, and material practices. They are embodied performances and they span myriad genres and registers. Rituals function as states of exception, but in doing so, can reify the existing status quo. They can also embody liberatory potential and rupture world orders. Rituals will be explored as a world-making endeavor, a series of performances co-created and co-authored that reenact mythologies. The sonic and spatial registers of ritual procession will be looked at via scores and notations. This studio will be conducted as an experiment in collectivity. Sample outcomes could include an exhibition, archive, and/or publication. The intention is to create a body of work as a collection, but the process will be loosely determined as both a series of individual and group efforts. As a group we will determine the processes and outputs.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $200.00
Elective
ARCH 2108-01
URBAN ECOLOGIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Urban Ecologies core studio introduces students to the city as a designed environment with an emphasis on sustainability, giving them the tools to work through impressions, analysis and design operations as ways to understand the relationship between naturally formed and culturally constructed landscapes and strategies for urban ecological development. Students confront the design of housing as a way to order social relationships and shape the public realm and attack the problems of structure, construction, access and code compliance in the context of a complex large-scale architectural design. Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2108-02
URBAN ECOLOGIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Urban Ecologies core studio introduces students to the city as a designed environment with an emphasis on sustainability, giving them the tools to work through impressions, analysis and design operations as ways to understand the relationship between naturally formed and culturally constructed landscapes and strategies for urban ecological development. Students confront the design of housing as a way to order social relationships and shape the public realm and attack the problems of structure, construction, access and code compliance in the context of a complex large-scale architectural design. Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2108-03
URBAN ECOLOGIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Urban Ecologies core studio introduces students to the city as a designed environment with an emphasis on sustainability, giving them the tools to work through impressions, analysis and design operations as ways to understand the relationship between naturally formed and culturally constructed landscapes and strategies for urban ecological development. Students confront the design of housing as a way to order social relationships and shape the public realm and attack the problems of structure, construction, access and code compliance in the context of a complex large-scale architectural design. Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Junior Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture