This is a theoretical seminar course that will be concerned with ideas and architectural knowledge that may be cultivated and tested through discourse. The course discussions will focus on an expansive role of architectural tools. While acknowledging a wealth of disciplinary conventions, histories and theories, this course recognizes that the forms of representation within the discipline of architecture have the capacity to affect the discipline of architecture and are not fixed. Students in this course will be expected to build upon their previous architectural education through a series of directed projects aimed at advancing architectural theories, ideas and methods. Some of the questions that students will be expected to address are: What are the practical, theoretical, and creative implications of a drawing that functions as architecture? How do architects change the way we make and think thanks to digital media? How do architects represent and model natural forces? How do architects express political or social agendas? What is the nature of an architectural contribution to interdisciplinary discourse? How can representation enable new kinds of artistic and research-based practices for architecture? Students will be expected to self-direct their process while framing their work intellectually in a seminar environment.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $150.00

This course is limited to first-year MArch (2yr) Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (2yr)

ReAssembly: Working Logics is a workshop-based studio rooted in hands-on research centered around material-specific methodologies and multivalent modes of production. At the intersection of architecture, art, and fabrication – the course will investigate the material and cultural implications within various design workflows. We will develop digital, automated, and manual workflows to investigate tectonic possibilities and novel design outcomes. Existing precedents will be closely studied to reimagine and refabricate various assemblies within architecture and other material-based practices. These working logics will leverage tools and techniques such as CNC milling and other means of digital fabrication in the development of large-scale prototypes. The workshop aims to build skills and language around compositional, tectonic, and conceptual explorations of contemporary architectural fabrication.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Elective

This history of architecture course, co-taught by an architectural historian and an architect, introduces key ideas, forces, and techniques that have shaped world architecture through the ages prior to the modern period. The course is based on critical categories, ranging from indigenous and vernacular architecture, to technology, culture, and representation. The lectures and discussions present systems of thought, practice and organization, emphasizing both historical and global interconnectedness, and critical architectural differences and anomalies. Each topic will be presented through case studies accompanied by relevant texts. The students will be expected to engage in the discussion groups, prepare material for these discussions, write about, and be examined on the topics.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture, MArch: Architecture (3yr)

This history of architecture course, co-taught by an architectural historian and an architect, introduces key ideas, forces, and techniques that have shaped world architecture through the ages prior to the modern period. The course is based on critical categories, ranging from indigenous and vernacular architecture, to technology, culture, and representation. The lectures and discussions present systems of thought, practice and organization, emphasizing both historical and global interconnectedness, and critical architectural differences and anomalies. Each topic will be presented through case studies accompanied by relevant texts. The students will be expected to engage in the discussion groups, prepare material for these discussions, write about, and be examined on the topics.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture, MArch: Architecture (3yr)

The course will focus on the diverse new roles encountered by the architect in the 20th century: form maker, administrator of urban development, social theorist, cultural interpreter, ideologue. Emphasis will be placed upon the increasing interdependence of architecture and the city, and the recurrent conflicts between mind and hand, modernity and locality, expressionism and universality.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students and first-year MArch (3yr) Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr): Architecture

The course will focus on the diverse new roles encountered by the architect in the 20th century: form maker, administrator of urban development, social theorist, cultural interpreter, ideologue. Emphasis will be placed upon the increasing interdependence of architecture and the city, and the recurrent conflicts between mind and hand, modernity and locality, expressionism and universality.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students and first-year MArch (3yr) Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr): Architecture