This course is predicated on deep student focus on social engagement and the societal benefits attached to their studio work. Students will investigate and critique methodologies of contemporary, socially engaged artists to develop their own progressive work in order to question and shift traditionally narrow and restrictive paradigms in Illustration that preference and reward the hegemonic at the expense of the progressive, dissident, and critical work needed to advocate for the historically underrepresented. Collaborative projects with local artists, individuals and community organizations will be encouraged and supported to directly connect students with local communities. Students will be required to present self-driven work periodically in response to selected topics, readings, and community discussion.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $150.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

This course emphasizes the mining and contextualization of one's own work as a nexus for growth through the active, ongoing and evolving consideration of your own studio practice as a topic of study in itself. This work will spring from and shed light on your creative intuition, processes and outcomes in a way that will helps you to communicate your work to others through language. In turn, it is hoped this voicing of essential components of your work will help streamline your practice and expedite your artistic production.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $25.00

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

As a culmination of the MFA program, this intensive studio challenges students to design and craft a significant, topically-focused body of work. Although students may choose creative formats and media according to their own interests, they must publish thesis work produced in class. Publication through digital platforms (podcasts, websites, apps, etc.) will be coordinated with analog forms when possible and appropriate to the project. Together with the research and writing produced in ILLUS 606G Paradigms and Contexts: Publishing the Thesis and Beyond, a comprehensive body of work and a written thesis document will be produced.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $1,500.00

Open to Graduate Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

This seminar supports the work of the Thesis Studio IV by providing a formal class setting in which to create written reflections on one's evolving studio thesis work as well as-more broadly-writings on illustration practice. Sessions will center on discussion of assigned readings as well as written responses to classmates' essays. These exercises will scaffold a more expansive documentation of their Studio Thesis Project, and to serve as a forum for discussion of critical writing about contemporary illustration practice that will support an essay to be contributed to the groups final publication.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0.00 - $150.00

Open to Graduate Illustration Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Illustration

The course focuses on understanding the origin of museums and recognizing the influence that certain dominant design aesthetics, approaches, and narratives had on exhibitions. The museum architectural space and its interior exhibition design are never 'neutral' and the study of its history, codification, and exploitation are essential to rebalance and subvert the structural inequalities between Trouillot's agents (museums/institution), actors (curators/exhibit designers), and subject of museum narratives (artifacts/art/belongings). Through lectures, readings, and class debate, students will be encouraged to question how aesthetics impregnate exhibition environments through materials, light, colors, forms, and meanings; to acknowledge that architecture and exhibition design aesthetics are always politicized and that in the tiniest details of their morphology and their organization, museums have the power to validate, the power to corroborate, the power to include, and the deliberate power to silence. 

Major Elective: MDes ENE

Topics in Exhibition and Narrative Environments I is the first part in a year-long exploration of a fluid field in which exhibition occurs in museums as well as other environments. This seminar offers various approaches for that exploration and will provide the student insight into different aspects of exhibition: curatorial matters, experience design, narrative creation, graphic design, new media, user participation, installation, site specificity, production, etc. The content may change from year to year to include special projects. The content may change from year to year and may include theory, hands-on installation, curatorial matters, research, design planning, materials, new technology, time based interactions, and, of course, design of the narrative environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Exhibition and Narrative Environments

Topics in Exhibition and Narrative Environments II follows upon INTAR-2102 and continues the exploration of the principles of exhibition from curatorial matters, experience design, narrative creation, graphic design, new media, user participation, installation, site specificity, production, etc. Topics II will conclude with the selection of a potential Thesis subject.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Exhibition and Narrative Environments

This course focuses on the hands-on process of designing and constructing exhibitions. Students will explore the key elements of exhibition design, including spatial planning, material selection, lighting, signage and way-finding. They will also be exposed to standard fabrication and printing techniques commonly used within the industry.

Working collaboratively, students will design and build exhibits, moving from concept development to the physical installation. Emphasis is placed on real-world problem-solving, project management, and understanding the technical aspects of exhibition construction.

The course will culminate in fully realized exhibits giving the students opportunities to engage the public and share their work. 

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

Interior Architecture and the work of adaptive reuse pose a challenge: To understand an existing idea, concept, materiality, and context, which then becomes the starting point for architectural transformation. The origin may be ill-used or obsolete; the challenge is to knit together that which exists, with newly created form and materiality. Through a series of intertwined projects students will use multiple hand hewn modalities to draw and model proposals. This introductory studio is not designed for students with prior architectural training.

Elective

This course, the first in a sequence, explores design principles through design problems involving the unique fundamental framework for the reuse of existing structures. The semester is arranged around several projects, providing access to the discipline from as many related perspectives. The project assignments require the student to visually and verbally convey clear design intent, think visually in two and three dimensions, formulate and develop abstract design concepts, discern relationships between design interventions and their physical and contextual setting and develop presentation skills to effectively communicate propositions and positions.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course further develops design principles from the first semester and introduces students to methodological thinking in the relationship between context, scale and use. Real site situations are introduced and students develop individual design processes associating topological relationships between the interior and exterior, at multiple scales of interventions. Students will have the opportunity to explore design issues through both traditional and computer generated design.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This lecture course is designed to familiarize students with structural principles and systems as they relate to the study of interior architecture and adaptive reuse. The course will examine the performance and composition of various structural systems, including wood, lightweight metal, steel, masonry, and concrete structures. Local examples in the built environment will be explored to gain an understanding of structures, their materials and components in adaptive reuse. Course work will be complimented by visits to local examples in the built environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This course provides students with an opportunity to study how distinct building systems are constructed to form a comprehensive whole. Through case studies, students will examine approaches to integrating a variety of systems, such as structural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, acoustic, and communication systems. This course will focus on how interior architecture interfaces with existing buildings; the case studies will be of recent works that have altered existing building. Students will be required to use the shop and computers to execute their individual and group assignments.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This class introduces the student to different building materials, their properties and characteristics as they relate to the design of interior, sustainable structures. This will include interior finish materials as well as the understanding of wood, metal, masonry and concrete for projects of reuse. The student will visit sites of material production as part of this course. The course structure includes sketch assignments, a midterm, a final exam.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

While introducing students to the principal concepts of structural design and mechanical systems, the course will attempt to provide a direct link to the built environment with focus on the rehabilitation, preservation and adaptive reuse of existing structures, both historical and contemporary. The presentation of case studies, focus on the structural and mechanical aspects of students' individual studio projects and the excursion to a construction site will bridge the gap between class room and the world of building.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

The objective of this class is to employ digital techniques in spatial design. Students successfully completing this course should be able to develop sophisticated digital layouts with image processing software, create 2D architectural drawings and 3D models, and develop a 3D visualization of a design. In this course, we will also discuss the integration of 2D and 3D data, digital materials, as well as the basics of digital lighting and camera work.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

Introduction to means of representation of ideas for Interior Architecture through various types of drawings: orthographics, axonometrics, perspectives, freehand sketching and mixed media. Work will be done on site from existing structures as well as in the studio concentrating on concept development through drawing.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of color and light as they apply to spatial and visual perceptions in the built environment. It is an opportunity to study color theory in conjunction with light, lighting systems and the effect of light on color and form.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies, MDes Interior Studies

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of color and light as they apply to spatial and visual perceptions in the built environment. It is an opportunity to study color theory in conjunction with light, lighting systems and the effect of light on color and form.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies, MDes Interior Studies

The Spring 2025 seminar, Principles of (Adaptive) Reuse, explores the reuse and repair of structures and objects through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on translation and transformation in reuse and repair. The course investigates methods of re-harvesting (finding and using discarded and waste materials), repair, and transformation in design and design interventions guided by the student’s interest in a topic.

Students will engage with these topics by analyzing and synthesizing materiality, use, reuse, and repair and the environmental impact of existing and new structures. Additionally, the course examines the feasibility of reuse concerning construction practices and sustainability.

The semester is structured around case studies of completed projects in adaptive reuse and repair, providing a practical demonstration of key architecture and design principles within the context of existing and new structures. Through this course, students will develop a deep understanding of the design processes required for implementing reuse and repair principles, equipping them with the skills and knowledge necessary for sustainable futures. Throughout the semester, assigned papers and projects will help students investigate and apply these methods, further enhancing their preparedness and confidence in the fields of their interests.

Preference is given to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Undergraduates in Furniture Design, Industrial Design and Architecture are eligible to enroll by permission of instructor. 

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse