Co-requisite: COA1060
Credits: 0-9-3 (3 semester hours)
Type of Course: Supervised Studio
Instructors: Sabir Khan, Ann Gerondelis, Varies
The first of two design studios in the Common First Year sequence required of all students entering the College of Architecture undergraduate programs.
The studio sequence proceeds from a broad understanding of design as intentioned activity that shapes virtually everything in the world: places, spaces, products, systems, and environments.
During the fall studio, thematic investigations occur at two scales -- the object and the building -- with each investigation divided into a suite of exercises organized around specific materials, techniques, and media. The exercises apprentice students in the strategic use of these different media and techniques, as part of the apparatus with which to engage the world around them.
Exercises 1 through 5 introduce students to charcoal, pencil, and collage; to line, tone, and to various conventions of orthographic and axonometric projections; to the procedures of making different kinds of measured drawings; and to modeling and fabrication, among others. Exercise 6 puts all of these into play in design projects where students move from conceptual sketches to finished drawings.
The final exercise emphasizes the importance of research to the design process; specifically research carried out through observation, documentation, analysis, and interpretation. Students begin by working back from an existing condition, describing and redescribing an existing set of spaces and building elements from multiple perspectives. They then 'intervene' within the situation in a manner that builds upon and extends their particular descriptions of it, producing a series of alternative propositions and scenarios.