Required Course
Credits: 1-12-5 (5 semester hours)
Type of Course: Architectural Design Studio
Instructors: Varies
Prerequisites: ARCH 4022
Course Overview
Advanced studies in architectural design emphasizing the interrelationship of architectural and urban history, theory, and practice through studio problems that engage all aspects of architectural design.
Learning Objectives
Topics include:
- Development of speculative architectural design skills through an engagement with contemporary urban and suburban contexts, and the diversity of architectural production.
- Building upon representational skills to serve speculative and synthetic design strategies.
- Introduction to multiple contexts within which architectural practice operates, and between which architectural design negotiates.
- Application of knowledge from collateral course in architectural and urban history, building construction, structures, and environmental technology.
Course Requirements
Each design assignment includes explicit due dates and minimum requirements which must be met. Project presentation requirements include explanatory descriptions of the project (analytical and conceptual diagrams, axonometrics, models, site models, written texts) technical descriptions (site plan, plans, sections, elevations, construction details), and experiential representations (perspectives; color, shade-and- shadow, material studies). In addition, student work is evaluated in terms of design process and methodology (which must be explicitly recorded) and in terms of the quality of execution of the work. The course includes weekly seminars and lectures on issues of topical relevance for the design studio. When readings are assigned for the seminars, students are responsible for the readings and are expected to actively participate in the seminar discussions. At the end of each design project, students make public, oral presentations of their design work and engage in class wide discussion of the design approaches manifested in the work. Participation in these "juries" is required. At the end of each academic term, the design instructors formally review the compiled work of each student for that term for purposes of grading. Students are responsible for preserving their work (drawings, models, etc.) and organizing it in a design portfolio for purposes of this review. Students are given a written evaluation of their work both at mid-term and term-end. Attendance to all design studio sessions and seminars is required. Unexcused absences from more than three classes may result in a deduction in the course grade.