The second semester of the M.Arch I Program builds foundations for architecture, including conceptual, technical, and theoretical dimensions of how we design. The first part of the semester includes two short projects. The first focuses on the observations of the everyday world, forming a program from the observation, and then designing a small building to fulfill the purpose – a small building that will fit within one parking space in a parking lot. The second project involves the design of a site, not a building, working in and on the landscape to explore formal composition of sitework, landscape as architecture, as well as technical aspects of topography, grading and drainage. The project is a small cemetery.
The second part of the semester involves two related projects. The first is a brief urban analysis to establish an urban design framework for the final project. This analysis, which will be conducted in teams, includes aspects of historical development, current conditions and issues, and predominant building and urban types. The second project is a building design, drawing on lessons and conclusions from the previous exercises – an urban infill building with a hybrid program, including housing and another use. The purpose of this final exercise is to combine a full range of design concerns in a single project: urban, site, and program resolved in the horizontal and vertical organization of space, enclosures, and construction.
The focus of this seminar is a comparison between the structuring of art and architecture. Architects, in contrast to most other artists, have a non-direct relation to their medium. As an architect, one does not typically craft a building directly. One makes propositions, explores alternatives and communicates to various audiences by means of other media, i.e.. three-dimensional model making, drawing, painting, photography, or computer imaging. The architect remains a generalist and it is prudent that she or he understand other media.
The main emphasis of this seminar is critical analysis of selected artifacts in a variety of media. Such a study promises a two-fold return. First, one encounters the possibility of cross-fertilization whereby discoveries allied with one discipline may be appropriated by another. This opening up of possibilities is matched by a complementary and equally useful limitation of possibilities. The study of any one medium helps define its unique properties and appropriate limitations.
Cross Media Analysis
The focus of this seminar is a comparison between the structuring of art and architecture. Architects, in contrast to most other artists, have a non-direct relation to their medium. As an architect, one does not typically craft a building directly One makes propositions, explores alternatives and communicates to various audiences by means of other media, i.e. three-dimensional model making, drawing, painting, photography, or computer imaging. The architect remains a generalist and it is prudent that she or he understands other media.
Lectures and discussions will focus on the relation between form, meaning(s), and media. We will engage in close readings of selected paintings, films, and architecture. Specific art works in various media will be analyzed with hypotheses that certain general principles might be derived regarding form making.