The primary goal of this foundation course in architectural technology is to introduce students to the processes of construction – the various materials, methods, systems, and assemblies –which constitute the art of building. That art consists of the dual knowledge of design and construction which are joined through acts of practice. Architectural technology is considered in this course, therefore, not only as the physical means of building, but also as the critical context within which we construct. In order to establish this context, elements of the building arts are presented thematically according to simple phenomenal and typological characteristics. The twin criteria of building performance and building construction, as selected by textbook author Edward Allen, are applied across all themes and to all elements for study of the physical and environmental dimension. Discussions within the course of the historical/ontological and ethical/aesthetic dimensions of building are intended to encourage the design student to speculate critically within the studio setting. In this way the medium of architecture –the 'materials and methods,' is investigated as an instrument of intellectual work –as the language of architectural design. The relationship between the empirical facts (practical and theoretical knowledge) of building technology and the experiential effects and constructive aspirations of architectural designs is the primary emphasis of the course.
Construction Tech & Design Integration I
Minimalism
What does it mean –from our perspective some 40 years removed, to refer to something, especially architecture, as being 'minimal' or 'minimalist'? The term minimalism, now a part of mass culture parlance, is loaded with accumulated meanings and lifestyle imagery: cool-ness, understatement, sophistication, chic asceticism. Ironically, the art that received the name was described in its time as being culturally subversive, confusing, aggressive, and dangerous. How radical was this 'movement' in art - and against art, and what have been its primary influences outside of artistic practice? Is there anything radical about today's so-called minimalist architecture?
As Hal Foster and others have observed, the minimal artist replaced the illusionist space of the eye with the bodily space of the 'here-and-now'. Minimal art involved construction rather than composition. It posited work in the place of Works. Minimalism sought nothing less than to alienate and separate the artist from the artwork, to achieve a kind of sublime(?) autonomy through indifference as opposed to reverence. The 'inevitable' appropriation of architecture and landscape in minimal art strategies reflected a general desire to resist the commodity status of the object by making it site-dependent. In this seminar we will ask: How close to being or 'becoming' architectural is the explicitly literal and temporal experience of minimalist art? What works of 1960's minimal art 'work' in ways that can inform our critique of architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism? Can the study of minimal art practices help us to better understand or define the issues of place and place-making? Finally, how could/should the criteria of art be applied to the production of architecture?