04/10/19

This is the second semester for a foundation studio course in an interdisciplinary program with the School of Engineering that first was established in the 1970’s. This three-year interdisciplinary program is based in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Studies. This program will familiarize the student with architecture, landscape architecture, planning, structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering and the related issues that contribute to the built environment for our society. It introduces the process of coordinating all of these aspects for the engineering student. 

This course will continue to develop the student’s comprehension on the nature of contextual and organizational principles that order our surroundings, and to create an appreciation and understanding of how and why these systems are established. The objective is to expose the student to current issues related to design in architecture, and to teach the intrinsic nature of architecture developed through principles based on the design & construction process. These topics are indications of the various value systems that come into play in the contemporary field of architecture. Understanding this and becoming aware that design is a synthetic process that is a balance of many concerns is a major objective of the course.

This course will explore contextual research and analysis introduced in ARCH 205aL in more depth, and architectural program and space planning for a modest, but spatially complex building within an urban context. These projects will continue to emphasize the design process from the initial design concept to the final building proposition. Though precedent studies, design exercises, lectures, and critiques; emphasis is placed on design as a creative, conceptually driven, iterative process; all working within the defined limits of project budgets and schedules.

Prerequisite: ARCH 205aL

Basic considerations and design implications of the problem of determination of the materials and the construction details and processes for buildings.

Examine the critical role of materials and methods for the design and construction of buildings. The primary focus is on materials and systems, their properties and connections, and their intrinsic relationship to structural systems and environmental performance.

Students will develop a fundamental understanding of: the relationship of materiality to construction systems and techniques, how building materials are manufactured, and how a material’s modular form, dimensions and intrinsic qualities influence the design process.

Students will learn about various building systems, and how these systems assist in the expression of a design concept, through an examination of precedent projects whose design concepts were generated by material logics and systems. Students will work hands-on with building materials (concrete, wood, metal, etc.) to get an understanding of each material’s properties.

Prerequisite(s): PHYS 125 and MATH 108

Structure defines form and space and supports gravity, lateral, and thermal loads. The course introduces the four S’s required for architectural structures: Synergy, Strength, Stiffness, and Stability. Synergy, a system greater the sum of its parts, reinforces architectural objectives; strength resists breaking; stiffness resists deformation; and stability resists collapse. Structures must also resist bending, shear, tension, compression, thermal stress and strain. Learn the historic evolution, material, and system of structures, as well as the basic design and analysis tools for conceptual design.

Required text

Structure and Design: https://titles.cognella.com/structure-and-design-9781516522989

Detailed information is posted at http://uscarch.com/structures/

Prerequisite(s): ARCH 213a or equivalent course

Learn the design of basic structural systems: arch, vault, dome, truss, space truss, Vierendeel, suspended and stayed structures, moment frame, braced frame, shear wall, framed tube, bundled tube, and suspended high-rise. Structure selection and optimization is based on environmental conditions, available resources and technology. Explore how the design of these systems accounts for gravity, lateral wind, seismic load, and thermal stress and strain. Learn about seismic design and failure, as well as schematic design based on the global bending and shear concept. Students will design structures and build a structural model including small, medium, and large spaces.

Required text

Structure and Design: https://titles.cognella.com/structure-and-design-9781516522989

Detailed information is posted at http://uscarch.com/structures/

Architecture is the product of social, cultural, religious, and political forces. Great cultures and civilizations have existed all over the world, producing not only great monuments but robust vernacular architectural traditions, closely tied to the environment and their local context, which resonate even today.

This course examines the history of architecture from the Prehistoric period through the 16th century from a global perspective.

Prerequisite(s): ARCH 214a, ARCH 214b or ARCH 304 How do architectures and infrastructures both support and limit capacities for political community and economic-political enfranchisement? Modern housing has been understood, on the one hand, as providing the basic foundations of citizenship and cultural integration and, on the other hand, as an instrument of biopolitical management, segregation, and financial exploitation. How does a house function as an instrument of citizenship (and non-citizenship): firstly by mediating between the private sphere and the state, and secondly by its production of interdependencies (i.e., through the house's interpolation within infrastructures of education, communication, transportation, health care, and physical services)?

Special attention will be given to how the design of housing has worked co-operatively with economic redevelopment in urban and rural areas to produce a range of political effects. This course has a global scope but with a special emphasis on U.S. histories of slavery, settler colonialism, industrial labor, immigration, and civil rights. The course will be grounded in philosophical texts that theorize citizenship and non-citizenship.

This course examines and interrogates the concept of Modernism by focusing on a select number of key texts. Rather than offering a survey of the Modern Movement, this course looks closely at the writings produced by some of its central figures, including Adolf Loos, Antonio Sant'Elia, Bruno Taut, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier, as well as some of its earliest challengers. Themes and topics addressed include definitions of modernism and avant-garde; art, craft, and industry; new materials such as iron, glass, and concrete; the question of ornament; the modern metropolis; and the modern landscape.

An exploratory study of fundamental and innovative visual communication principles and graphic expression techniques to facilitate the design enquiry process for architects. 



Prerequisite(s): ARCH 302bL

Registration Restriction: Not open to students with Freshman/Sophomore standing.

In the past two decades, architecture has undergone a paradigm shift that influences the way we think about and approach issues of communication, representation, and production. Clearly, the new breed of computational tools and digital modeling programs offer students and practitioners alike opportunities for experimentation with new graphic forms and visual concepts. In a global networked culture that often places emphasis on “instant communication”—texting, tweeting, email, LED billboards, urban screens, Skype, social media, YouTube, etc., the IMAGE or SOUNDBITE has acquired a newfound significance as the de facto means of communication that’s unparalleled. Explore what bearing this paradigmatic change has on the practice of architecture, both as a medium and as a discipline and how these advances in technology shape our visual culture and impact the relationship between the medium and message.

Does not require D-Clearance.

Registration restriction: Not open to students with Freshman/Sophomore standing.

This seminar examines light, color and the character of material as a collection of medium for making worlds. Through linking various arts and design disciplines as a departure and overview for the course subject, Arch 423 exposes students to a spectrum of approaches in theory and application, drawing influences from nature, technology, and the vernacular. Class exercises aim to develop a number of visual concerns across object-oriented analysis to atmospheric and environmental construction. In the course of employing digital and analogue techniques, students will synthesize a repertoire of advanced graphic experiments for weekly progress and learning.