Design and Visualization
Brennan Buck and Mark Foster Gage, Study Area Coordinators
This study area encompasses required studios, elective advanced studios, and courses that concentrate on design logic and skills that support design thinking and representation.
For the M.Arch. I program, required courses in this study area include a core sequence of four design studios, two advanced studios, and two visualization elective courses; one of these visualization electives must be completed in the fall term of the first year. The core studio sequence begins with spatially abstract exercises and progressively engages and integrates scales, sites, and concerns of increasing complexity that integrate material, tectonic, contextual, ecological, and urban demands. Architectural Foundations (ARCH 5090) is a summer course required for entering students who have not had significant prior architectural training. A further visualization course (ARCH 5092)—in the early summer of the first year—focuses on computational tools and is required of all M.Arch. I students.
For the M.Arch. II program, required courses in this study area include two advanced studios and the design research studios (ARCH 5006 and ARCH 5006), completed in the final two terms of study.
Required Courses
ARCH 5001a, Architectural Design 1 Violette de la Selle, Michael Szivos, Brennan Buck, Can Bui, Nicholas McDermott, and Maria Rius Ruiz
This studio is the first of four core design studios where beginning students bring to the school a wide range of experience and background. Exercises introduce the complexity of architectural design by engaging problems that are limited in scale but not in the issues they provoke. Experiential, social, and material concerns are introduced together with formal and conceptual issues. 9 Course cr
MTh 2pm-6pm
ARCH 5002b, Architectural Design 2 Anne Barrett, Talitha Liu, Laura Briggs, and Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
(Required of first-year M.Arch. I students.) This second core studio continues to extend spatial exploration into the conception and design of a building through studies of scale, site, program, and materiality. The term is organized by a series of projects that culminate with the design of a building that engages both public and private space. Prerequisite: ARCH 1011. 9 Course cr
M 2pm-6pm
ARCH 5003a, Architectural Design 3 Sharon Betts, Martin Cox, Karolina Czeczek, Peter de Bretteville, Martin Finio, Aniket Shahane, and Abigail Chang
Required of second-year M.Arch. I students, this third core studio concentrates on a medium-scale public building, focusing on the integration of composition, site, program, mass, and form in relation to structure, and methods of construction. Interior spaces are studied in detail. Large-scale models and drawings are developed to explore design issues. Prerequisite: ARCH 1012. 9 Course cr
MTh 2pm-6pm
ARCH 5004b, Architectural Design 4 Emily Abruzzo, Elihu Rubin, Anthony Acciavatti, Alexa Tsien-Shiang, and Andrei Harwell
(Required of second-year M.Arch. I students.) This fourth and final M.Arch I core studio expands on the fundamental architectural skills introduced in the previous three terms to examine the role of architecture and the architect at the scale of the city. Extending beyond the bounds of a building, this course examines a variety of forces—architectural, urban, social, economic, ecological, political, and other—that shape and order our built environment, emphasizing and cultivating a range of architectural themes and skills. Prerequisite: ARCH 1021. 9 Course cr
MTh 2pm-6pm
ARCH 5005a, Independent Design Research Studio I Bimal Mendis and Deborah Garcia
This course is the first in a two-part culminating studio sequence of the PostProfessional curriculum. It allows students the opportunity to build on individual and group work on contemporary issues studied in the first year research seminars by proposing and developing a final design project informed by that research. Projects aim to reach substantial completion by the end of the fall term for dissemination/implementation in the spring term. The independence of each student and project in the studio grants agency to pursue individual interests and brings a wide array of content and approaches into dialogue. At the same time, the semester is not a pure thesis format: the studio is intended to provide structure and common cause. In addition to individual critiques we have group pinups and occasional shared deliverables. While each project has specific content and an area of research, the studio pedagogy is focused on the means of translating ideas into spatial, social, and political form. While projects may originate in each student’s interests, they are expected to address and impact the broader world. Students are expected to meet regularly with their individual advisers and with both studio critics per the schedule in the syllabus. While the roles of critics and advisers often overlap, the adviser typically has more expertise in the content of the project, and the critics focus somewhat more on methodology: how to develop concepts and content from the research seminars into some form of concrete manifestation through design. In some cases, shared discussions between advisers and critics may be possible, but it is up to the student to synthesize feedback from multiple sources (including colleagues). The development of each project is ultimately up to its author. 9 Course cr
MTh 2pm-6pm
ARCH 5006b, Independent Design Research Studio II Bimal Mendis and Deborah Garcia
(Required of and limited to second-year M.Arch. II students.) This course is the culmination of the post-professional curriculum and allows students the opportunity to build on individual and group work around contemporary issues by proposing a final design thesis project. 9 Course cr
MTh 2pm-6pm
[ ARCH 5090, Architectural Foundations ]
(Required of incoming M.Arch. I students with little or no academic background in architecture.) This summer course is an intensive, five-week immersion into the language of architectural representation and visualization, offering a shared inventory and basic framework upon which to build subsequent studies. Students are introduced to techniques and conventions for describing the space and substance of buildings and urban environments, including orthographic drawing, axonometric projection, perspective, architectural diagramming, vignette sketching, and physical modeling. Students work in freehand, hard-line, and digital formats. In parallel to the visualization portion of this course, an introduction to architectural history and theory focuses on principal turning points of thought and practice through to the eighteenth century. 0 Course cr
[ ARCH 5091, Fundamentals of Modeling and Fabrication ]
n/a 0 Course cr
[ ARCH 5092, Visualization and Computation ]
(Required of first-year M.Arch. I students, early summer. No waivers allowed.) This seven-week intensive course covers the fundamentals and implications of four specific sets of digital software and skills: building information modeling (BIM); virtual realities; image making; and scripting and algorithmic design. Each section is taught by a different instructor who brings specific experience to both tutorials and discussions on the broader impact of computation on the field. 3 Course cr
[ ARCH 5093, Resources for Design Research ]
This course is intended to introduce students to the academic, digital, and fabrication resources at the School and University. Through a handful of exercises, the course provides an in-depth orientation to the Yale University Library system, the latest software and digital solutions employed at the School, and the rich fabrication facilities available to students. Teaching fellows lead workshops and orientation sessions, as well as assist the various instructors throughout the three-week period. 0 Course cr
Advanced Design Studios (Fall)
Advanced studios are limited in enrollment. Selection for studios is determined by lottery.
ARCH 5007, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Janet Marie Smith and Alan Plattus.
ARCH 5008, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Michael Young.
ARCH 5009, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Amin Taha.
ARCH 5010, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse.
ARCH 5011, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Marlon Blackwell.
ARCH 5012, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Caitlin Taylor.
ARCH 5013, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Patrick Bellew and Henry Squire.
Advanced Design Studios (Spring)
Advanced studios are limited in enrollment. Selection for studios is determined by lottery.
ARCH 5020, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5021, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5022, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5023, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5024, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5025, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5026, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
ARCH 5027, Advanced Design Studio 9 credits. Faculty
Elective Courses
ARCH 5100a, Animal Houses Trattie Davies
Animal Houses is a research-based visualization seminar. The class studies the nature of animal occupation on earth and then focus into close study of a method or system of occupation by a single species. Species selection and methods of representation are governed by individual interests based on an introductory series of exercises focused on the primary categories of land, sea, and air. Work is realized in the form of visualizations that collect and re-present discoveries. Given the nature of the research, visualizations push the boundaries of traditional and contemporary architectural drawings and imagery by incorporating process, time, and change into the presentation of spatial language. The seminar allows for in-depth individual research, practice in the transformation of ideas into form, and informed understanding of the material nature of occupied space through the study of animal space. Students have access to both specialists in animal life as well as specialists in representation technologies and processes to strengthen and facilitate representational ambitions. The research further allows for an expanded understanding of alternate building practice and methodologies. 3 Course cr
M 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5101b, Beauty, Wonder & Awe Mark Gage
This seminar explores the role of beauty, wonder, and awe in the design and experience of our world. For most of the 20th century, these subjects were either entirely ignored in academia, or worse, cast exclusively as nefarious mechanisms of control used only by those in power. And yet who among us has not been uplifted by a scene in a film, a piece of music, an object, a work of art or architecture—or perhaps even something as unassuming as a beautifully cascading pile of laundry? This course will work under the assumption that such positive human experiences are needed more now than ever in a world increasingly defined by pessimism, criticism, and division. As such we will work under the assumption that beauty, wonder, and awe exist, and that they are worthy of a contemporary re-assessment, especially in the context of creative practices that are interested in producing a more equitable, beautiful, and just human future.Through both philosophical and popular readings, the study of physical objects, and engaged discussion and lively debate, we will examine beauty, awe, and wonder from all possible angles- what they mean today, their history, why they are desired, how they might be produced, the motivations of those that promote them, and how they are being reconsidered not as the nefarious enemies of function or equality, but rather essential and ethically significant aspects of human experience.In order to address these subjects beyond an abstract academic setting, we will have visitors from various creative industries come to class to discuss these subjects relative to their own work and disciplines- including Jessica Diehl, the former creative director of Vanity Fair magazine, and Michael Young, a practicing architect deeply engaged with the subjects of aesthetics and representation. Students in the course will also (pending confirmation) visit New York City to explore and discuss these subjects at multiple scales, live and in person with the instructor, by viewing everything from architectural facades and urban monuments to medieval armor and Faberge eggs.This course will resist the inherited lore of academia that casts beauty, wonder, and awe only elitist or oppressive, in favor of asking how they can be better understood and incorporated into the design of a more humane world. In doing so we will explore the work of contemporary thinkers who offer nourishment to this endeavor including but not limited to Elaine Scarry, Jane Bennett, Timothy Morton, bell hooks, Nick Zangwill, Dacher Keltner, Georgio Agamben, Susan Magsamen, and others, including recent writings on aesthetics by the course instructor. Limited enrollment 3 Course cr
Th 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5102a, Books and Architecture Luke Bulman
For architects, the book has been a necessary (if not essential) tool for clarifying, extending, and promoting their ideas and projects. This seminar examines the phenomenon of the book in architecture as both an array of organizational techniques (what it is) and as a mediator (what it does). Arguably, outside of the artifice and material fact of the building itself, the book has been the preferred mode of discourse that architects have chosen to express their intellectual project. This seminar is part lecture, part workshop where the experience of making a series of books helps to inform the development of ideas about the projective capacity of the book. Through case studies, this seminar examines the relationship book production has with a selection of contemporary and historical practices, including each project’s physical and conceptual composition as well as how each project acts as an agent of the architect within a larger world of communication. The second part of the seminar asks students to apply ideas in a series of three book projects that emphasize the book as an instrument of architectural thinking. Most projects are individual efforts, but work in pairs or groups is also explored. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
W 4pm-5:50pm
ARCH 5103a, Cartographies of Climate Change Joyce Hsiang
Climate change disproportionately affects the people and places with the least power and resources. As our sea levels have risen, so too has the extreme socioeconomic disparity of specific communities and countries, creating a drowning class of climate refugees. Entire countries on the front lines of sea-level rise face the specter of nationhood without territory, despite the undeniable fact that their contribution to this global problem is negligible. And if climate change is in fact “the result of human activity since the mid-20th century,” it is in actuality a largely male-made phenomenon, if we unpack the gender dynamics and underlying power structures of the proto-G8 nations, the self-proclaimed leaders of industrialization. These power dynamics become even further exacerbated as we consider the implications of the particularly American interest in doubling down on investing in the heaviest piece of infrastructure ever—climate engineering. The architectural community appears to be in agreement. Climate change is a fundamental design problem. And yet calls to action have been ineffectual, responses underwhelming in the face of this overwhelming challenge. As the architectural community is eagerly poised to jump on the design bandwagon, this course seeks to reveal, foreground, empower, and give physical form to the spatial dimensions and power dynamics of the people and places most impacted by climate change. More broadly, the course aspires to help students develop their own critical stance on climate change and the role architects play. 3 Course cr
W 4pm-5:50pm
ARCH 5104a, Composition and Form Peter de Bretteville and Emily Abruzzo
This seminar addresses issues of architectural composition and form as the translation of ideas into three dimensions in four exercises each of three weeks duration. Project 1, Building Assemblies, Partis and Form; Project 2, Section Structure and Form; Project 3, Elevation. Project 4, Composite, an assembly of ideas and elements from each of the previous three projects. Leaving aside demands of program and site in order to concentrate on formal relationships at multiple scales, these exercises are intended to develop strategies by which ideas, words, briefs, written descriptions or requirements, can be translated into three dimensions. Each subject is introduced by a lecture on organizational paradigms in works of architecture from various periods and cultures. Though the medium for exploration is sketches as well as 3D models, both physical and digital, the final is always a physical model except for Project 4. Multiple iterations emerging from the first week’s sketches and finalized in the following week are the basis for the generation of multiple, radically differing strategies each with their own unique possibilities and consequences. The required final report, containing drawings, model photos and narrative, is intended to be a manual of organizational strategies and principles for your continuing use. It is to be a focused edited and annotated summary of the projects with commentary. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
Th 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5105a, Drawing and Architectural Form Victor Agran
The practice of architecture has been undergoing the most comprehensive transformation in centuries. Drawing, historically the primary means of generation, presentation, and interrogation of design ideas, is ill-defined and under stress. This course examines the historical and theoretical development of architectural drawing and artistic practice. The methods and concepts studied serve as a foundation for the development of drawings that consider the relationship between a drawing’s production and its conceptual objectives. Weekly readings, discussions, and drawing exercises investigate the work of key figures in the development of architectural drawing and artistic practice. The course includes visits to the Yale Art Gallery Study Room, the Yale Center for British Art and Manuscripts and Archives. The goal is to engage in a focused dialogue about drawing practice and methods of spatial and conceptual inquiry. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
F 9am-10:50am
ARCH 5106a, Geometric Translations Sunil Bald
This course investigates drawing as a generative instrument of formal, spatial, and tectonic discovery. Principles of two- and three-dimensional geometry are studied through a series of exercises that foreground seeing, thinking, and translation. In short, students “draw from drawing,” working fluidly between manual drawing, computer drawing, and material construction to investigate a range of interrelated topics including tiling, lattices, compound surfaces, orthographic translation, symmetry operations, and stereotomy. All exercises are designed to enhance the ability to conceptualize and visualize architectural form and space, understand its structural foundations, and provide tools that reinforce and inform the design process. Fulfills first-term M.Arch. I Visualization requirement. 3 Course cr
Th 11am-12:50pm
[ ARCH 5107, Inclusive Design for the Built Environment I ]
Also counts as Viz elective. 3 Course cr
[ ARCH 5108, Inclusive Design for the Built Environment II: Design Clinic ]
This class, Inclusive Design for the Built Environment II: Design Clinic (IDBE 2) is the second part of a two-semester practicum that teaches students an Inclusive Design approach by working with a client on an actual project. This year we’re partnering with Columbus House, a non-profit that runs homeless shelters in Connecticut, and Gray Organschi Architecture on the renovation and expansion of a shelter in New Haven which provides beds, meals, and case management for 81 adult men and women. The course builds on the work produced during, Inclusive Design for the Built Environment I: Participatory Design (Fall 2024), where students used engagement tools (surveys, interviews, and workshops) to identify the spatial barriers and solutions faced by Columbus House staff and residents using their existing facility. The outcome was the Inclusive Design Brief (I.D. Brief), a report that included project objectives, design recommendations and a detailed space program. In this second class, IDBE 2, students visualize the recommendations outlined in the I.D. Brief through a two-step process. During weekly Desk Crits, students working in Cohorts present and receive feedback about their developing designs from professors and students. Over the course of the term there will be Milestone Presentations where students present their work to a group of Columbus house staff and residents to ensure their design proposals fulfill the aspirations outlined in the I.D. Brief. The outcome is a Final Report that collects material gathered over the two semesters, including architectural drawings that document design recommendations which the Client and Gray Organschi Architecture will incorporate into the final design. Students are not required to have taken IDBE 1 to take this class. Instructor permission is required based on the submission of an Expression of Interest with the following info: Name, Class year, Major/Concentration, Email and a paragraph describing relevant experiences that would allow you to make a meaningful contribution to the class. 3 Course cr
ARCH 5109a, Ink Michelle Fornabai
Course Introduction Ink proposes a creative and critical inquiry into ink’s instrumentality in architecture to delineate a subtle story—a latent history of architecture in ink—placing ink in our world with the purpose of gaining knowledge within and for the architectural discipline. A close consideration of the varied conceptual and material aspects of ink acts as a medium to reflect upon the means by which architectural knowledge is generated, articulated, and applied. Course Structure The course will be structured by the abecedary, ink or “V is for Vermilion as described by Vitruvius” An A to Z of Ink in Architecture. Composed from various material forms of ink found in studio, an alphabet in 26 images was created and sent as an invitation to 26+ architects, artists, historians, theorists, scholars, inventors and poets to write a brief entry on a discrete ink object. On the first day of class, 13 of the 26 letters will be selected at random and a single letter assigned to each week of the course. Each week, the class will closely examine the ink objects described by diverse voices in the entries written under the assigned letter— conceptually and materially—by reading, in discussion and in drawings. Reading: Each entry describing a discrete ink object is typically brief—generally 500 to 1000 words; the 26 letters contain between 1-5 entries each on average. Weekly reading will be assigned by letter to be discussed in class. Discussion: Each week the class will discuss the ink entries under a single letter to create collective word images. Drawing (in-class/in-studio): Students will spend time each class period using drawing to explore material and conceptual aspects of the ink objects. [These drawings may provide material for the weekly out-of-class assignments. Students will keep a folio of A3 loose-leaf sheets that can be pinned up and compiled for reference and review. In addition, there may be collective in-class drawings, done on larger paper that will be in response to discussion in class. They will be due at the end of the class period. Supplemental ink materials may be provided by the instructor.] Drawing (out-of-class assignments): Students will construct an architectural drawing(s) each week for the letter discussed in class, due at the beginning of the next class (for pin-up/discussion). [Students will determine four parameters for each architectural drawing: scale (ie. measured drawing), view (ie. projection: parallel, oblique, orthographic, isometric, perspective), set (format), and sequence. These architectural drawings may be manual and/or digital. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, a container formed of ink that contains ink, will form the basis of these drawings.] Pin-ups: Weekly drawing assignments will be reviewed weekly. Before each week’s discussion, you should pin-up with the rest of your studio group to facilitate an efficient discussion. Reviews: For Mid review, architectural drawing of a single entry from ink by the student’s choice (not covered in the 13 assigned letters) will be constructed. For Final review, students may delineate a new entry for the abecedary, ink. Mid and Final reviews will include outside critics. Evaluation: Each drawing assignment will be evaluated for a) technique and b) completion. After each pin-up and during the in-class exercise the professor will give an evaluation that will then be recorded by the TF. If a drawing needs improvement to satisfactorily meet the requirements of the assignment, the student will be asked to make these improvements for re-evaluation. All assignments must meet this standard to successfully pass the course. Course Requirements Attendance at all class sessions is mandatory, in accordance with YSoA policy. More than two unexcused absences constitute failure of the class. Out-of-class drawing assignments must be completed by 6pm on the Thursday before the date they are reviewed. Drawings are to be saved for comprehensive review at the end of the term and submitted digitally as directed by the Teaching Fellow. 3 Course cr
F 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5110a, Small Objects Timothy Newton and Nathan Burnell
This course will be offered to graduate and undergraduate students who wish to pursue their own special talents, follow their passions, and expand possibilities and creative impulses to create a small object of their own design. The course is cross-listed with Architecture, Neuroscience, and Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) and will intentionally bring together students with different backgrounds and experiences. The course explores the ideation, design processes, and fabrication of a functioning prototype. A “small object” is defined as something that is able to fit comfortably through a standard doorway. Potential areas of exploration include, but are not limited to: jewelry, furniture, experimental scientific instruments, electronic devices, architectural objects, lighting, cutlery, packaging, and musical instruments. Student selection is competitive and through application only. Proposal submissions are due by Aug. 18 (mid-night), with preference given to graduate students in Architecture, Neuroscience, and SEAS. Previous experience building your small object is not required. Passion for your object—and for building it—are critical for a successful proposal and for success in the course. (Example proposals will be provided with course description material.) Each student will be able to follow their own path as they acquire professional-level competencies in designing and creating their small object, with an understanding that design disciplines are increasingly expanding and converging. As such, students will be encouraged to explore as many university resources as possible to achieve the desired outcome. The methodology used to complete tasks in this course will give students an understanding of a typical industrial design process while equipping them with skills, concepts, and tools used to create scientific-grade instrumentation. The course will encourage creative and scientific exploration, while fostering an interdisciplinary nexus for fabrication technology, design pedagogy, and problem-solving. While each student will pursue an individual project, true innovation often results from cross-pollination between disciplines. To facilitate interdisciplinary interaction and expand possibility, students from different disciplines will work together as they explore the development and fabrication of their small object. Weekly reviews will be coupled with training and seminars. Students will also have access to multiple state-of-the-art design and fabrication facilities that include manual and computer-controlled manufacturing machines, electronic equipment, rapid prototyping tools, and computer aided drafting (CAD) and rendering programs. Students will be exposed to design drawing techniques, physical modeling methods, and the concept of designing for manufacture. Students will acquire professional-level competence in two- and three-dimensional design—using aesthetic sensibility, digital/analog tools, and critical thinking—combined with a working knowledge of materials and methods in an environmentally responsible context. The course will be structured around teaching modules, studio time, and critique periods. During class sessions, students will be encouraged to actively engage in critiquing their fellow students’ work. Technique workshops covering different project-related types of fabrication will be held during the second half of the semester. Enrollment is limited to no more than 9 students. 3 Course cr
TF 9am-10:50am
[ ARCH 5112, Space-Time-Form ]
This seminar explores key concepts, techniques, and media that have affected the design, discussion, and representation of architecture in the twentieth century. The seminar aims to develop a particular type of disciplinary knowledge by crossing experience and act with historical and theoretical engagement. The class foregrounds reciprocity of practice and context, believing the exchange provides an invaluable tool for understanding the origin of ideas and thereby capitalizing on their full potential. Each class is organized around a single concept (form, structure, space, time); technique (drawing, material, color); or media (typography, photography, weaving). Sessions require both a visual/material exercise and close reading of seminal texts. Particular attention is paid to working with different tools and techniques, registering, observing, and analyzing formal and material techniques and effects. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
ARCH 5113b, The Chair Timothy Newton and Alyse Guild
The chair has been a crucible for architectural ideas and their design throughout the trajectory of modern architecture. The chair is both a model for understanding architecture and a laboratory for the concise expression of idea, material, fabrication, and form. As individual as its authors, the chair provides a medium that is a controllable minimum structure, ripe for material and conceptual experiments. In this seminar, students develop their design and fabrication skills through exploration of the conceptual, aesthetic, and structural issues involved in the design and construction of a full-scale prototype chair. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
T 9am-10:50am, W 9am-10am
ARCH 5114a, The Plan Brennan Buck
The architectural plan is an index of architectural values. It expresses the underlying ethics and ideologies of the architecture; evinces the background environment of building technologies, rules, regulations, conventions, and customs; and traces the power relations that buildings enact. This course sketches the history of plan-making during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Beaux Arts composition to modern “non -composition,” before focusing on the scattershot discourse about the plan today. Rather than positing a single grand thesis about the contemporary plan, the course foregrounds the countless threads of plan making evident today and asks students to identify the underlying ideas, histories, and implications of specific plans. 3 Course cr
Th 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5115a, Virtual Futures Jason Kim
Virtual Futures is an investigation into how new spatial computing technologies, which now mediate data through space, have altered our relationship with the built environment and to examine the architect’s role in the development of these new digital horizons. This interdisciplinary seminar challenges students to critically examine the pervasive influence of technology and media culture in contemporary architectural practice through the lens of Mixed Reality (XR) and spatial computing. Rather than celebrating these tools solely for their immersive and representational potential, the course interrogates their role in shaping architectural perception, design processes, and the broader cultural narratives that surround space and the public sphere. 3 Course cr
M 11am-12:50pm
ARCH 5116a, Ruins, Ruination, and Reuse Mark Gage
Architectural ruination indexes not only the failure of individual buildings but also of technologies, economies, communities, or, at times, entire civilizations. And yet architecture is rarely discussed in these terms—as a framework of human reality that itself can be damaged or destroyed, thereby producing significant effects on individuals, communities, and nations. This course engages in the study of various forms of ruination from not only the past and present but also the future, through research into the speculative territories of online “ruin porn,” new genres of art practice, and in particular dystopian television and film projects that reveal an intense contemporary interest in apocalyptic themes. The concept of ruination also be used as a philosophical tool to study architecture at its most essential qualities through speculating on where it can be made to fail—and yet still maintain its identity. For instance, would Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy remain iconic had its piloti been replaced with thin bronze metal Doric columns? Or giant garden gnomes? Students, accordingly, “ruin” architectural icons through visual design interventions. Tutorials are offered on professional matte-painting Photoshop techniques that allow students to produce such visual arguments. The goal of the course is not to convey to the students an existing body of architectural knowledge but to unearth a new architectural discourse that considers architecture in reverse—emphasizing its destruction and decay rather than its creation in an effort to reveal new territories of architectural impact. 3 Course cr
Th 9am-10:50am
[ ARCH 5190, Continuity and Change: Rome ]
(Open only to M.Arch. I second-year and M.Arch. II first-year students. Enrollment subject to the permission of the instructors and satisfactory completion of all required preparatory course work.) This intensive five-week summer workshop takes place in Rome and is designed to provide a broad overview of that city’s major architectural sites, topography, and systems of urban organization. Examples from antiquity to the present day are studied as part of the context of an ever-changing city with its sequence of layered accretions. The seminar examines historical continuity and change as well as the ways in which and the reasons why some elements and approaches were maintained over time and others abandoned. Hand drawing is used as a primary tool of discovery during explorations of buildings, landscapes, and gardens, both within and outside the city. Students devote the final week to an intensive independent analysis of a building or place. M.Arch. I students are eligible to enroll in this course after completing at least three terms. This course does not fulfill either the History and Theory or the Urbanism and Landscape elective requirements. All program travel plans will be made in accordance with University and national travel policies. Limited enrollment. 3 Course cr
[ ARCH 5999, Independent Course Work ]
Program to be determined with a faculty adviser of the student’s choice and submitted, with the endorsement of the study area coordinator, to the Rules Committee for confirmation of the student’s eligibility under the rules. (See the School’s Academic Rules and Regulations.) 3 Course cr
Electives Outside of the School of Architecture
Courses offered elsewhere in the university may be taken for credit with permission of the instructor. Unless otherwise indicated, at the School of Architecture full-term courses are typically assigned 3 credits; half-term courses are assigned 1.5 credits. Students must have the permission of the design and visualization study area coordinators in order for a course to count as a visualization elective.