ARCH 8001a, Introduction to Urban Design  Staff

(Required of first-year M.Arch. I students.) This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of urban design within the context of the broader fields of urbanism and urban history. That is to say that the design of the built environment will be considered in relation to patterns and practices of urban life and culture, and as a response to historical transformations of the political, economic and technological forces that have shaped cities since antiquity, but especially since the industrial revolution. The course will attempt to negotiate between the broader landscape suggested by these forces and the specifics of particular cities at critical moments in their development and the projects which represent the efforts of those cities and their designers to come to terms with the dynamics of urban change. Thus the lectures will include monographic treatments of specific cities and exemplary urban design projects, as well as the general issues and principles of city design suggested by those case studies, including consideration of their implications for contemporary practice. The weekly classes will provide opportunities for the introduction of supplementary examples from the wider field of international urbanism, as well as introducing techniques of urban representation and analysis relevant to the assignments and to student work in studios. Classes will also provide time for discussion of readings and lectures and issues of current interest.    0 Course cr
HTBA

[ ARCH 8101, Agroecological Urban Constellations ]

n/a  3 Course cr

ARCH 8102b, Architecture for a World After  Joyce Hsiang

This course is an urban research and design seminar. It explores the role of architecture in the aftermath and afterlives of seismic shifts that have dramatically reshaped societies and ecologies on a planetary scale, whether through loss/extinction or invention/innovation. The course invites students to examine new organizations, forms, spaces, and places that emerge and rehearse ways in which architecture can anticipate or respond. Readings from across disciplines prompt consideration and critique of various approaches including speculation, sci-fi, thought experiments, techno-futurism, world-making, and utopia/dystopia. The course explores text as an architectural project, referencing and generating creative work in response to readings to develop critical stances on the role of architecture. The semester-long research and design exploration Architecture for a World After _____ asks each student to fill in the blank with a subject grounded in the present that is disappearing or (re)appearing. Students experiment with creating drawings, images, films, and/or other novel media to speculate on the perils and possibilities of a world after.  3 Course cr
W 4pm-5:50pm

[ ARCH 8104, Difference and the City ]

“Given the choice between modernity and barbarism, prosperity and poverty, lawfulness and cruelty, democracy and totalitarianism, America chose all of the above.” —Matthew Desmond in The New York Times (Aug. 14, 2019) for “The 1619 Project.” Four hundred and odd years after colonialism and racial capitalism brought “twenty and odd” enslaved people from Africa to the dispossessed indigenous land that would later become the United States, the structures and systems that generate inequality and white supremacy persist. Our cities and their socioeconomic and built environments continue to exemplify difference. From housing and health to mobility and monuments, cities small and large, north and south—such as New Haven and Baltimore—demonstrate intractable disparities. The disparate impacts made apparent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the reinvigorated and global Black Lives Matter movement demanding change are remarkable. Change is another essential indicator of difference in urban environments, such as disinvestment, disaster, or gentrification. Cities must navigate how such considerations as climate change and growing income inequality intersect with politics, culture, gender equality and identity, immigration, migration, and technology, among other conditions and forms of disruption. In this course, we explore together some key questions: How are cities and their environments shaped by difference, including the legacies and derivatives of colonialism and modernism? How do the structures and systems of difference operate in our spaces, places, and cities? How might we better understand and find agency in the past, present, and future of urban contexts using an antiracist and decolonial approach to design and urbanism? How can frameworks like cultural heritage, environmental conservation, and social equity and inclusion challenge dominant narratives or unjust past and present conditions?  3 Course cr

[ ARCH 8105, Globalization Space ]

This lecture course researches global infrastructure space as a medium of polity. More than networks of pipes and wires under the ground, this infrastructure space is a visible, enveloping urban medium filled with repeatable spatial formulas and spatial products. Lectures visit the networks of trade, communication, tourism, labor, air, rail, highway, oil, hydrology, finance, standard making, and activism. Case studies travel around the world to, for instance, free trade zones in Dubai, IT campuses in South Asia, high-speed rail in Saudi Arabia, cable/satellite networks in Africa, highways in India, a resort in the DPRK, golf courses in China, ISO standards, and automated ports. More than a survey of physical networks and shared protocols, the course also repositions spatial variables in global governance. Infrastructure space may constitute a de facto parliament of decision-making—an intensely spatial extrastatecraft that often spins around irrational desires. Each week, readings, with both evidence and discursive commentary, accompany two lectures and a discussion section.  0 Course cr

ARCH 8106b, Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century  Norma Barbacci

This seminar explores the evolution of historic preservation from a narrow focus on monumental properties to its broader, more complex, and more inclusive current purview. The course begins by learning about the history of the field of preservation through the understanding of its theoretical roots, definitions, professional practice, and the basics of material conservation. This introduction serves as a preamble to the second part of the course which focuses on the expanding role and potential future of historic preservation as it aligns its objectives with the principles of sustainability, social inclusion, and decolonization.  3 Course cr
W 2pm-3:50pm

ARCH 8107a, History of Landscape Architecture: Antiquity to 1700 in Western Europe  Warren Fuermann

This course presents an introductory survey of the history of gardens and the interrelationship of architecture and landscape architecture in Western Europe from antiquity to 1700, focusing primarily on Italy. The course examines chronologically the evolution of several key elements in landscape design: architectural and garden typologies; the boundaries between inside and outside; issues of topography and geography; various uses of water; organization of plant materials; and matters of garden decoration, including sculptural tropes. Specific gardens or representations of landscape in each of the four periods under discussion—Ancient Roman, medieval, early and late Renaissance, and Baroque—are examined and situated within their own cultural context. Throughout the seminar, comparisons of historical material with contemporary landscape design are emphasized. Limited enrollment.  3 Course cr
F 11am-12:50pm

ARCH 8108a, Housing Connecticut: Developing Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods  Andrei Harwell, Kate Cooney, Alan Plattus, and Anika Singh Lemar

In this interdisciplinary clinic taught among the School of Architecture, School of Management, and the Law School and organized by the Yale Urban Design Workshop, students gain hands-on, practical experience in architectural and urban design, development, and social entrepreneurship while contributing novel solutions to the housing affordability crisis. Working in teams directly with local community-based nonprofits, students co-create detailed development proposals anchored by affordable housing but which also engage with a range of community development issues including environmental justice, sustainability, resilience, social equity, identity, food scarcity, mobility, and health. Through seminars and workshops with Yale faculty and guest practitioners in the field, students are introduced to the history, theory, issues, and contemporary practices in this field, and get direct feedback on their work. Offered in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Housing (DOH) as part of the Connecticut Plan for Healthy Cities, proposals have the opportunity to receive funding from the state both towards the implementation of rapidly deployed pilot projects during the course period, as well as towards predevelopment activities for larger projects, such as housing rehabilitation or new building construction. Students interact with the Connecticut commissioner of housing and the Connecticut Green Bank.  3 Course cr
F 9:30am-12:30pm

ARCH 8109b, History of British Landscape Architecture: 1500 to 1900  Warren Fuermann

This seminar examines chronologically the history of landscape architecture and country-house architecture in Britain from 1500 to 1900. Topics of discussion include the history of the castle in British architecture and landscape architecture; Italian and French influences on the seventeenth-century British garden; military landscaping; the Palladian country house and British agricultural landscape; Capability Brown’s landscape parks; theories of the picturesque and of the landscape sublime; Romanticism and the psychology of nature; the creation of the public park system; arts and crafts landscape design; and the beginnings of landscape modernism. Comparisons of historical material with contemporary landscape design, where appropriate, are made throughout the term. The collection of the Yale Center for British Art is used for primary visual material, and a trip to England over spring break, partially funded by the School, allows students to visit firsthand the landscape parks studied in this seminar. Limited enrollment.  3 Course cr
F 11am-12:50pm

[ ARCH 8110, Introduction to Commercial Real Estate ]

This seminar introduces commercial real estate. It does not require any prior knowledge of finance, accounting, or taxation policies. Commercial real estate is income-producing property that is built, financed, and sold for investment. This course examines five basic types of commercial real estate (office, industrial, retail, multifamily, and hotel) from the standpoints of the developer, lender, and investor. Principles of location, financing, timing of market cycles, leasing, ownership structure, and external factors are explored. Students are expected to evaluate assets, partnership interests, and other positions such as debtor interests through valuation measurement, which requires the use of some simple mathematics. An HP-12C calculator or laptop computer with Excel for use in class is required. Students also examine commercial deeds, leases, partnership agreements, and other legal documents. Each student selects a building or development site within New Haven County for a due diligence analysis of zoning, real estate taxes, deeds, liens, market supply and demand, projected income and expenses, and availability of debt. In addition to out-of-class assignments, a brief exercise is included during each class. Limited enrollment.  3 Course cr

ARCH 8111a, Introduction to Planning and Development  Joseph Rose

n/a  3 Course cr
Th 11am-12:50pm

ARCH 8112b, Labs and Landscapes of the Green Revolution  Anthony Acciavatti

In 1968, the director of the US Agency for International Development, William Gaud, christened the decades-long experiments with agriculture and technology as the “green revolution.” Juxtaposing it with the Red Revolution of the USSR and the White Revolution of the Shah of Iran, record harvests during the Cold War made the Green Revolution as much about food and hunger as it did geopolitics and diplomacy. This seminar explores the origins and development of the Green Revolution through its principal sites of experimentation: laboratories and landscapes. Whether hailed by some as a major turning point in the history of combatting hunger and food insecurity or castigated by others for perpetuating colonial and imperial asymmetries of power and environmental degradation, the legacies of the Green Revolution endure to this day. We attend to the global legacies of this color-coded revolution and how it reshaped the contours of the land, food distribution networks, settlement patterns, and cultures of eating and cooking, as well as reconfigured the habits and habitats of the human subject. Along with weekly readings and assignments that involve eating and cooking, we travel to one of the major laboratories and landscapes of the Green Revolution: India.  3 Course cr
M 11am-12:50pm

ARCH 8113b, Port City: Transformations of Urban Networks  Alan Plattus

Historically, port cities around the world have played a crucial role as the nodes of connection and exchange for both local and vast global networks of production, trade, culture, and power. Since the industrial revolution, rapid development of new technologies of transport and communication has challenged the planners and developers of these cities to both adapt and innovate, creating new and hybrid spatial typologies and transforming vast areas of urbanized waterfront and rural hinterland. And now, climate change and its impact on coastal and riparian geographies add an additional layer of complexity and challenge. This seminar considers the changing and persistent patterns, functions, and images of port cities, particularly in the context of their regional and global networks, researching, analyzing, and mapping the architectural and spatial manifestations of those systems. Limited enrollment.  3 Course cr
W 11am-12:50pm

ARCH 8114b, The Agroecological Urban Constellations of Pre-Colombian Amazonia  Ana Duran

In this seminar, we read the chronicles of the Pizarro-Orellana, Ursúa-Aguirre, and Teixeira expeditions. We also dive into the reports and letters of missionaries who left testimonies related to the Jesuit Provinces of Peru (1568), the New Kingdom of Granada (1611, 1696), and Quito (1696). We oscillate between texts, drawings, and other mediums of representation as we speculate about the spatialities of the past through the window of early colonial documents. Because writings that offer the viewpoint of Amazonians are extremely rare, almost non-existent for this period, we engage—as proxies—the books of first generation mestizo intellectuals such as Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and Diego de Valadés. We also read the English translation of legal documents that were written (using the alphabet) in Maya, Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara, and other American languages by elite members of First Nations. This allows us to gain insight into how this tumultuous chapter of the history of humanity was experienced by the original peoples and nations of the Americas. Ultimately, the objective of this seminar is to learn from the urban agroecologies of the deep past as we renew our imaginaries of more sustainable and just forms of urbanism today.  3 Course cr
W 9am-10:50am

[ ARCH 8115, Reckoning Environmental Uncertainty ]

This seminar will focus on a series of historical episodes since 1200 C.E. that present different approaches to reckoning environmental uncertainty to develop specific social and spatial configurations. Topics range from anthropogenic forests in southern China to seafaring across the Pacific Ocean and from patchworks of agriculture and urban centers throughout the Gangetic plains to the proliferation of observatories across the globe to monitor weather patterns. What ties these diverse places and histories together is but one goal: to understand how strategies for claiming knowledge are entangled with environmental uncertainty. The aim of this course will be to assemble, and consider spatially, a variety of approaches to how people have come to know the world around them and what they have done to account for change.  3 Course cr

[ ARCH 8116, The (Built) Environment: Environmental Design and Urban Transformation in Practice ]

Over the next decade, cities and human settlements will remain a critical lever for addressing the climate crisis and ecological collapse. Contemporary urbanization differs from historical patterns of urban growth in its scale and rate of global change, touching on such dimensions as food and agriculture, land use, biodiversity, water, energy, governance, and more. Large-scale urban expansion of new and growing cities as well as continued development of established cities present opportunities for a new conceptualization of the built environment in the context of sustainability. As cities dominate the globe, the intersection between architecture and environmental action must be redefined. This course is designed for students who seek new terrain for architectural thought within the context of evolving environmental challenges.The course is run as a colloquium and workshop. Invited guests forging new work in the built environment share not only their current research and practice but also their methods of work. Student-moderated discussions with our guests present the opportunity for students to build the skills to critically position themselves within the discourse of urbanization, architecture, and environmental action. Concurrently, students workshop individual or group projects operating at the intersection of the built and natural environments resulting in a project proposal of each student’s choosing. In the short-term, students build research skills and cultivate critical thinking. In the long-term, students build the foundations for their future professional/academic trajectory by forging new methods of practice or research in urbanization and architecture.Students from all programs are encouraged to enroll and no design work is required. Projects can be historical, analytical, speculative, policy-oriented, etc. The only requirements is for the proposed project to interrogate the intersection between the built and natural environments and open new avenues for cross-disciplinary work about built form as a critical lever for global sustainability.  3 Course cr

ARCH 8117a, Out of Date: Expired Patents and Unrealized Histories  Anthony Acciavatti

What if the US Army Corps of Engineers had developed “soft infrastructures” and “living systems” for dealing with the changing flows of the Mississippi in and around New Orleans? What if Henry Ford had used soy protein for automotive parts and synthetic meats in the 1940s? Or what if South Asian nation states had adopted the Ganges Water Machine model in the 1970s to address critical water shortages in urban areas? What do these three, seemingly disparate examples all have in common? Each is based on a patent or series of patents that were never adopted for one reason or another. This course is structured in three parts. First, we examine different techniques of conducting historical research using patents. Second, each week we read a primary and secondary texts as well as closely examine a specific patent related to the texts. We collectively hallucinate on what might have been had this patent been adopted. Third, in consultation with the instructor, participants choose a particular patent that they study carefully throughout the term and imagining what a city, a landscape, a block, or even an entire region might have looked like had such a patent been adopted. We carefully study why this particular patent was said to fail.  3 Course cr
M 11am-12:50pm

ARCH 8118b, Ghost Town  Elihu Rubin

This is an advanced, interdisciplinary seminar in architectural history, urban planning, vernacular building, the politics of preservation, collective memory, tourism, and, ultimately, urban sustainability. Looking at a broad spectrum of failed or almost-failed cities in the United States and across the globe, this seminar uses the ghost town and its rhythms of development and disinvestment to establish a conceptual framework for contemporary urban patterns and processes. Students develop skills in urban and architectural research methods, visual and formal analysis, effective writing, and critical reasoning. Limited enrollment.  3 Course cr
W 2pm-3:50pm

[ ARCH 8190, londonCALLING: London ]

n/a  3 Course cr

[ ARCH 8191, ‘Housing’ The Constitutional Right: Mexico ]

n/a  3 Course cr

[ ARCH 8999, 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. Available for credit to fulfill the M.Arch. I Urbanism and Landscape elective requirement with the approval of the study area coordinators.)  3 Course cr