Global Arc

This research seminar examines the relationship between architecture, resources, and territory in 20th century modernization projects in the USA, Latin America, the Middle East, South East Asia, and Africa. We will explore the conditions in which architecture has become a tool of development (a concept which we will address critically), and the functions it assumed in the ordering and managing of labor, natural resources and industry.

Focusing on the mutual reception of Italian and American architecture 1920-2018, we take into account divergences of urban form and architectural tradition that separate the two cultures alongside convergences of theory and practice. Starting with the impact of Wright on Mollino and Moretti, we move to the critical fortune of Organic Architecture in the postwar work of Scarpa and to the diverse roles of Ponti and BBPR in the USA, culminating with the dialogue between the New York Five and Italy in the 1970s. The course ends with an overview of contemporary dialogues between Italian and American architects, theoreticians and critics.

This course will focus on a number of specific design techniques in a highly regimented manner. The theme of this semester will be the relationship between geometry and matter in the development of a piece of furniture. We will explore the nature of these complex surfaces and the effects of a limited but continuous enclosed environment on human functions. We will elaborate our skills in model-building, with particular emphasis placed on the value of accurate representation both by fostering craft and by exploring novel techniques of fashioning and representing precise geometries.

This junior studio will focus on a number of specific design techniques in a highly regimented manner. We will continue to sharpen our skills in model-building, with emphasis placed on the value of accurate representation both by fostering craft and by exploring novel techniqueso f fashioning and representing precise geometries.

This design seminar explores sustainable design/analysis methods and methodologies through the lens of computation. Today, the general use of digital design technologies has moved away from the initial focus on representation of information and digital form towards the act of processing/computing, and thus it's integration into the design process. This seminar will focus on this advanced state and explore the design integration of computation for sustainable means.

This course will examine the possibilities of representation and information in the virtual realm. Through a series of modeling/rendering/compositing exercises, presentations, and in-class discussions, students will investigate the evolving relationship between architecture and its means of representation, as well as broader issues of technology and culture. The course will provide a firm understanding of current computer software. One three-hour seminar.

A graphic skills course that focuses on the techniques, craft, and ideologies of collage as a form of architectural representation. There are in-class workshops and weekly projects involving (handmade) collages. There are also a limited number of supplementary readings to situate our work within the context of architectural history and theory.

This seminar explores architecture in out-of-the-way places through the perspectives of an unlikely set of historical actors: counterinsurgency experts, guerrilla fighters, Indigenous resistance groups, government officials, religious activists. Thinking from the intellectual traditions of the global South, the course explores the ways in which architecture was employed as a narrative device in twentieth century environmentalist movements.

This course examines the relationship between architecture and politics by focusing on the role of the built environment in twentieth and twenty-first century conflicts. We will examine how settler colonialism shapes places, how sectarian conflicts divide cities and how protest movements utilize urban areas. The class will pay particular attention to the everyday practices of the people who inhabit, appropriate and transform these sites. We will look at a number of case studies from the Middle East, Africa, and North America, and embark on ethnographic investigations of specific sites in New York.

The seminar explores how cities are adapting to the threats of climate change. It introduces contemporary practices in climate adaptation planning; reviews theoretical debates related to urban hazards, vulnerability, and resilience; surveys design and planning responses to climate change in relation to historical modes of environmentally responsive design; and explores transformative and equity-focused adaptation approaches. We will discuss urban climate vulnerability and adaptation from three perspectives: pragmatic planning and public policy, design-oriented proposals, and mobilization for social transformation and equity.