Global Arc

An examination of the connection between the evolved structure of the human brain and the demands made on it to metabolize the environment for survival through: 1) examination of the history of the Great African Rift Valley over 3 million years; 2) a survey of the pioneering work of early 20th century neurologists and theoretical biologists who speculated on how the nervous system produces coherent form of actions and behavior; 3) development of a synthesized approach for a design prototype of a mobile, single-person housing unit to be in the Laikipia District in northern Kenya, working across architecture, neurology, geology and landscape.

This seminar is an effort to use design tools as a way to gain understanding of how physical infrastructure affects and can influence social organization and ideologies. The course will survey the general topics and specific case studies to develop an understanding of the contexts and forms of civil works and infrastructures.

This seminar explores the intersection between building technology and architectural history through building envelopes. We will describe the building enclosure from within, as an embodiment of cultural, social, and technological processes. The aim is to help students to develop an integrated critical view, a balance between technology and culture. The main part of the seminar will present three façade types in detail: curtain walls, rain screen façades, and panel façades. Technical topics will be introduced during a weekly two-hour lecture; the last hour will be devoted to the discussion of case studies and team work.

Reducing the Embodied Energy (EE) of new and retrofitted buildings is a crucial part of addressing the climate crisis. Early classes will be devoted to the pros and cons of various methods of measuring EE. Questions: Can we curb EE without being able to measure it accurately? What if the things we do to make buildings more operationally efficient -- including following Passive House guidelines -- vastly increase their EE?

This seminar, which evokes Rosalind Krauss' pathbreaking essay "Sculpture in the Expanded Field" (which first appeared in October in 1979), explores tensions, analogies and exchanges that characterize the complex relationship between modern architecture and contemporary art. Its aim is to show not only that these two areas of aesthetic production and critical inquiry are joined in a single field, as Krauss argues, but also that the unity of this field did not emerge until fairly recently in the history of modernism.

This seminar is aimed to develop and discuss a new theory of the building envelope, able to replace the historical disciplines of the facade. The focus lies between technology and theory and the method will be research driven. The hypothesis of this seminar is that the envelope's performance occurs primarily through material embodiments rather than through superficial, ornamental representation. The discussion will depart from the concept of façade material assemblage, which addresses the evolution of artificial ecologies as a method. We have identified 12 façade assemblages to structure this theory, and we will devote one session to each.

This course examines the notion of the "ordinary," and the ways in which it has been exploited as a site of inquiry in the architectural debate, particularly from the mid-1950s to the present. Structured upon a series of projects dealing with the scrutiny of so-called existing conditions--from Alison and Peter Smithson to Aldo van Eyck, Reyner Banham to Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Rem Koolhaas to Atelier Bow-Wow--we will interrogate the ways in which architecture has dealt with emergent and seemingly irreducible urban phenomena, as well as has by the same token constructed a peculiar practice of architectural theory.

Investigating the rich interplay between form, space, skin, structure, material assembly, performance and representation, this course seeks to develop creative and productive approaches for analyzing very recent buildings.The past decade has witnessed the realization of a wealth of buildings, which has been documented in over-sized books, design blogs, and glossy magazines but not carefully dissected with inventive analytical tools. This analysis will be positioned within the context of the history of building analysis, and buildings key to that history.

The research course explores the consequences of the economic growth experienced in Latin America in the past 25 years on the social and spatial organization of cities. We will analyze how the modification of political systems and the parallel neo liberal restructuring of economy have impacted on the production of space. Critical analysis will consider the connections between new phenomena of urban transformation, renewed social articulations and the surge of responses from the design fields. Within the general frame of a contemptuous concept as "Latin America", the research course will explore for local differentiations and particularities.

This course starts from the premise that to engage the spatial politics of cities of the Americas, we must engage with the senses. We will ask how vision, affect, and smell shape our understandings of and connections to urban space. And conversely, how different spaces condition our sensorial experiences. Employing the critical, interpretive and theoretical knowledge of the humanities, we examine how these sensorial markers of belonging in urban spaces relate to and expand social markers of citizenship, political boundaries, gender, class, race, and ethnicity.