Global Arc

Housing ideas and urban projects of architects and social scientists since the mid-19th century as a response to industrialization, the development of the welfare state, the rise of professionalism, and the dispersion of democratic culture. Material drawn from architecture, urban planning, political theory, sociology, and social psychology. One three-hour seminar.

Selected issues in relationship to the development of architectural history and theory as critical disciplines, emphasizing the historiography and methodology of these disciplines. Course focuses on particular critics through a close reading and analysis of selected texts. One three-hour seminar.

Examines architecture as cultural production, taking into account its capacity to structure both physical environments and social organizations. A specific problem or topic area will be set by each studio critic, and may include a broad range of building types, urban districts or regional landscapes, questions of sustainability, building materials, or building performance. Studio work will include research and data gathering, analysis, and program definition. Students are expected to master a full range of design media, including drawing, model-making, and computer-aided design.

Introduction to concepts of energy utilization and conservation in building. Course presents the physics of building thermal performance, including quantitative methods, and discusses conservation strategies in building design and source energy. Passive design and alternative energy sources, including wind and solar-thermal, will be covered. One three-hour seminar.

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.