Global Arc

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.

Zoning has preemptively defined what is possible to build, occupy, and design in the largest cities in the United States for over one hundred years. In the 21st century, zoning also enters cities and regions as a means of interpreting and defining effects of climate change, parameters of protest, movement of water, and economic investment. This course introduces students to zoning as an urbanistic tool related to representation, classification, and design. Readings investigate zoning as a form of both ideation and technology.

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.

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?

The seminar intends to use the research, briefing, programming, and design of the workplace as a means to examine the role of the architect and designer as a professional contributor in the knowledge economy. We will use the workplace as a site of practice in which the architect is engaged with the driving forces of the economy: advanced information technology, new ways of working that are distributed across space and time, the global business imperatives that segment work across continents. We will examine the issues of workplace design at every scale from the desk to the city to the region.

The Western city, American and European, has undergone a number of mutations since the Renaissance. This course will explore the complex relationships between different cities and architecture, between "real" cities and "fictional" architectural cities. Possible topics might include: urbanization as it affects contemporary life; the American vs. European city; the state of New Jersey, the exurban state "par excellence." One three-hour seminar.