Classes

Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the department. Students who wish a letter grade option for their work must register for 4.URG.

Research and project activities, which cover the range represented by the various research interests and projects in the department. Students who wish a letter grade option for their work must register for 4.URG.

This workshop is a study on the prolonged human damage incurred by construction workers building the things we design. We will be looking towards the relationship between architects and the folk who build our proposals and how our choices directly affect their long-term physical health. This understanding will be developed through studying three common construction materials (timber, steel, and concrete), the current methods we use to construct, and how those methods to materials over time break down the body. This workshop will push us to consider new means of construction and sequencing to care for the long-term health of the makers of our built environment.

Students should contact instructor by January 1, 2023 to sign-up (and add any specific topics within the framework they’d be interested in exploring).

In an era of expanding climatic concerns, cities are facing pressures to plan and implement ways to alleviate the consequences of heat exposure. Rapidly increasing temperatures and heat waves are becoming more prevalent worldwide, putting strain on city inhabitants and resources. In the US alone, the frequency of heat waves has increased from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s. In more vulnerable contexts, rapid urbanization will amplify the projected air temperature change, resulting in increasingly warming conditions in dense urban settings. At the core of this issue is an alteration of microclimate conditions, an increased use of cooling energy in buildings and in its most extreme form, a threat to occupant health and mortality. The climate imperative hence has drawn focus to the built environment, as it is particularly susceptible to those changes and in turn has a strong impact on urban heat flows in both indoor and outdoor environments. The challenge then becomes to conceptualize new approaches to measure the effect of heightening heat levels and formulate integrated solutions that are sensitive to the scales of both indoor and outdoor environments. 

This class explores the linkages (under the lens of measurements and solutions) between scales, from the component, to the building and the urban level. Expanding the system boundary is key to arriving at more holistic outcomes that are rooted in finding long-term resilient strategies. The contents presented in this course will provide students the necessary tools to tackle such questions as:

• What data can be made available to help building practitioners and urban planners develop more effective solutions?
• How do we define thermal comfort and how does that inform the strategies we formulate to reach thermally resilient design?
• In light of the expectation of space cooling demand to triple by 2050, how can we design buildings and urban environments that lessen the reliability on active cooling modes?.
• How do we build climate-resilient cities with minimal material impact? What are the compromises between urbanization and low-energy urban cooling strategies?

Course Format: 

Introduction to the indoor and outdoor implications of heat in the built environment will be covered. Students develop the first intuition for the multi-faceted aspects of the problem and critically analyze heat assessment methods and strategies for intervention. During morning sessions, a series of lectures and concept-based short discussions strengthen the engagement with each of the four main topics presented in a 4-step framework (Designing across scales, Leveraging data, Measuring impact and Framing action). In the afternoon, a combination of hands-on group exercises and discussions present the technical challenges of assessing the impact of heat at each scale and the formulation of design solutions.
 

How to re-design garbage into a living creature? The workshop introduces a workflow combining hands-on artwork-making and digitalization tools like 3D-scan and AI-generated rigged models.
     
This is a three-day workshop from Jan 10 to 12 (Wed to Fri):

• Day one: Collect or bring the trash you want or unwanted. A tutorial on the 3D-scan tool will be provided.
• Day two: Paper mache techniques. Turn trash into mesh by hand and by scanning.
• Day three: Animate your paper mache with generative AI!

Dates: 4 Mondays from 2 to 6pm, starting January 9th.

Course Overview
In the last decade, computational design paired with digital fabrication technologies have fostered a radical shift from traditional centralized artificial lighting sources towards decentralized systems (e.g. light emitting surfaces). This shift presents a unique design opportunity to further explore the relationship between architecture and light, which potentially leads to a novel perception of space. Exploring such designs, however, poses the challenge of navigating the design opportunities situated at the intersection between current precise means of representation/production and the beauty of irregular naturally grown materials (e.g. wood panels). To address this problem, the workshop introduces data-physicalization, as design method to assist such intricate exploration endeavor that potentially results into space and fabrication informed distributed lighting systems.

Intended Learning Outcomes
In this four week course you will develop your skills in electronic circuitry, in microprocessor and scripting interface with parametric modeling. These skills are applicable towards future research in robotics, kinetic modeling, and VR/ AR. Uniquely we will be studying these methodologies in how they are affected by/ altered/ enhanced natural materials and conversely how these digital/ computation methodologies can shape natural systems. Here instruction will be given by leading researchers and experts from the screen printing industry. Participants will come away with a deeper knowledge and ability of the methodologies and tools used as well as understand conceptually the contemporary and relevant topic of intersecting physical and computational systems. 
 
Short Sessions Summary — full detailed handouts will be provided at each session

• Session 1 (January 9th, from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm) — Contextualization and Conceptualization
  This first session introduces the context of the workshop, which is data-physicalization as emerging design method to enable the digital manufacturing of distributed lighting systems. Additionally, it serves to introduce the design brief which will be incrementally developed throughout the four sessions. The outcome will be a concept, which will evolve throughout the next three sessions.
• Session 2 (January 16th, from 2:00pm to 6:00pm) — Design Space Definition
  This second session is focused on embedding the involved constraints (spatial, material and fabrication) into a design explorer.
• An optional morning session will introduce the CAD agnostic COMPAS framework developed at the NCCR Digital Fabrication, ETH Zurich.
• Session 3 (January 23th, 4:00pm to 6:00pm) — Hands-on Meeting
  This third session serves to refine the concept and solving implementation issues.
• Session 4 (January 30, 2:00pm to 6:00pm) – Final Concept Sharing
  This last session consists of presenting and discussing the developed concept.

Optional Gatherings will be offered on Fridays to refine concepts and solve computational design and prototyping issues.
 
Assessment
The workshop will not be graded, however, if you are interested in achieving a relevant outcome, for example an entry for your C.V. or an object, we encourage you to attend all sessions, actively participate in discussions, present and document your work, as well as prototype your concept.

If you are interested, please let us know and we will confirm your enrollment asap.

Feel free to reach out if it needs further clarification or you have suggestions.
 

One week workshop aimed at working through the various methods to go from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional drawing, by hand. The workshop will specifically work through Axonometric and Isometric projections as well as 1, 2, and 3 point constructed linear perspectives. Supplies will be provided but feel free to bring your favorite pencil and/or ruling device!

Sign up by January 8, 2024.

The workshop, 'Setting the Table — Representing HER' spans three weeks and focuses on equipping students with the necessary tools to create a zine booklet featured at the Shift+W Represent HER - The Female Architect exhibit in the Keller Gallery next spring.
During our initial week, we'll engage in exercises centered on table conversations and research techniques. Moving into the second week, we would delve into various forms of representation, aiding students in expressing their intentions and motivations. In our third week, participants will gain design skills to craft a visually captivating zine showcasing their thorough research and visual work.
The workshop explores how gender diversity influences design by examining the interplay between female architectural representation and broader societal implications.

Register here

This class is about making maps across scales. To the cartographers, maps are never neutral. It gives rise to decision-making that are first and foremost political—to  include, to exclude, to highlight, to hide away—which speaks to  a desired audience that is specific, if not social and cultural. That is to say that making maps is also about mapping space and  time.

Every session, we will explore a specific way of representing maps—the map of bodies, communities, cities, systems, territories, wars, and invisible traces to the globe. Students will be able to learn modes of illustrating and plotting maps, basics of GIS (in this case QGIS, but we could also talk about ArcGIS if desired), workflows between 2D and 3D representation of terrains, urban fabrics, data visualizations through illustrator and rhino, that could later compile into an atlas of drawings.

The class will run 3 hours, with the first 1 to 1.5 hours dedicated to theories and case studies of mapping and the second 1 to 1.5 hours dedicated to specific technical workshops. The  format is also flexible depending on the class size and the  students' desires.

While there is no specific "final output" for this course, it  would be great if everyone know what kinds of atlas/maps/drawings or skills they would expect the course to teach them as  an initial survey.

The class syllabus will be uploaded here in mid-December.

Limited to 8 — sign up here

This is a 5-day design workshop that focuses on designing board games. It introduces how board games help raise awareness, propose interventions, and resist social and cultural issues through their playfulness. Participants will play, discuss and design board games in groups. At the end of the workshop, every participant will leave the room with an understanding of basic board game design logic, how to incorporate social and cultural elements into the design, and, more importantly, a board game prototype in hand!

We highly encourage you to work in groups in this workshop!

Limited to 15, thus sign up required at https://forms.gle/DbsNRbyG5WnR2fMN8. Please contact Doris Duanmu with any questions. 

Materials fee of no more than $30.

Introduces algorithmic aspects of computer-aided design. The workshop explores applications of fundamental computer algorithms and data structures in the realm of 3D modeling, encourages hands-on practices, and guides participants through the art of generative sculpting. Topics include computational geometry, recursion, graph theory, etc. with tutorials of implementation in Rhino and Grasshopper.

Students should bring a laptop to all sessions

Register here

This workshop introduces students to the process of biocementing with microbes. Today, the production of cement for concrete accounts for 8% of global CO2 emissions. Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP) is a promising biocement alternative. The process makes use of microbes to catalyze calcium carbonate crystals that can bind aggregate together.
In this workshop, you will learn lab protocols for using the bacteria to biocement aggregate including cultivating the microbe, preparing solutions to induce crystal formation, and biocementing loose aggregate. We will test different experimental parameters to characterize and optimize the process as well as 3d printing custom designs to make your own fun biocemented sample!

Contact instructor to sign up.