Examines innovations in urban design practice occurring through the work of leading practitioners in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. Features lectures by major national and global practitioners in urban design. Projects and topics vary based on term and speakers but may cover architectural urbanism, landscape and ecology, arts and culture, urban design regulation and planning agencies, and citywide and regional design. Focuses on analysis and synthesis of themes discussed in presentations and discussions.

Architects often craft images that show only the most polished views and idealized spaces to define a building’s identity and spatial experience.

This workshop proposes an alternative approach to image-making, one that focuses on small, fragmented views of a space in order to capture architecture’s overlooked moments. By illustrating architectural spaces at the size of 1’x1’x1’ fragments, we will get impressions of spaces that traditional architectural images would otherwise neglect—such as corners, undersides, sills, material details, traces of occupation and maintenance. In foregrounding these minor moments, the workshop invites a political reconsideration of which spaces and narratives are valued, challenging the hierarchy of architectural representation.

Dust bunnies—the small clumps of debris that form in the corners—will guide the process of identifying these fragments. Upon closer inspection, dust bunnies reveal a microcosm of their environment, as they indiscriminately collect tiny fragments from their surroundings. We will speculate on the origins of the particles within dust bunnies and depict the architectural fragments they might have once belonged to. Throughout the workshop, dust bunnies will be our guides into illustrating overlooked rhythms and spaces of occupation and maintenance.

Undergraduates welcome.

The sequence of weekly meetings intends to scrutinize typical atmospheres that tend to surround designers along with the design process. In other words, it is the world affecting architects and pushing them to react by producing architectural propositions. Following a series of proposed 14 topics (as listed below), the discussion will be guided with the purpose of checking their pertinence and validity. Exactly how it happens in a design process, those topics are presented as a first outline, to gain a sharper contour throughout the sequence of discussions. The focus will be on the design process, specifically on the successive moods it inescapably implies.

For over thirty years my academic and professional activities have been closely related to this research. The book: Sao Paulo, reasons for architecture, resulting from my PhD, focuses on how experiencing a city impacts in one’s way to imagine architecture, but it was informed directly and reflects continuously in everyday practice of designing.

Topics (on process)

1. about design process
   (a supposedly infallible method that, by definition, can never be completed)
   (on source, design as a tool to apprehend the world)
2. design as reading (the language of the physical world, given or constructed)
3. design as walking (promenade is an architectural experience)
4. design as talking (a sequence of dialogues and its specific way to record it)
   (design and abstract thinking)
5. design and concept (the strength and permanence of an idea before becoming a thing)
6. design and precision (geometry and aesthetic rigor, lineaments)
7. design and imagination triggers (genealogy of imagination; abstract thinking)
   (on concepts)
8. design and purpose (know why and know what)
9. design and synthesis (an increasingly demanding filter)
10. design and tolerance (cultural and industrial meaning)
11. design and dissolution (as dissemination of meanings)
12. design opposes to alienation (purpose, pleasure, engagement, fulfilment are require
    (on the nature of architecture)
13. architecture is an open source (vulnerability and strength)
    (on architecture and humanism)
14. architecture to refrain human madness 
    (For Alberti, architecture takes one single task of refraining the madness that dominate mankind; M. Tafuri)

Structure

The dynamic of the classes would be:

• each topic will be introduced in the previous session to allow a week to students for preparing evidences or references (texts, drawings or images) for the discussion in the following week.
• each session will start with students’ presentations followed by discussions; at the end of each session, a short lecture will introduce the topic for next session;

Pedagogical Objectives

The attempt of naming typical moods, strategies and dilemmas potentially experienced along with a design process, has two clear goals:

• to make students more familiar about crossing different moods in the process.
• to made students more comfortable dealing with uncertainties, unknowns, fallibilities, errors; in short, all that one has been trained to avoid.

If the architectural drawing moves something unknown to something known (from vision to building), the reverse could be said of the architectural survey. The potential of the architectural survey lies in its mobilizing of something known into unforeseeable future uses (from building to visions). This course centers on recasting the architectural survey from conveyor of building facts to instrument for building stories. Operating somewhere between the limits of absolute truth and virtual truth, our research will aim to uncover new ways of engaging architecture’s relationship to vision, documentation, and the art of renewal (or preservation) against the backdrop of racial, economic, and material conditions in the turn-of-the century South. More specifically, the site of the course will be Tuskegee University and the legacy of Robert R. Taylor, the first accredited Black architect, MIT graduate, and designer and builder of a significant portion of the campus’s brick buildings. Students will consider Taylor’s work both in the present context and its inception under Booker T. Washington’s leadership.

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.

Practical experience through summer and January IAP internships secured by the student in the field of architecture, urbanism, digital design, art, or building technology. Before registering for this subject, students must have an offer from the organization and complete the Department of Architecture application with their advisor's signature. Upon completion of the internship, students must submit an evaluation form available from the departmental academic office. Students are limited to a total of three approved experiences.

Provides the material system knowledge and fabrication process skills to successfully engage with all areas of the shop, from precision handwork to multi-axis computer numerically controlled (CNC) machining. Progresses through a series of basic exercises that introduce the material and workflow, concluding with more complex problems that explore opportunities and issues specific to architecture.

Practical experience through summer and January IAP internships secured by the student in the field of architecture, urbanism, digital design, art, or building technology. Before registering for this subject, students must have an offer from a company or organization and complete the Department of Architecture application signed by the advisor. Upon completion of the internship, students must submit an evaluation form available from the departmental academic office. Students are limited to a total of three approved experiences. 

Introduces fundamental design principles as a way to demystify design and provide a basic introduction to all aspects of the process. Stimulates creativity, abstract thinking, representation, iteration, and design development. Equips students with skills to have more effective communication with designers, and develops their ability to apply the foundations of design to any discipline.