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  • 3.00 Credits

    This course explores the history of architecture from its origins until the beginnings of the modern period from a global perspective, focusing on patterns of interaction and exchange between and within both elite and vernacular building cultures. Using selected examples from Eurasia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas, the course traces the major elements of change and development in the design of the earth's built environment, including technologies and materials, typology, the organization of labor and capital systems to the profession and the public. Course requirements include a mid-term, final exam, and research paper.
  • 3.00 Credits

    An introductory survey of the history and theory of architecture and urbanism in the context of the rapidly changing technological and social circumstances of the past 120 years. In addition to tracing the usual history of modern architecture, this course also emphasizes understanding of the formal, philosophical, social, technical, and economic background of other important architectural directions in a global context. Topics range from architects' responses to new conditions in the rapidly developing cities of the later 19th century, through early 20th-century theories of perception and social engagement, to recent efforts to find new bases for architectural interventions in the contemporary metropolis.
  • 3.00 Credits

    Through a series of analytical, critical, and interpretative studies of singular works of architecture in the 20th century, this course focuses on the manifold processes and contexts of their production. Each work is examined as a physical and cultural artifact with precise formal, intellectual, and ideological intentions and meanings. The architectural object, understood as a synthesis of multiple criteria and frameworks, is explored from its conception through its realization based on certain principles (fundamental precepts of the discipline of architecture) and a broad range of concepts (abstract ideas understood as the products of speculative and reflective thought).
  • 3.00 Credits

    This student-initiated course seeks to define sustainability and its relation to our built environment through the lens of anthropology, environmental science, business, law, and architecture. The course networks the University's resources by bringing professors from varying disciplines to speak weekly on the issues of sustainability and design. We examine broad issues from history, philosophy, and literature to practical studies of current land use, climate, and technology.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The seminar introduces fundamental concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. Emphasis is placed on understanding natural systems, the development of the built environment within natural systems, and the economic, social, ecological, ethical, philosophical, political, psychological, aesthetic, and cultural issues that help shape design decisions. Students evaluate a range of methods that may be used to identify and select sustainable solutions to design problems, improve existing solutions, and develop critical thinking. The LEED Rating system is presented within the context of its role in professional practice and larger issues of human and environmental health, including how LEED fits into the realm of high-performance design and the effective use of the LEED Rating System and principles of sustainability. The course is divided into three phases: (1) research current interpretations of sustainability in architecture, examining theories and practices that encourage the development of ecological consciousness as the context of Sustainable Design; (2) critical comparison of the underlying principles of sustainability and design proposed by the different rating systems available today and evaluation of the ways of assessing the sustainability of the built environment currently in use, including the LEEDTM rating system; and (3) the development of a project design in studio that follows the LEED-NC Version 2.2 Manual as the organizing structure. In this final project, students are required to obtain a minimum of 26 points on the LEED-NC rating system in order to have their project certified. Students produce the necessary documentation required for LEED-NC certification and make an oral presentation to a panel of guest critics.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The construction and operation of buildings consume the majority of the world's natural resources and energy and contribute to expand the landfills. Buildings have diverse effects on the environment during their entire life cycles. Although the tangible impacts are visible only after construction begins, the environmental consequences can be prevented in the first stages of design. The building form and envelope should respond to specific site conditions to help achieve environmental sustainability in architecture. The seminar is a collaborative studio that welcomes students of disciplines such as Biology, Engineering, and Architecture, among others. The goal of this course is to create environmental awareness, understand building ecosystems, and increase the ability to design sustainable buildings from an interdisciplinary perspective. Based on scientific principles, concepts, and methodologies required to understand the relationships of the natural world, the students analyze alternative solutions for resolving and/or preventing specific environmental problems. The aim of this seminar is to prepare the students to participate in cross-disciplinary design teams that can develop working methods to study complex architectural problems and challenges, and facilitate a technical, aesthetically successful, durable, and sustainable design. This course researches and studies the structure and function of biological systems as models for the design and engineering of materials for buildings. It involves the study of nature's design and processes as a tool to bring a solution to an architectural problem that will push technology forward while helping us minimize our environmental impact.
  • 3.00 Credits

    This weekly seminar course addresses issues of Western architectural thought through a focused series of readings and discussions. The necessity and role of architectural theory in general is examined. Issues of tectonics, historicism, typology, regionalism, modernism, postmodernism, and other critical frameworks for the consideration of architecture are thematic subjects of discussion. Selected readings include Vitruvius, Alberti, Laugier, Semper, Ruskin, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Kahn, Rossi, Venturi, Eisenman, Libeskind, and Koolhaas. Weekly reading assignments, attendance, participation, one summary and discussion introduction based on a reading topic, final paper. Required for first-semester M.Arch. 3 students. Fulfills history/theory elective for M.Arch.2 students.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The first of a two-course building systems sequence. The course progresses from a survey of the physical and structural properties of building materials through an analysis of building assemblies and systems. Structural systems are examined relative to their performance characteristics and issues related to manufacturing and construction. Structural systems in wood, steel, and concrete along with masonry systems are reviewed in this class. Additionally, the primary and secondary performance characteristics of enclosure systems are identified and analyzed in this course. This course also covers the design of egress systems and vertical transportation systems in buildings. Though the course focuses primarily on the underlying principles associated with these building systems, industry standards and building code requirements are an integral part of the review.
  • 3.00 Credits

    Building Systems II is a lecture/workshop course. It is the capstone course in the technology sequence. The course is composed of a series of lectures related to technical theory, an analysis of technical precedent, and an integration exercise. The lectures focus on structure and enclosure systems, active and passive climate control systems, natural and artificial lighting systems, and mechanical and electrical services for buildings. The lectures take place over the course of the semester. During the first half of the course, students conduct the analysis of technical precedent in architecture exercise. Technical precedents are analyzed relative to their performance characteristics and their relationship to other technologies in the building. During the second half of the semester, students conduct an integration exercise. Technical systems are selected based on architectural issues, performance characteristics, and systems integration.
  • 3.00 Credits

    This course proposes to investigate and create a series of measured drawings. The drawings, as architectural objects, configure architectural knowledge, perception, and vision. We begin by studying precedent drawings in relation to each architect's theoretical framework, project description, and technique. The range of works relates different types of construction (perspectives, axonometrics, diagrams, ideagrams, assemblages, montages, descriptive geometry, and mapping) with integral and symbiotic theoretical agendas. Each student learns the techniques of representation in a case study and from this example constructs an interpretation of a specified site in this language. With a collection of theoretical frameworks and workshops on various techniques, the class qualifies a series of sites through drawing/interpreting the shadows present. Shadows may be thought of as reductions of the real object-in this sense, the drawings act as abstractions or reductions that promote vision. Instead of simply discussing qualities of space, narratives of metaphor, intangible phenomena, implications of constructed geometry, this architectural research project attempts to propose methods of seeing such that the representation may play a more active role in the shaping of design. This course centers on the creation of imaginative processes of representation.
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