MAKE/BELIEVE

How does the action of making reflect, produce, enhance, aggregate, and/or suspend the beliefs of authors and audiences? This hybrid production-theory course merges training in artistic production strategies and methods with grounding in contemporary art practices, ideas, and histories. A seminar course intended for MDes students in the Art, Design, and the Public Domain concentration, but open to all students, MAKE/BELIEVE emphasizes project-based inquiries focused on the intersections of materiality, expression, and public engagement. From modernist debates over politics and aesthetics to post-truth parafictions of The Yes Men and “Arte Util” counterpoints of Tania Bruguera, to the wending “post-medium” tensions of Object Oriented Ontologies (and feminist and interspecies critiques thereof and therein), MAKE BELIEVE will move beyond the proposal to foreground actual material fabrication with a historically- and theoretically- substantive evaluative framework.  In particular, we will place a great emphasis on the ethics of engagement: how does one work with public constituencies, when should one be formal vs. informal, who is benefitting from your project, how does what we make express what we believe?

We aim to undo, or further complicate, an endless set of triangulations: Subject-Audience-Publics, Affect-Aura-System, Space-Object-Idea, Science-Fiction-Abstraction, Studio-Site-Territory, Land-Parcel-Terrain, and Being-Making-Doing. We will meet weekly in a format that will include outside reading and production endeavors, field work and site visits, group crits, individually-focused project work, occasional guest visitors, and general exploration of various cultural positionalities: curator, producer, activist, scholar, organizer, entrepreneur.

Representation First (!!!), Then Architecture

Current tendencies in the discipline suggest a split between two opposing architectural projects: the easy project versus the difficult project[1].  Primarily related to architecture’s form, this positioning of the divide might also be used to identify recent developments in representation: Cheap and fast one-point perspectives with minimal material changes as opposed to laborious photo-realistic renderings oozing tactile interiors. Compounded by the hourly “swipe,” up/down and left/right, or how the architectural image is posted, pinned, shared, and liked moments after it is created, places a further immediacy on the making of representation and naming an agenda. Rather than question the easy over the difficult, might we readjust our focus towards the conceptualization of representation first, as a way of conceiving of architecture? This seminar engages the following thought-polemic: “Representation First (!!!), Then Architecture.” 

The aim of this course is to develop techniques and methodologies around a series of representational experiments. All content will be framed by contemporary issues in representation, not a historical overview, and will include directed studies on materiality, color, digital tooling, animations, scale figures, and media. Formatted into a list of six curated references, with the majority of sources located in art practice and popular culture, each weekly lecture will attempt to construct a theory on representation.  

Over the course of the semester, participants will conduct biweekly exercises, culminating in the delivery of a twenty minute lecture to the class around your own theory on representation, potentially setting up a future architectural project for oneself.  Part lecture, part performance, and part production, “Representation First (!!!), Then Architecture” is a search for original representational agendas. 

[1] Somol, R.E. "Green Dots 101." Hunch 11 (2007): 28-37 

Responsive Environments: Episodes in Experiential Futures

This course introduces to the students the tools and necessary thinking framework to create technologically driven speculative environments in the near future of the built environment. The course takes a critical approach on technological augmentation that is valid spatially, socially and psychologically. By putting the human experience at the center and forefront, from the immediate body scale to the larger environment encompassing buildings and the urban spaces, the course examines new and emerging models, technologies, and techniques for the design of innovative architectural human interfaces and responsive environments.
Taking a holistic view, the class will address multifaceted aspects of our experience of the built environment and how the rapid pace of technological innovation affects our relationship to our daily lives and spaces around us. The course takes advantage of the resources offered by the ongoing research project at the REAL lab with the Italian City of Bergamo, the course aims to build on that research and open up new research and speculative design opportunities. Bergamo – a typical mid-size European city – offers an ideal case study for prototypical interventions that can be possibly replicated in other contexts.
The first part of the course leading to the final project will consist of readings and discussions, background research, site analysis, and emerging technology investigation. Hands-on prototyping will be part of the course requirement and will feed into the larger speculative concepts. The course places an important emphasis on what makes the design of these responsive environments perceptually valid and technically feasible. Topics of in-class discussions include: techniques of digital/physical perceptual correlations, body-centric interaction, user experience design, and technological viability and perceptual longevity. The final group project will be a speculative design intervention, supported by a research paper and prototypes, envisaging potential scenarios ? or episodes of experiential futures.
The course outcomes will be a contribution to a publication. Students from any background and concentration are encouraged to apply to the lottery. No specific prerequisites are needed.
 

Digital Media: Writing Form

This course offers an introduction to the field of design and computation through the primal pursuit of writing form.

Setting aside the better-known paradigms of sketching, 3D modeling, scripting or coding, writing –in this context– refers to the design potential of applied parametric formulations. Our appeal to form in this context is neither aesthetic nor ideological. Unlike shape (with which it is often confused), we understand form as a syntactic, procedural, and –increasingly– technical problem, with its fair share of architectural disciplinary autonomy. This is not just a technology offering, but an opportunity for architectural designers to expand their understanding of the canon of architectural typology, by taking on new, sneaky, ‘invisible’ types.

This crash course in indexical modelling (the deployment of variable analytic surfaces to parametrically define the space, boundaries, structure, and tectonic texture of a given three-dimensional construct) will be organised around semi-monthly lectures and applied workshops in parametric design, leading to the development of a number of intermediate design sketches, and a final design proposal. The outcome in all cases will be numerically fabricated physical models –laser-cut or 3D printed—with supporting diagrams.

On the theoretical side, the course will clarify the tenets of parametricism both practically (mathematically), formally, and theoretically with an assigned reading list stretching from Rosalind Krauss to George L. Legendre, and Greg Lynn.

On the practical side, generative design tools will include PTC MathCAD 15, Rhino 6 /Grasshopper, and the proprietary, third-party Grasshopper plugins Surf_TM, Millipede, and Weaverbird. No experience is necessary, as participants will be issued powerful software templates to work from every week.

 

Hours: Mondays, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM, and and Wednesdays, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM, every other week. An optional support class will be held on Mondays from 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM. The instructor will provide written progress feedback on a weekly basis.

Digital Media: Ambiance in Non-places

How do we define the “ambiance” of a place? What causes specific environments to evoke different feelings? Are there consistent elements that define these ambiances, and is it possible to measure their qualities and characteristics?

This class will explore these questions by observing, quantifying, and measuring different aspects of site-specific environments. It will attempt to create new ways of describing psychological attributes of places that go beyond what was traditionally measurable. Students will define different quantifiable strategies of capturing the unseen elements that define the feel of these different spaces.

This year, the class discussions will particularly focus around understanding qualities of “non-places”. In social sciences, “non-places” are a type of generic public spaces or institutions that do not confer a feeling of place. Many of these are transitory places, where humans pass through anonymously and do not identify with in any intimate sense, such as airports, train stations, and malls. Non-places offer a unique opportunity for interventions, as they are often seen as dehumanizing places. Students will create interactive tools, wearables, and site-specific installations that respond and intervene at these non-places. 

The course will expose students to digital and physical fabrication methods, and new technologies such as software, electronics, smart materials, and programming. An equally important part of the course is questioning how and why certain spaces make us feel a certain way, what role our senses play in perceiving physical environments, and how we can use technology through installations to interpret these questions in a poetic way. Class discussions will look at current and historical examples and theories of psycho-geographical effects that can be tested, revealed, or measured with new technologies. The class will learn the various ways of measuring and understanding these qualities through spatial sensing, mapping, creating, and prototyping.

Class workshops will cover the following digital and physical fabrication tools and skills based on project needs: Arduino (including input, output, making motions, and using devices to connect to the web), basic electronics, Ohm’s Law, potentiometers, capacitor charging, using a multimeter, Shopbot, scanning, 3D printing, 3D toolpaths, using an oscilloscope, solder, making simple boards, sending data to a computer for processing and display, and wireless devices.

Landscape Representation II

Building on the foundations of Landscape Representation I, this course investigates further the generative potential of representation as part of a productive feedback loop in the design process.

The course will provide a space to think critically about the representation of design, the role that representation plays in the process of designing, and the skills needed to create those representations. Experimenting with new modes of documentation and framing, we will work collaboratively to explore the reflexive relationship between conceptualization and visualization.

Providing a platform to engage studio work in new ways, students will translate and reinterpret drawings and models through a variety of conventional and unconventional media. The course will cover a range of techniques, skills, and workflows that embrace both analog and digital methodologies, exploring representation as a process of thinking, making and designing.

PUBLIC FIGURE/PRIVATE GROUND: Redevelopment of the FBI Site in Washington, DC

In 1790, Washington, DC, was established as the seat of political power in the newly formed United States. The plan and building form within the core of the city reflect an underlying premise: that the public sphere is primary to the private—where public spaces, buildings, and monuments are emphasized as the figure of the city, and private uses are construed as the background or urban fabric. This emphasis continues to this day in the regulatory processes that promote streetscape development, limit the height of buildings, and control the location of public projects; it gives Washington a character that is unique in American cities.

Designed by the Chicago firm Murphy & Associates and constructed between 1965 and 1975, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI headquarters building is a 2.8 million square foot complex in a Brutalist style on a seven-acre parcel facing Pennsylvania Avenue, the city’s primary ceremonial avenue between the US Capitol and the White House. Despite its highly prominent location, the building is inwardly focused around a central court and with a fortress-like perimeter. It has been labelled by some critics as the ugliest building in Washington. Due to its age, deferred maintenance, and changes in the workplace, the building has been deteriorating and considered in poor condition for the past decade. It was the subject of a proposal in the mid-2010s that would have relocated the FBI to a suburban location and allowed the building to be razed for redevelopment. These plans for the site—diagonally across from the Trump Hotel in the renovated Old Post Office building—were halted by the Trump Administration in 2017.

This studio will explore possible scenarios for the building and site, informed by the wide-ranging constraints, possibilities, and complexities of the property. Themes to be considered include the expression of political power in architecture, the potential preservation of iconic Brutalist architecture and the urban landscape legacy of Pennsylvania Avenue, the relationship to the history of urban redevelopment in DC and the Pennsylvania Avenue context in particular, the integration of innovative or resilient systems, as well as the opportunities for new uses on the site—whether public or private, single- or multi-use, monumental figure or background fabric. Central to the studio will be contending with the property’s symbolic and rhetorical potential.

Beginning with a thorough analysis of the building, site, and Pennsylvania Avenue context, students will work to develop a deeper understanding of the patterns of history, use, urban systems, and physical design that have shaped the property. A planned trip to Washington, DC, is included in this initial research period and will give the students first-hand experience of the existing architecture, its immediate setting, and its place within the capital city. Based on this research, students will develop their own program for the site, leading to a design that addresses the salient issues of preservation, design expression, public space, and symbolic context.

Given the complex, cross-disciplinary issues raised by the project, students from different appropriate backgrounds are welcome and encouraged in order to promote collaboration and insight.

After Amazon – What’s Next for LIC?

On February 14, 2019, New York City received an unexpected valentine from Amazon, announcing their withdrawal from a major new campus expansion project dubbed “HQ2.” After an unprecedented competition among 238 US cities and municipalities, New York, along with Alexandria, Virginia, thought that it had won the intense competition for the 25,000 new jobs offered by Amazon for their new East Coast campus. But after 14 months of negotiations and the announcement that Amazon would move half of its headquarters to the Long Island City waterfront, local political pressure surfaced, and Amazon withdrew its selection of New York. New York’s Governor and Mayor’s secret negotiation with Amazon was viewed as an unacceptable backdoor deal. Their project entitlement approach included a little-used state process that was considered a runaround the city’s well established ULURP process, as well as a $1.5 billion tax benefit package that was viewed as a corporate giveaway to one of the world’s richest companies.
    
This studio will explore, study, and develop design concepts for the site in Long Island City, Queens, that was chosen, and ultimately abandoned, by Amazon. This prominent 15-acre waterfront parcel lies fallow and is looking for its next life. Amazon was presented with four possible sites in NYC, suggesting that this location has valuable, untapped potential as a new campus for workers, residents, and other uses. Given the extraordinary growth that Long Island City has undergone in the last two decades, this site is primed to be a key component in the continued activation of this neighborhood as the next engine for growth in New York City.

The studio will focus on developing an urban design approach that leverages the attributes of the site’s waterfront location while addressing the needs of the existing and growing communities in Long Island City and New York City at large. The studio will begin with an intense analysis of the site and neighborhood with a deep dive into the identification and definition of who this “community” is. This analysis is intended to develop a deep understanding of the physical, political, and community context in advance of the proposed site visit to New York.

Students will develop their own program for the site, responding to the needs of the community and balanced with the realities of the real estate market in New York. Beyond program definition, key issues include the development of a site plan that better connects the site to the rest of the neighborhood, waterfront activation that builds upon the success of nearby Gantry State Park, and approaches to resilient waterfront design, along with building planning and design that reflects current and future trends in innovative workplace, residential, retail, and potential onsite light manufacturing.

ROCKET CITY: Envisioning a Future for the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL

The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is NASA’s official Visitor Information Center for the Marshall Space Flight Center and receives over 1 million visitors per year. Its world-renowned Space Camp teaches engineering to children and young adults surrounded by the facts and artifacts of space exploration. Opened in 1970, the center acts as a showcase for the nation’s space and defense programs and hosts authentic training simulations for space, aviation, robotics, and cyber instruction. The complex is nested within a 432-acre landscape carved from the US Army’s Redstone Arsenal and includes classrooms, exhibition halls, residential dormitories, and a hotel. An Energy Trail links the buildings with the Exploration Park, the Botanical Gardens, and a sports complex.

Enabled by an infusion of federal resources, the US Army is preparing to lease an additional 104 acres to the US Space and Rocket Center for new facilities, programs, and landscapes. Participants in the studio will work across scales and create both a short-term and long-term campus master plan for the center’s expansion. Short-term programs include a new headquarters and operations building, education center, experiential museum, mixed- and special-use zones, and an enhanced connectivity framework of roads, trails, pedestrian paths, and gathering spaces. Long-term efforts significantly expand Exploration and Rocket Parks and add additional housing opportunities and exhibition halls. Students will interact with the Executive Director of the center as well as the Directors of Education, Museum and Exhibitions, Space Camp, and Advancement.

This studio is open to all students in the architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design departments. A site visit is planned to Huntsville, Alabama.

The Dam Studio: Climate Change Along the Mystic

Climate change presents one of the greatest challenges for cities. Extreme weather stresses infrastructures, nature, and the built environment. It impacts people, their health, safety, livelihood, and lifestyle. The capacity to adapt will determine the growth and decline of cities worldwide as 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a number that is expected to increase to 68 percent by 2050[1].

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the broader Boston metropolitan area have been a model for advanced collaborative thinking to address climate change. The studio will take advantage of the readily available wealth of regional climate knowledge, data, and analyses, and will explore the local implications of climate change on the Upper Mystic Watershed located within the Boston metropolitan area. It covers 76 square miles, roughly one percent of the land area of Massachusetts, and the upper watershed refers to the freshwater area above the Amelia Earhart Dam.

The dam is at the risk of being flanked or overtopped by 2050, which would impact communities in the upper watershed area. Concurrently, more frequent and intense precipitation coupled with increased densification and loss of pervious surfaces has increased the occurrence of stormwater flooding in the cities and towns within the river watershed. 
The studio will explore the integration of climate science projections into planning strategies and design projects at the regional scale while also developing specific scalable design solutions derived from nature-based approaches, urban typologies, or infrastructure adapted to climate change. The studio is organized into three concurrent tracks of exploration: 

1.    Review of the science of climate change to understand its basis, probabilities, modelization, and risk and vulnerability assessments
2.    Development of clear problem statements to define the planning and design projects and assess the effectiveness of the proposed flood-resilient strategies
3.    Exploration of design solutions for a watershed master plan or for selected landscape and urban design projects adapted to climate change

Prerequisites: Knowledge of GIS.

[1.] “The 2018 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects” is published by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). See https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.