Preparation of MLA Design Thesis

A thesis is a thematic proposition offered for discussion and debate. A thesis is typically developed through a piece of original research specific to an academic discipline, often at the culmination of a program of study. Theses are produced through various methods as appropriate to the disciplinary commitments of academic fields across the research university. Design theses are pursued through the methods and media specific to the design disciplines, through design research. Design research most often refers to the process and products of knowledge produced through design, as distinct from knowledge produced by research methods associated with the humanities or the sciences. Design research can be characterized by its means and methods, as well as by its sites and subjects for work, as well as the dissemination and reception of its propositions. 

Design research is propositional and projective rather than simply empirical or descriptive. It is most often predicated on intervention in the world rather than simply describing the world as found. Design research is characterized by its capacity to propose alternative and better futures while simultaneously producing disciplinary knowledge in design. Candidates in the Master in Landscape Architecture Program elect to pursue independent design theses at the culmination of their graduate work. The projects presented here represent original thematic propositions put forward through design research to stimulate discussion and debate. In this sense, they are as much about design discourse and disciplinary formation as they are propositions for how things ought to be.

This research seminar is intended for Master in Landscape Architecture candidates electing to pursue a design thesis in their final year of study. The course defines the parameters of a design thesis and assists candidates in the development of their own individual design thesis proposals. The course addresses a series of broad themes essential to developing a cogent thesis proposal including design research, projective practices, discursive agendas, site contexts, programmatic drivers, and representational strategies. The course examines the role of precedent projects and design methods as well as the status of design and design research as forms of knowledge in the research university.

Course readings, video lectures, and cameo advice from faculty and recent graduates are made available via Canvas. The course  meets weekly for ninety minutes via Zoom for workshop presentations and discussion of thesis projects in development. In addition to the regularly scheduled class sessions, tutorial workshops, and formal reviews, individual meetings with faculty advisors are an important aspect of the course. Students will be invited to identify and secure a GSD faculty thesis advisor by the end of August. By the end of the term candidates will have prepared a proposal for their individual design thesis through word and image.

Preparation for Independent Thesis Proposal for MUP, MAUD, or MLAUD

This seminar is intended to provide the theoretical and methodological foundation for completing a graduate thesis in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. By the end of the semester, students will have produced a solid thesis proposal and have the necessary intellectual foundation to complete their thesis by the end of the academic year. Over the semester, students will identify and refine their thesis topic, solidify their relationship with a thesis advisor, and produce a thesis proposal. Weekly sessions will involve discussions of relevant readings and exploration of emergent student work. As a forum for the exchange of work in progress, the seminar will allow students to share their ideas and get feedback on the development of their thesis from their peers, visiting critics and reviewers, and faculty. 

The seminar will begin by introducing the thesis as a conceptual frame and by identifying the key elements that cut across the different types of theses that might be produced by students, whether textual, design-focused, or based in some other medium, such as film. It will then address the following issues, among others: topic and question identification, research methods, case selection, the craft of thesis production, managing the student-advisor relationship, and techniques for verbally defending a thesis. 

Students will complete weekly assignments relevant to their thesis and present in class on most weeks. Since the seminar will be run as a graduate seminar, students will be expected to provide critical and thoughtful responses to their peers’ work and engage in informed and mature discussion of the issues found in the readings. The course will include a midterm and final review of students’ proposals, to be attended by faculty and critics. 

Course format: This course will meet weekly on Monday afternoons from 3pm to 6pm. This time will be subdivided into three 45-minute sessions (with breaks in between sessions). The first session will comprise of lectures and/or time to discuss the week's assigned reading. The second session will be a time for student's to present their progress on their thesis proposal to a group of two or three classmates. The third session will be a time for students to discuss challenges, lessons, and advice for completing a thesis proposal in groups of four or five students.

Public Space

In a digital age, does physical public space matter? Tahrir Square, the streets of Hong Kong, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Zuccotti Park, Madrid Rio, and other physical public spaces argue the affirmative, with ambitions ranging from accommodation of everyday leisure activities to political protests. Physical public space, although adapting to current demands and contexts, would appear anchored in transcendent human needs and desires.

This course examines the case and place for physical public space. Physical public space takes on a variety of physical forms, including sidewalks, streets, squares, parks, plazas, arcades, atria, and other outdoor and indoor spaces, but morphology alone is not destiny. Public space raises fascinating substantive and procedural questions. What are the purposes of public space? What makes good public space? Who decides what is good? Should public spaces serve all publics and allow all uses at once? Who should decide what is allowed? What role should design play? Who should design public space? Are there universal design principles? Who should own and manage public space? Can private parties participate in public space provision without loss of publicness? Is government provision always better that private provision? Does theory usefully inform practice? How much do democracy and equality depend on ample availability of public space? How much public space is enough? Is physical public space threatened or enhanced by the digital? Is a shopping mall a public space? And the list goes on.

This course introduces foundations for thinking about and making public space and offers students an opportunity to contribute research and new ideas to the field. Classes include lectures, discussions, and two small exercises (drafting rules of public space user conduct and creating a public space logo) that replace readings for that class. Students are expected to complete assigned readings for each class before class so that they may actively participate in discussions. A 5,000-word term paper or other instructor-approved final project of equivalent effort is required. The final project will count for 75% of the course grade, while class participation will count for 25%.

Local Government Solutions to America’s Affordable Rental Housing Challenge

There are 10.9 million renters who are severely housing cost burdened – spending more than 50% of their income on shelter. The solutions to this national crisis are varied and involve all levels of government, but local governments are closest to the particular housing challenges in their communities and arguably have the widest range of levers to apply to the problem. This course will challenge students to create new and innovative approaches to the affordable housing problem that can be implemented at the local level.  These approaches will include a mix of strategies to raise additional funds for subsidies, reduce regulatory constraints, and encourage new forms of housing and new methods of housing construction. Students will be offering advice and solutions directly to mayors and housing professionals of four cities from different regions of the nation that have volunteered to serve as laboratories for the course: Austin, TX, Louisville, KY, Rochester, NY, and Stockton, CA. 

Students will receive a package of information about their cities in the first session of the class and will hear from representatives of each of the cities early in the semester. Students will also have access to important local actors as the class proceeds.  All four cities will return for presentations of the students final reports providing a comprehensive strategy for the cities to adopt that will substantially resolve the cities’ current need for housing affordable to severely cost-burdened residents.

The course will be limited to 20 students who will be divided into teams that will serve as “consultants” to the mayors and housing professionals of the participating cities. While there are not explicit prerequisites, this course will work best for students with some experience, either academic or professional in the housing sector. 

The class will meet in a seminar format for three hours each week.  Classes will include a mix of lectures, presentations and discussions with invited guest experts, and will often include presentations by student groups. Grading will include class participation, periodic presentations, and the final comprehensive strategy. 

Circular Eco-nomics: Mapping Architectural & Urban Ecosystems

This course introduces students to the idea of circular sustainable economies, hereby described as “eco-nomics,” looking simultaneously into the economics of sustainable lifestyles and work styles, sustainable product lifecycle, and sustainable environmental development. Eco-nomics is based on the value assessment that economy and environment are and should be interconnected.

How can we rethink architecture and urban conditions as a “system of systems,” that instead of promoting linear entropy, decay, and the accumulation of waste, can be designed with circular and recursive material and energetic metabolisms? We will examine new and emerging models, technologies, and techniques for the design of innovative architectural and urban “metabolizing” environments. “Metabolizing” is hereby understood as the constant circular exchange of matter and energy in the creation and operation of living and nonliving systems. 

To do this, we will constructively critique contemporary methods of design and collaboration, industrial and professional value creation and assessment, and persistent and evolving conventions of material fabrication, construction processes, and building operations within architecture and infrastructure. Materiality in these contexts must be studied holistically: Where do materials come from? How do materials transform and become what they are through human and nonhuman forms of labor? How does materiality and energy power systems represent systems of power? And how is materiality affected by global and international networks and trade practices?

By shifting toward a cyclical view of the lives of materiality and building products, their explicit and implicit web of connections, the seminar will focus on using architectural and urban proposals to provoke eco-nomics to modify the narratives of materiality, production, and their “commodity chains” of environmental resources, labor, and industry. 

The seminar will cover framework of thought and the digital tools of technical craft to create speculative, cross-scale design interventions taking into account new emerging eco-nomics within circular sustainable economies. Student production will depart from a linear model of architectural and urban design thinking, and arrive at a circular model with the goal of resulting in significant changes to how we think, design, construct, operate, and deconstruct future products, architectures, and environments.

The course is a seminar-workshop. The first part of the course consists of readings and discussions, background research, site analysis, and direct use of provided emerging collaboration platform technology. Students will document their work in groups. The second part of the course will be the making of V&R prototypes that serve as proof of concept. 

Students from any background and concentration are encouraged to apply. No specific prerequisites are needed (3-D modeling capabilities, coding, and a hands-on mentality are a plus).

Book Project Number Zero

1. Architecture is inseparable from bookmaking. Ever since Sebastiano Serlio discovered the potentials of the printing press, no cultural project in the field of architecture has escaped publishing and so thematising a possible reading of buildings—regardless of present or past, big or small, real or invented.

2. Even in the context of the extreme wealth of media available today, books are still the main instrument of architectural propaganda. The internet did not kill the architecture book. More likely, the internet increased the book’s value for an architect’s career.

3. Books are projects, as well as buildings. Books are imagined, sketched, designed and executed.  

4. Students will develop a project for a book on architecture. The choice of topic is open, as well as the format.

5. The final output of the seminar is a “book” that will include a written introduction, an index, an atlas of images, and a graphic design scheme. 

6. The imaginary book may be projected and assembled as long-form or short-form, text-based, image-based or composite. Students may realize their book using different media, but the final deliverable should be “book-alike” and printed.

7. Usually, when authors write a book, they A) first write the index and introduction, B) then write the actual book, C) then re-write the introduction. The seminar will stop at point A.

8. Instructors will present two case studies on bookmaking in fine detail. Pier Paolo Tamburelli will discuss his ongoing project of a (long-form) book on Bramante; Thomas Kelley will present his recent (short-form) treatise on vision. The seminar will consist of lectures, discussions with external guests, and a final review of the individual book projects.

9. And while the seminar will afford multiple strategies for ideating architecture through the medium of a book, each project will question how the essence of communication in architecture is informed, for better and for worse, by how a book (or any publication) relates to building.

This course has and irregular schedule:

Thomas Kelley will be in residence on January 30-31, February 6-7, 20-21, March 26-27, April 23-24, and for the Final Exam in May.

Pier Paolo Tamburelli will be in residence on January 30-31, February 27-28, April 9-10, and for the Final Exam in May.

Advanced Introduction to Robotics (at SEAS)

Also offered as Engineering Sciences 259: Advanced Introduction to Robotics

Introduction to computer-controlled robotic manipulators. Topics include coordinate frames and transformations, kinematic structure and solutions, statics and dynamics of serial and parallel chain manipulators, control and programming, introduction to path planning, introduction to teleoperation, robot design, and actuation and sensing devices. Laboratory exercises provide experience with industrial robot programming and robot simulation and control.

Prerequisite: Computer Science 50, and either Engineering Sciences 125 or 156.

Jointly Offered Course: SEAS ES 259

Please check the FAS course listing for questions about schedule and location.
 

Queer Spaces

How do queer populations form communities and locate those communities in urban space? How do urban governance structures support and/or regulate these communities? How do these communities intersect and interact with the rest of the city? What might be more radical queer futures, including those more inclusive of trans communities, or communities of color, or a more global perspective?

The course focuses on the ways in which queer space—seen broadly–intersects with the work of planners, designers, and policy makers. It draws on a variety of sources including urban planning, queer geography, law, and history to examine neighborhood formation, housing and homelessness, community safety, nightlife and cruising culture, tourism, and preservation.  The course will be primarily a discussion-based seminar that also includes guest speakers, a tour, film, and video. Grading will be based on short reading responses and a final project/research paper inspired by the topics discussed in class.

By the end of the course students will be able to:
– Identify the range of issues and theories relevant to understanding queer spaces.
– Appreciate the strengths and limitations of current research and practice related to queer spaces.
– Understand how planners, designers, and policy makers can make a difference.

This is a student-initiated course

Tectonic Tradition in Japan

In Japan, design, both traditional and contemporary, is inseparable from materials and how they are constructed together. There is a long history of fruitful collaboration between architects and structural engineers in creating innovative architecture, such as Yoyogi Gymnasium and Sendai Mediatheque. In this seminar, variety topics related to either structure and/or material relevant to the design and making of the built environment of all scale are discussed.  The seminar consists of classroom lectures and laboratory workshops:

– Material Workshop (Kanshitsu): Kenji Toki (Miyagi University) will introduces the traditional material of Urushi which has been used over 3,000 years from small accessory to large scale architecture. He will demonstrate the traditional fabrication technique. Lecture and demonstration will take place at Tokyo University of the Arts.
– Material Workshop (Concrete): Hands on workshop to cast concrete of various texture. Workshop will take place at Tokyo University of the Arts.  

Enrollment in this course was pre-selected.

Products of Practice: From code to plan to code

A seminar that critically mines historic systems of representation and the product (or media) of the architect in relationship to the evolving societal role of the discipline, practice, and profession with the goal of projecting practice futures. 
 
Within the cacophony of contemporary media, under the pressures of financial instruments, and with an expectation of artificial intelligence, this seminar looks to the past to explore the product of the architect as an artifact of circumstance, framing and projecting practice potentials now and into the future. Critically tracking the development of our practice, we will research design context and representational formats as cultural and temporal constructs that limit or expand the role of the architect in practice. Our collective goal is an exploration of the relationship between – and the limits of – discipline, practice, and profession to better understand their structural potentials.

The course will be organized thematically, exploring the origins of contemporary practice and its products at any given moment – from built form to model to drawing to code – as the architect evolved from master builder to author to project manager. The work of Vitruvius, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Leon Battista Alberti, Peter Cook, Cedric Price, Christopher Alexander, Peter Eisenman, and New Urbanism, among others, will be assessed within their cultural context. Legal and technical issues, client types, and structures of fee and control, will be considered. Students will work in small research cohorts to develop critical positions on the renewed debate between empirical vs. cultural practice, on mediatic production and instruments of service for single projects vs. systems of design deployment and process design. 

The class format will include presentation by the instructor and guests followed by discussion and debate, led by a pre-assigned group of students with topically relevant research for each class. Working in pairs to analyze oppositional perspectives in history and theory, students will be expected to produce a short mid-term paper or presentation and a corollary oral argument around a topical historic position on the role of production in relationship to discipline and practice. Students will summarize topical research within a shared course research framework. Final course output will draw from this collective knowledge to speculate on the future product of the architect in text, drawing, or code-based formats. Guest lecturers from practice and related sectors will occasionally be invited to add perspective to specific topics, particularly around the issue of emerging modes of production and media. 

There are no prerequisites for this course, which is intended as an interdisciplinary discussion. While this course is focused on the evolution of the product of the architect, the emergence of the related disciplines of landscape architecture, urban planning and urban design are topical to the conversation.