Courses

Natural Ventilation

Alejandra Menchaca

Note regarding the schedule: This Module 1 course will end on SEPTEMBER 29th. Topics to be covered: Basics of wind-driven and buoyancy-driven ventilation.

Informal Robotics / New Paradigms for Design & Construction

Chuck Hoberman

Today new materials and fabrication techniques are transforming the field of robotics. Rather than rigid metal parts connected by mechanical components, robots may now be…

Daylighting

Holly Samuelson

Picture a space, one that feels vibrant, comfortable, warm, and healthy. Now visualize someplace cheerless, depressing, and dull. What changed in your mind\’s eye? Most…

Frameworks of Contemporary Practice

Paul Nakazawa

Purpose of the course is to: 1. Examine architecture through the lenses of the Discipline, Profession and Practice — the issues of knowledge domains, development…

The Architect in History: The Evolution of Practice from the Renaissance to the Present

Jay Wickersham

This course examines the history of architectural practice, focusing on the changing role and definition of the architect, with the goal of providing new perspectives…

Independent Study by Candidates for Masters Degrees

Maryann Thompson, Ray Torto, Chuck Hoberman, Edward Eigen, Sonja Dümpelmann, Diane Davis, Ewa Harabasz, Neil Brenner, Panagiotis Michalatos, Krzysztof Wodiczko, John Dixon Hunt, Jane Hutton, Frank Apeseche, Shohei Shigematsu, Holly Samuelson, Erika Naginski, Florian Idenburg, Rahul Mehrotra, Jana Cephas, Andreas Georgoulias, Gareth Doherty, Antoine Picon, Luis Valenzuela, Kiel Moe, Andrew Witt, Jay Wickersham, Bing Wang, Allen Sayegh, Grace La, Joan Busquets, Ann Forsyth, Toshiko Mori, K. Michael Hays, Peter Rowe, Jorge Silvetti, Anita Berrizbeitia, Felipe Correa, Carlos Felix Raspall Galli, Remment Koolhaas, Michael Hooper, Leire Asensio Villoria, Christopher Hoxie, Charles Waldheim

Students may take a maximum of 8 credit units with different instructors in this course series.Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Candidates may arrange individual work focusing on…

Independent Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree MArch

Jorge Silvetti, Peter Rowe, Toshiko Mori, Mack Scogin, Preston Scott Cohen, Grace La, Elizabeth Whittaker, Kiel Moe, Charles Waldheim, Eric Howeler, Jeffry Burchard, Megan Panzano, Florian Idenburg, Iñaki Abalos, Panagiotis Michalatos, Carles Muro, Edward Eigen

 Each student conducts a design exploration that tests and expands the thesis. Prerequisites: completion of two (2) options studios and approval of thesis preparation…

Independent Thesis for the Degree Master in Design Studies

Holly Samuelson, Frank Apeseche, David Mah, Michael Hooper, Joyce Klein-Rosenthal, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Panagiotis Michalatos, Susan Snyder, Diane Davis, Sonja Dümpelmann, Salmaan Craig, Neil Leach, John R. Stilgoe, Allen Sayegh, Andrew Witt, Kiel Moe, Gareth Doherty, Robert Pietrusko, Rahul Mehrotra, Hanif Kara

A student who selects this independent thesis for the degree Master in Design Studies pursues independent research of relevance to the selected course of study…

Master of Design Studies Final Project

Silvia Benedito, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Jana Cephas, Joyce Klein-Rosenthal, Niall Kirkwood

The Final Project will consist of a theoretical/position component, and of a practical/experimental component. The scope of each of the two components will be determined…

Preparation of Doctoral Thesis Proposal

Under faculty guidance, the student conducts a reading program and formulates a thesis proposal. The course is intended for doctoral students.

Thesis in Satisfaction of the Degree Doctor of Design

Peter Rowe, Martin Bechthold, Antoine Picon, Diane Davis

Under guidance of a faculty committee, the student conducts investigations and prepares a doctoral thesis.

MArch II Proseminar

Jorge Silvetti

This course provides a forum for critical discussion of contemporary design practices that is exploratory and speculative in nature. The course emphasizes collaborative thinking and…

Doctoral Program Proseminar

Peter Rowe

This pro-seminar is one way of fulfilling a requirement for successful completion of the Doctor of Design program. Primarily, it will focus on various thematic…

Second Semester Core: SITUATE

Grace La, Cameron Wu, Elizabeth Whittaker, Renata Sentkiewicz, Katy Barkan, Jeffry Burchard, Max Kuo, Ingeborg Rocker

The overarching pedagogical agenda for second semester is to expand upon the design methodologies developed in the first semester such that students acquire an understanding…

Fourth Semester Core: RELATE

Florian Idenburg, Carles Muro, Timothy Hyde, Ingeborg Rocker, Eric Howeler, Spela Videcnik

The last of a four-semester sequence of design studios concludes the introduction to architectural design by emphasizing students\’ elaboration and substantiation of ideas through complex…

Apres Ski: Eco Village Les Diablerets

Toshiko Mori

In this studio, we will look at the other side of the “coin” of the rapid urbanization phenomena. As we discuss the need to strategize…

“You Can’t Die in Disney World” A ZOO (as in chaos)

Mack Scogin

\” You Can\’t Die in Disney World \” A ZOO ( as in chaos ) A current visit to the Disciplinary Zoo of…

Indebted Architecture

Preston Scott Cohen

The project is to analyze and design buildings as if their forms correlate to the movement of thought. In order to do so, several existing…

IN THE LAND OF ÑANDUTí: following the lines, threads, and figures of the river

Jorge Silvetti

This studio will have water as its most conspicuous element. Inside, around and over it, we would develop proposals for intervention in an area of…

Real and Imaginary Variables (Final): Global Arenas

George L. Legendre

Halfway between the socially responsive discourse of programmatic indeterminacy and the alleged futility of form-giving, we will explores architecture’s critical return to form. Our interest…

High-rise / High-density

Jonathan Sergison, Stephen Bates

We are interested in questions of housing in the city and, in this instance, in how an American typology – the high-rise multi-story apartment building…

Another nature

Junya Ishigami

Currently, when considering the nature of architecture, isn’t it problematic to simply define it as an ‘artifact’ or ‘artificial environment’ that is conceived and constructed…

Borrominations, or the Auratic Dome

Ciro Najle, Hanif Kara

Thousands of lives sharing their lack of reciprocity and involvement under a single roof: this seems to be the way in which public space functions…

Thermodynamic Materialism Applied to Dense Urban Conglomerates, Two Chinese Case Studies

Iñaki Abalos, Matthias Schuler

This option studio will focus on the new wave of urbanization of medium scale cities in China characterized by large infrastructure expansion, interest in sustainable…

Architectural Design V – IX

Yvonne Farrell

Option studion in Zurich, ETH.

Barcelona’s Grids: in Search of New Paradigms

Joan Busquets

FRAMEWORK. The construction of modern Barcelona can be seen as a laboratory of urban projects and planning strategies. This process spanning two centuries features…

Los Angeles Study Abroad Studio: The Possibilities of the Wrong Scale

Michael Maltzan, Mia Lehrer

Los Angeles has for most of its life had a deeply ambivalent relationship with the more canonical vision, forms, and mechanisms of urbanism. While seen…

Digital Media for Design

David Mah

The course will focus on the interrogation and acquisition of different emerging and established digital design approaches for designers. Students will gain knowledge of…

Responsive Environments (REA Lab Seminar)

Allen Sayegh

This course looks at the relationship between technology, perception and the built environment. Smart, media driven products and environments are becoming extension of our sense…

Superficial Spaces

George L. Legendre

At a time when architectural discourse and practice are (still) brimming with references to new geometries, this offering investigates the architectural potential of abstract three-dimensional…

Conic and Developable Surfaces

Cameron Wu

In terms of Differential Geometry, developable surfaces are defined as those with vanishing Gaussian curvature which can be unrolled to a plane without distortion.

Projection/Installation/Intervention

Krzysztof Wodiczko

In the coming years, one in three returning veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be suffering from war-related post-traumatic stress, and they…

Exploring Contemporary Architecture through Persisting Issues

Rafael Moneo

The lecture course serves to emphasize my belief that a critical reflection on long-standing issues in the architectural practice can provide a valuable…

Digital Culture, Architecture and the City

Antoine Picon

This course is scheduled to take place in the Sackler lecture hall, in the Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway. Some twenty years ago, when…

Philosophy of Technology

Robert Silman

\”In addition to man’s ageless obligation to meet the threat of things, he bears for the first time the responsibility of prime agent…

Study Abroad Seminar: Contested Territories: Geopolitics, Media and Design in Southern California

Alison Hirsch

As a landscape of tenuous contradictions – cultural complexity and social isolation, exploitative settlement and fulfillment of the American Dream, ecological diversity and environmental degradation…

Study Abroad Seminar: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hyperreality

Neil Leach

Contemporary postmodern culture is dominated, according to French cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard, by simulation and hyperreality. In postmodern culture the image has become the new…

Buildings, Texts, and Contexts II

Edward Eigen

 Any account of architecture’s history over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries is faced with the challenge of addressing the general rupture caused…

Film Theory, Visual Thinking

Giuliana Bruno

How do moving images transform the way we think? Introduction to film theory aimed at interpreting the visual world, and developing skills to analyze films…

Screens: Media Archaeology and the Visual Arts Seminar

Giuliana Bruno

How do screens function as interface between us and the world? What is the role of the screen in contemporary visual arts and media culture?…

The Shapes of Utopia

Erika Naginski

Utopia\’s fall from grace in the modern period is tied to architecture\’s failure in giving shape to dreams of a new society wrought from…

Critical Memory and the Experience of History

K. Michael Hays

This seminar presents selected texts treating architecture as a foundational phenomena of being in the world (Hegel and Heidegger), as well as the…

Case Studies in Critical Conservation: Strategies for Curating the Built Environment

Jana Cephas

This course analyzes case studies in conservation as a means for developing projective strategies for interpreting and curating buildings, landscapes, and cities. More specifically,…

Environment, Economics, and Enterprise

Holly Samuelson, Frank Apeseche

How can one optimize the benefits of environmental sustainability while generating a higher return on investment in buildings? Where are the opportunities for real…

Construction Systems

Eric Howeler

The course introduces a conceptual framework for the design of building assemblies, as informed by a clear understanding of construction technologies and of the properties…

Environmental Systems in Architecture

Holly Samuelson

The primary focus of GSD 6125 is the study of ecological considerations in architectural design. These considerations include the thermal, luminous, and acoustic behavior of…

Structural Design 2

Martin Bechthold

A continuation of GSD 6227, this course provides students with an enhanced understanding of structural analysis and engineering design concepts. Students learn the fundamentals of…

Design Survivor: Experiential Lessons in Designing for Desirability (at SEAS)

Beth Altringer

SEAS Engineering Sciences 22. Catalog Number: 87699 EXAM GROUP: 2, 3 Please check the FAS schedule for room information. Multi-disciplinary…

Survey of Energy Technology (at SEAS)

Michael Aziz

EAS Engineering Sciences 229. Survey of Energy Technology Catalog Number: 94822 EXAM GROUP: 7, 8 Please check the FAS schedule for…

Innovative Construction in Japan

Mark Mulligan

Modern Japanese architecture has been much admired in the West for its attention to materials, its refined construction details, and its ability to integrate…