Fall 2009 Architecture Graduate Courses Print

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ARCH 200A
FUNDAMENTALS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
IWAMOTO

(8) 200A must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. 200B must be taken for a letter grade. Four hours of lecture/seminar, eight hours of studio, and four hours of laboratory per week. Introductory course in architectural design and theories for graduate students. Problems emphasize the major format, spatial, material, tectonic, social, technological, and environmental determinants of building form. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips.

ARCH 201
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

(5) Course may be repeated for credit. Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 100A-100B or 200A-200B. The design of buildings or communities of advanced complexity. Each section deals with a specific topic such as housing, public and institutional buildings, and local or international community development. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips.

Students interested in taking ARCH 201 must enroll in Section 1 and attend a presentation by all of the section professors shortly before the start of instruction. The date, time, and location will be posted in August. Students may then request a preferred section. Final section assignments will be made by the Department of Architecture.

ARCH 201 SEC 1
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
STONER

Slow REVERSE / Fast FORWARD

“all their world’s done to change the world
Is to make it uglier to the airport.”
—Louis Zukofsky, “A”-18

Our site is the exurban hinterland south of San Francisco along the 101 highway, a landscape of isolated corporate headquarters, chain hotels, parking lots, airport support structures and office parks-- constructions that fail to rise to the level of what we normally define as “Architecture. We will address these buildings as landscape—that is, as the potential site for an architecture that can be excavated out of their very substance. We will approach these sites with a non-judgmental spirit and a forensic eye for detail, as archeologists searching for new urban possibilities.

Phase 1, SLOW REVERSE
For the first ten weeks, we will consider an architecture that is reductive and subtractive, rather than accretive and additive. We will ask: how can we begin to reverse the environmental degradation of the past 50 years, while at the same time taking on the least appealing architectural products of that period? How can we emphasize lightness over weight, air and water over earth, and labor over material? We will challenge the definition of architecture as that which privileges new buildings on empty sites. We will optimistically assume that this now-ubiquitous detritus of the neo-liberal projects of the past several decades can become less privatized, less devoted to purely ‘urban’, anthropocentric values, and more open to ecological diversity and social compromise.  Our ‘slow reverse’ will comprise five segments of two weeks each, focused on the specific issues of 1. demolition, 2. structure, 3. codes, 4.water, and 5. notes. These elements of architectural construction documents will be addressed in the context of broad theoretical issues of economy and ecology. They will also fulfill the requirements of ‘comprehensive studio’ work.

Phase 2, FAST FORWARD
The first phase of work will set the stage for us to explore an impending reterritorialization of the 101 corridor, based on a hypothesis that the population of California’s Central Valley and other ‘warming’ territories will migrate toward this new urban energy. During the final four weeks of the semester we will ‘fast forward’ through the decades from 2020 – 2060, to speculate upon the kinds of ballot measures the public might put forward to engage both ecological imperatives and population growth along this same corridor. Design seeds planted during the first phase of work, together with theories of urban density and several 20th century proposals for linear cities, will hopefully inspire these imaginings.

ARCH 201 SEC 2
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
CHOKSOMBATCHAI

EPIGENETIC LANDSCAPE

In biology, the term epigenetics refers to heritable changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence (hence the name epi - "in addition to" - genetics). These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism; instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.

The word epigenetics has had many definitions, and much of the confusion surrounding its usage relates to these definitions having changed over time. Initially it was used in a broader, less specific sense but it has become more narrowly linked to specific molecular phenomena occurring in organisms.

When the word “Epigenetic Landscape” was invented by C. H. Waddington in 1942, the physical nature of genes and their role in heredity was not scientifically known. He used it as a conceptual model of how genes might interact with their surroundings to produce a phenotype.

"Epigenetic landscape seen from below: The complex relief features of the epigenetic surface are themselves largely the expression of a prodigiously complex network of interactions underlying it. The guy-ropes are tethered not only to random points on the overhead surface, but to points on the other guy-ropes as well, and to pegs in the lower surface that themselves represent only semi-stabilized forms, thus multiplying exponentially the non-linearities flowing through the system. Not to diminish in importance either is the tension surface above as a distinct domain contributing its own forces to the field. No change in any single parameter can fail to be relayed throughout the system and to affect, in turn, conditions all across the event surface." (Sanford Kwinter's "Landscapes of Change" essay in Assemblage 19, 1993.)

This design studio speculates on a crossing of architecture,landscape, and artificial intelligence that is capable of learning from its own environment. This crossing performs within an architectural paradigm of desirable habitations and a technological paradigm of infrastructure and energy production. As a studio that is experimental in nature, we will attempt to explore exhaustively all sort of knowledge-based design possibilities to create a new cultivated farm field of “Intelligent Landscape” that achieves architectural, technological and aesthetic aspirations.

The programmatic requirements raised timely concerns at the global level about our social, economic, and material ecologies. Our society, which is single-mindedly driven by an exuberant engagement with technological invention, is rapidly evolving. The design exploration in this studio will fully celebrate the richness and latent potentials of architecture, art, and science, while attempting to understand and expose the repercussions and potential risks of their global trajectories.

SITE
The site chosen is under the jurisdiction of Trat Province along the Eastern Shoreline of the Gulf of Thailand, which is designated industrial development. An estuary that is as part of the lower course of Klong Nam Chieo, series of confluences, flowing south and southwest towards the Gulf, a part of the body of water connected to the Pacific Ocean. Trat is the farthest eastern province from Bangkok, whose eastern end is bordered by Cambodia.

Amata Corp. PCL, Southeast Asian's leading developer and manager of factory estates, has established a strong hold of majority of industrial estates situated in the nation’s Eastern Seaboard region, which is today Southeast Asia’s preferred location for manufacturing.

Two airports located nearby the chosen site on the Eastern Seaboard primarily serve the tourist industry. One is a regional airport, Trat Airport services all domestic airlines located about 12-15 miles northeast of the site. The other, U-Tapao International Airport, originally served as the home to the Royal Thai Navy First Air Win (U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield) and is located about 88.8 miles east of the site.

PROGRAM
Energy Farm and Eco Spa + Resort developed and operated by Amata Corp. PCL.

Note: At the present time, a co-generation power plant, Amata Power (Rayong) Limited has been developed to serve the growing demand of electricity and steam at the Amata City Industrial Estate and to prepare for the future growth of industrialusers. Commercial operation commenced in July 2000. Amata Power (Rayong) Limited entered into contracts to supply energy to Amata Quality Waters Limited, BMW Manufacturing (Thailand) Limited, Sinochem Chemicals (Thailand) Limited and Cardinal Health 222 (Thailand) Limited.

ARCH 201 SEC 3
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
CASSELL

Form Follows Sunlight (Friedman Studio)

This research-based studio will investigate the relationship between form, meaning and sunlight. Over the course of the semester, we will study the calibration of parametric design techniques to solar movement in pursuit of extraordinary and unexpected outcomes.

Architecture has a long tradition of generating form and meaning in response to the sun, and the control of how light moves through space. The advent of digital modeling tools enables the quick simulation of light conditions, making it extremely easy to see the affects of light on a space. Paradoxically, this ease of visualization has eroded our fundamental knowledge of the sun and light in the service of design. In essence, these tools have wrested control from the architect. At the same time, there has been a field-changing explosion of work on advanced form-making through the use of digital modeling tools and especially parametric modeling. The potential to connect these variables to larger issues of performance – like sunlight – has only begun to be rigorously explored.

The goal of the studio is to gain control of daylight as the primary formal generator of space and form, through a series of iterative exercises using the parametric design tool grasshopper (a plug-in to Rhino). We will begin with the reinvention of the sundial, which will lead into a series of investigations to arrive at a ‘toolkit’ of honed techniques for the control of form and light. During the first half of the studio every exercise will involve testing the digital through the fabrication of a physical model using either the laser cutter or 3d printer. The studio will culminate in the design of a one room building whose goal is formal invention through the total control of natural light. Success in the studio will be dependent on each student’s commitment to exploration and invention through their investigations across the course of the semester.

ARCH 201 SEC 4
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
FRAKER

Sustainable Neighborhood Studio

Introduction
Ultimately, “sustainability is about poetry, optimism and delight. Energy, CO2, water and wastes (while extremely important) are secondary. The unquantifiable is at least as important as the quantifiable; Louis Kahn said ‘the measurable is only a servant of the unmeasurable’ and ideally the two should be developed together.”  (Randall Thomas)

Too often, however, design poetics have been an excuse to ignore the empirical requirements of sustainability. While on the other hand, especially with the growing urgency of climate change, the empirical demands of sustainability can become ends in themselves, become a moral imperative at the expense of design poetics. For “sustainability” to be sustainable, design must find a way to bring these two ways of thinking and making together into a compelling whole.

Goals
This studio will explore how to integrate both the measurable and the poetics of sustainable design at the scale of a mixed-use, transit-oriented, neighborhood – a “transit village” in San Jose, CA. A goal of the studio will be to test if a neighborhood design can achieve zero carbon emissions (or better, i.e. to generate carbon credits) in the operation of the energy, water and waste systems, while significantly reducing the carbon footprint for transportation and food. This will require an examination of how to provide all the energy on site from conservation and renewables, how to recycle all the water and waste, how to create a pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendly environment with the opportunity to grow and/or acquire local food.

Planning
The studio, as a whole, will prepare a master plan for the neighborhood based on a “generative code” which articulates both the design qualities and the sustainable criteria the students want to achieve for the neighborhood. The master plan will describe the streets, the blocks, the uses, densities, the open space and parks and a set of design guidelines for building types. It will also propose an integrated model for the energy, water and waste systems, i.e. a whole-systems approach to the infrastructure of utilities which is essential for the neighborhood to become sustainable.

As part of preparing the master plan, students will study important precedents of sustainable neighborhood designs in order to establish a baseline of knowledge and framework for their work. They will explore the assets and liabilities of the local climate and ecology as a resource for design. They will examine the current standards of energy consumption, water usage and waste generation by building type and use. These will provide a base case against which to measure their designs.

Architectural Development
Each student will select a specific piece of the master plan, a part of the proposed urban fabric, for which they will prepare detailed architectural designs. As part of this phase in the process students will calculate the energy performance of their designs as one means of evaluating and developing their proposals. In the end, the students’ projects will be assembled into a whole which will describe the architectural qualities of the neighborhood and how each project contributes to the goals of sustainability. To a limited degree the studio process is designed to simulate recent city building practices in Holland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.

Schedule
Approximately 40% of the time will be spent preparing the generative code and master plan, 40% on the individual architectural projects and 20% on a final synthesis.

Site/Program
The site is located south of downtown San Jose in a triangular property, bounded by Highway 85, Monterey Highway and Cottle Road. The whole property is owned by the Hitachi Corporation which is seeking to develop a C-shaped portion of the site around the western edge of its main “campus” along Cottle Rd. There is a Caltrains station on the north edge along Monterey Highway and a light-rail station on the south side at the intersection of 85 and Cottle Rd. Both stations are currently designed as park-and-ride facilities and the development around the site is typically car-oriented and suburban in type. The land available for development around the central “campus” is zoned for 2,900 units of housing with supporting mixed-use facilities and services including a major shopping and commercial component. These uses establish the overall program scope for development, but a more detailed program will be developed as part of the master planning process. Representatives from Hitachi will be available to discuss the background, the planning process to date and the goals and objectives for the project.

The challenge is how to design a sustainable, zero carbon, pedestrian friendly, “transit village”, which must emerge within a car-oriented context, a model completely at odds with the fundamental premises of sustainable design..

ARCH 201 SEC 5
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
SCHWARTZ

(Esherick Studio)

The studio will be taught be Frederic Schwartz, FAIA (Schwartz Tech), and Marc L’Italien, FAIA (EHDD Architecture). Frederic Schwartz was a student of Joseph Esherick at Cal in the ‘60s and early ‘70s and is this year's Joseph Esherick Visiting Professor in Architecture. He previously taught at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia and is the winner of 15 national and international design competitions including three new airports in India. Marc L’Italien is a design principal with EHDD Architecture (Esherick, Homsey, Dodge and Davis) in San Francisco. Fred and Marc have worked together on a number of projects in the past 25 years. Fred and/or Marc will be present at all studios and available on request to meet with students during the week.

THINK BIG: The Bay Bridge Studio

The Pacific Institute estimates that 480,000 people, a vast network of critical infrastructure, wide tracts of wetlands and various ecosystems and over $100 billion in property along California’s coast are at risk from inundation resulting from a 1.4 meter rise in sea level, if no actions are taken.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is one of the most heavily traveled bridges in the United States serving over 270,000 vehicles daily. The East span suffered damage as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and was deemed seismically unsuitable as a life-line structure. Cal Trans is currently building a new causeway and suspension span that will replace the entire cantilever span and truss structures. Tons of riveted steel will be systematically dismantled, transported by barge, and melted at great expense—and detriment to the environment—to be reused as raw material.

We are at the dawn of an era of major change in the way humans chose to respond to environmental awareness. The new Bay Bridge addresses the seismic problem but operates under the old paradigm of fixing a symptom and not investigating the cause; the new Bay Bridge offers no solution to reducing the rising number of vehicles that will need to cross the bridge. The Bay Bridge studio will allow students to take action through the design and transformation of a local monument and historic resource.

Program

Imagine a new linear neighborhood on the eastern segment of the Bay Bridge; a new metropolitan street with shopping, housing, office space, artist studios and parks with the best light, wind, sun, air and views in the Bay area. There will be a fire station and a police house; a library and a community center. You will design the container for these facilities but will not be expected to design the interior program of each and every function. Think out of the box, think repetition, think integration, think infrastructure, think strategic vision, think transportation, think public space, think sustainable. How can we integrate and utilize this particular exposed location for sun, wind and water power. The length of the site is walk able, easy to bicycle and ideal for public transportation.

We are not expecting you to justify the structural implications of your project; but we do expect it to be in the realm of the possible. We know from expert consultants that the Bay Bridge can handle additional load and program. This is not an engineering studio where we might ask you to justify your structural approach. Height, size and cantilevers should not limit your vision. At the same time your project should have a sense of constructability. We will not ask you to design each and every component; but we will ask you to design for example; a typical unit for the housing. Drawings production will include plans, sections, elevations, diagrams and 3D visualization and or/models.

ARCH 201 SEC 6
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
CANCELLED

ARCH 201 SEC 7
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
CANCELLED

ARCH 203 (FORMERLY ARCH 209D)
FINAL PROJECT PREPARATION SEMINAR: THESIS

(1–4) Students may take 203/204 or 203/205 to complete the studio requirements. Three hours of seminar per week. Prerequisites: Graduate standing. Formerly 209D. Specific research topics organized to prepare students for their final project studio or thesis.

ARCH 203 SEC 2
FINAL PROJECT PREPARATION SEMINAR: THESIS
DE MONCHAUX

ARCH 203 SEC 3
FINAL PROJECT PREPARATION SEMINAR: THESIS
CHOW

ARCH 203 SEC 4
FINAL PROJECT PREPARATION SEMINAR: THESIS
IWAMOTO

ARCH 209
SPECIAL TOPICS IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
FRAKER

(1-4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. One to four hours of lecture per week. prerequisites: second or third year graduate standing. Topics deal with major problems and current issues in architectural design.

The Case of Sustainable Neighborhoods

(3) Three hours per week – Tuesdays 2-5 p.m.

This seminar will examine and evaluate the “best practices” of sustainable neighborhood design from around the globe. The projects include Bo01 and Hammarby Sjostad in Sweden and Kronsberg and Vauban in Germany and possibly Orestad 1+2 in Denmark. It will explore the multiple strategies and processes for achieving sustainability, their assumptions, their whole-systems integration and their impact on landscape, architecture and urban design. Where available, the seminar will evaluate performance data

The argument for sustainability at the neighborhood scale, rather than at the building scale, is based on the larger system of flows – the climate, ecology, geomorphology, energy, water, waste, transportation and food available from which to design a self-sustaining integrated system. The effort does not ignore the design of buildings; indeed, buildings and people define the demand. It just places them in a larger context of flows where the effort to achieve sustainability demands a deeper analysis and understanding of how people, buildings, landscapes and infrastructure can interact to create a sustainable whole.

Beyond the analysis of sustainable neighborhood “best practices”, the seminar will engage the Clinton Climate Initiative’s program entitled: “Climate Positive Development Program”. The program supports the development of (16) sixteen, founding, large-scale urban projects on six continents that demonstrate how cities can grow in ways that are “climate positive”, in other words, in ways that reduce their CO2 emissions on-site to below zero. The seminar will select a few of the projects and, in collaboration with the project teams and technical advisors, conduct independent analyses and prepare system design recommendations as a way to potentially expand and enrich the range of ideas considered for the projects. The details of collaboration are still being worked out so as to be a resource, not a burden to each project. The purpose is to have students, in a knowledgeable and invested way, engage the most cutting-edge thinking on how to create sustainable neighborhoods. 

ARCH 212
BODY-CONSCIOUS DESIGN: SHOES, CHAIRS, ROOMS, AND BEYOND
CRANZ

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. This seminar prepares students to evaluate and design environments from the point of view of how they interact with the human body. Tools and clothing modify that interaction. Semi-fixed features of the near environment, especially furniture, may have greater impact on physical well being and social-psychological comfort than fixed features like walls, openings, and volume. Today, designers can help redefine and legitimize new attitudes toward supporting the human body by, for example, designing for a wide range of postural alternatives and possibly designing new kinds of furniture. At the urban design scale, the senses of proprioception and kinesthetics can be used to shape architecture and landscape architecture. This course covers these topics with special emphasis on chair design and evaluation. The public health implications of a new attitude toward posture and back support are explored. The course heightens students' consciousness of their own and others' physical perceptions through weekly experiential exercises. Students produce three design exercises: shoe, chair, and a room interior.

ARCH 221 (FORMERLY LISTED UNDER ARCH 235)
GRADUATE SEMINAR IN DIGITAL DESIGN THEORIES AND METHODS
KALAY

(3) Course may be repeated for credit. Three hours of seminar per week. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Formerly 235. This seminar is intended to help graduate students develop a coherent research agenda in the area of digital design theories and methods. In addition, it is intended to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas (e.g., work in progress, potential directions for research, etc.) in the area of shared interest. The course provides students with a set of questions as guides, readings, and guest lectures.

Extended Course Description

Architecture is a technology-intensive discipline. It uses technology—both in the process of designing and in its products—to achieve certain functional, cultural, social, economic, and other goals. In turn, technology transforms the discipline. The importance of technology to the discipline and to the practice of architecture has been demonstrated again and again throughout history. In the 21st century, the advent of digital technologies—computer-aided design, computer-assisted collaboration, con-struction automation, “intelligent” buildings, and “virtual” places—promise to have as much of an impact on architectural design processes and products as earlier technological advances have had. Like most other early adoptions of any technology, the first uses of computing in the service of architecture mimicked older methods: electronic drafting, modeling, and rendering. But this rather timid introduction is changing rapidly: new design and evaluation tools allow architects to imagine new building forms, more responsive (and environmentally more responsible) buildings, even radically new kinds of environments that blend physical with virtual space. New communication, collaboration, and visualization tools allow architects, engineers, contractors, clients, and others to work much more closely than was possible before, resulting in more complex, more innovative, and more effective designs. Understanding and shaping this transformation are the basis of architectural design research and education in the 21st century.

This seminar is intended to help graduate students understand new trends in computer-aided design, and their impact on architectural design and its products. In addition, it is intended to help students develop a coherent research agenda in the area of digital design (broadly construed), and to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas (e.g., work in progress, potential directions for research, etc.) in the area of digital design.

ARCH 222
PRINCIPLES OF COMPUTER-AIDED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
KALAY

(4) Three hours of lecture and one hour of discussion per week. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. This course introduces students to Architecture's New Media; why computers are being used in architecture, how they are being used, and what are their current and expected impacts on the discipline and practice of architecture. Topics include presentation and re-presentation (including sketching, drafting, modeling, animating, and rendering); generating design solutions (including expert systems and neural networks); evaluation and prediction (using examples from structures, energy, acoustics, and human factors); and the future uses of computers in architectural design (including such topics as construction automation, smart buildings, and virtual environments). The laboratories introduce students to a variety of architectural software, including drafting, modeling, rendering, and building information modeling. This course is co-listed with 122. Graduate students will have a discussion section instead of the laboratory that 122 students undertake.

Extended Course Description

This course addresses three main issues in Computer-Aided Architectural Design (CAAD): Why are computers used in architecture? How they are being used? What is their impact on the products and processes of architecture? The course emphasizes current and future issues in CAAD, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), intelligent buildings, and interactive, immersive visualization.

The course covers five main topics:

1.  Introduction. What is design, what are computers, and what is the relationship between the two? This topic covers the history of computing in general and CAAD in particular, software, hardware, and programming.

2.  (Re)Presentation. The roles of computers in support of presentation and re-presentation in architectural design, including sketching, drafting, modeling, rendering, animating, and Building Information Modeling (BIM). This topic covers computer graphics, 2D and 3D representation methods, visualization, animation, and databases.

3.  Generation. How computers can be used to help architects generate design solutions, and what are the advantages and limitations of their creative abilities? This topic covers procedural and heuristic methods, generative systems, parametric design, and artificial intelligence.

4.  Evaluation. How computers can assist in evaluating design solutions, and predicting their perfomance. This topic covers various kinds of computer-assisted evaluations of buildings, both quantifiable and non-quantifiable, including human factors, structures, energy, acoustics, and aesthetics.

5.  The Future. How computers will be used in the future to support architectural design, and how the processes and the products of architecture will be affected by them. This topic covers multi-disciplinary collaborative design, intelligent design assistants, construction and building automation, virtual architecture, and the future impact of computers on the processes and products of architecture.

ARCH 233/133 (FORMERLY ARCH 239X/139X
ARCHITECTURES OF GLOBALIZATION: CONTESTED SPACES OF GLOBAL CULTURE
CRYSLER

(3) Three hours of lecture/seminar per week. Prerequisites: This course is open to all graduate students and upper division undergraduates. This seminar examines the relationship between architecture and the processes associated with globalization. The social and spatial changes connected to the global economic restructuring of the last four decades are explored in relation to disctinctive national conditions and their connection to historical forces such as colonization and imperialism. Theoretical arguments about international urban political economy, uneven development, deindustrialization, and the growth of tourism and service industries, are grounded in specific urban and architectural contexts. Case studies explore issues such as urban entrepreneurialism and the branding of cities and nationstates; heritage practices and the postcolonial politics of place; border cities, and the urbanism of transnational production; cities, terrorism, and the global architecture of security; critical regionalism, localism, and other responses to debates on place and placelessness. Readings and class discussions examine course themes in a comparative framework and consider their implications for architectural design, education, and professional practice.

Extended Course Description

Over the last four decades the world's cultures, political economies, and built environments have been drawn into new relationships by the wide-ranging changes associated with globalization. At the most general level, globalization describes the enlargement and reorganization of world markets, and the “compression” of space produced by advances in information technology and the acceleration of travel times. Cities have acted as important contexts for these processes, through their strategic roles in an increasingly interdependent world economy. As a consequence, much of the critical writing on globalization shares an implicit or explicit frame of analysis: the globalizing city and its built environments.

This course will provide a comprehensive introduction to this research, as it has emerged in disciplines extending from architecture, anthropology, urban sociology, and geography to comparative literature and cultural studies. We will seek to understand the diverse and contradictory positions that characterize this rapidly expanding field, and explore its relevance to architectural education, research and professional practice. In this respect,  “architectures of globalization” refers not only to the contested spaces and social processes of the global city, but the theoretical perspectives, modes of representation and political positions that enable us to understand them as such.

The course themes consider the world as a set of interdependent social and spatial conditions, and in doing so, question the status of urban and architectural spaces (as well as cities and nations) as discrete, bounded entities. As the course proceeds, we will explore the theoretical assumptions that inform the understanding of diverse "city worlds", and explore the contradictions and interrelationships between them.

The class focuses in particular on recent debates that link globalization to the social, economic and political practices associated with “free market capitalism” or neoliberalism. The arguments outlined by David Harvey in his short but provocative book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, will guide our examination of the manifestations and impacts of neoliberalism on a global scale. Many of the concerns and predictions voiced by Harvey have come to pass during the current economic crisis, making his arguments particularly relevant and timely. The course will explore the contested spaces of neoliberalism and consider possible alternatives through case studies from around the world. Contexts range from Las Vegas, the Mexico/US border and New York to Mumbai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Additional course readings amplify (and in some cases challenge) Harvey’s arguments, while extending our analyses to architectural and urban space. Authors include Ulrich Beck, Guy Debord, Jane M. Jacobs, Anthony King, Naomi Klein, Peter Marcuse, Kathryne Mitchell, Vyjayanthi Rao, Anthony Vidler and Li Zhang, amongst others.

Outlines of the course themes follow below (these are subject to change, and may be further revised before the start of classes):

I. Introduction (week 1):
Framing the Present: The Meltdown

The global economic crisis: a brief survey of how it came about and its connection to architecture and urbanism. This will create the basis for a more detailed discussion of the different theories of globalization in Week 2.

II. Globalization as a Contested Concept (week 2):
Overview of theories of globalization; preliminary definitions of the relationship between neo-liberalism and globalization; the cultural, economic, political and ideological dimensions of globalization; globalization from above and below; transnational studies and the transformation of globalization discourse; the spatial registers of global processes.
Case Study: Recent reporting on the subprime mortgage crisis and the US suburbs

III. Spectacle (week 3):
Global Cultures and Economies
Multinational capital, tourism and the theoretical issues surrounding “globalization from above”; spectacle and identity in the tourist city; the selective erasure and reworking of place-based meanings by global tourism; branding and the competition between global cities; the city as urban theme park; architectural celebrity and urban legibility; the brand as an encompassing frame of production for architects, critics, buildings and cities.
Case Studies: Bibao. Las Vegas

IV. Brand (week 4):
From Brandscape to “Atmosfear”
Brandscapes and the architecture of niche marketing; contemporary architecture and branding methodologies in the design process; experience environments and the production of fear; branding and the management of political dissent; culture jamming, counter-branding and urban space
Case Studies: Liquid architecture; parametric design; SHoP

V. Domesticity (weeks 5 and 6):
Globalization and the Postcolonial City
Narratives of globalization and the question of history; the relationship between globalization, colonization and imperialism; postcolonial migration, heritage and the politics of place; “homespace,” migration and identity in the global city
Case Studies: London, Vancouver

VI. Production (week 7):
Centralization and Dispersion
Border regions and identities; home and work at the border: labor and production within/connected to spaces of consumption; the politics of gender in the global factory; ethnographies of self and other at borderlands.
Case Studies, Wal-Mart, Maquiladora towns

VII. Migration (week 8):
Displacement and Citizenship (Harvey, Zhang)
November 4 (First Draft of paper due)
Urban citizenship and the right to the city; internal migration and global economic processes; the appropriation and transformation of urban space from/by the margins; social displacement and the politics of nostalgia.
Case Study: Zhejiangcun (“unofficial” settlement in suburban Beijing)

VIII. Risk (week 9 and 10):
Shock Therapy and Disaster Capitalism
Risk and the unanticipated consequences of “first modernity”; cosmopolitanism and global political imagination; the “shock doctrine” and neoliberal risk management; the planning, production and intensification of disasters and global economic restructuring
Case Study: Post-Katrina New Orleans

XI. Battlefield (week 11):
Violence, Fear and Urban Space
The militarization of space under neoliberalism; urban space, security and surveillance since 9/11; fear as a force of production; the transformation of civil society and spaces of public representation and dissent
Case Studies: Post 9/11 urbanism; New York and Mumbai

X. Contested Spaces of Global Culture (week 12 and 13):
Neoliberalism on Trial

Course conclusions and summary. Challenges to neoliberalism and the politics of professional identity in the global present. The class will conclude with a roundtable survey and critique of responses to the global economic crisis informed by course themes and discussion.

ARCH 237 (FORMERLY ARCH 229X)
ULTERIOR SPECULATION: MONOGRAPHS & MANIFESTOS
FERNAU

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. An examination and analysis of architectural manifestos and monographs from the first half of the 20th century to today. The class analyzes the possibilities and limits of grounding a discourse in practice as well as theory. The seminar complements thesis preparation or can serve as an introduction to critical thinking in architecture.

Extended Course Description

If architectural publishing in the first half of the twentieth century was characterized by the manifesto, the second half was characterized by the monograph and the current moment by a hybrid of the two. (The turning point in the first instance it might be argued was Venturi's, "Complexity and Contradiction," and in the second Koolhaas’ “S,M,L,XL.”)

What makes the monograph distinct from the manifesto is that although it can take many forms and express a wide range of intentions (from intellectual discourse to self-promotion) it is always grounded in practice. Recently, however, the monograph has begun to be transformed into a vehicle for design exploration if not an ideological design statement in itself.

Starting with a brief examination of the roots of the contemporary monograph in the manifestoes of early modernism and post-modernism, the course will turn its focus to recent developments in the monograph form, from Koolhaas to the present. The class will analyze the possibilities and limits of grounding a discourse in practice as well as in theory. In particular, the seminar will examine the relationship between publishing and practice in establishing the contemporary “Dutch School.” With the exception of a few canonical texts the course content changes from semester to semester.

The course is not a survey but rather cuts a path through architectural theory that allows individual choice and demands a close study of ideas. Consequently, the seminar complements thesis preparation and, or, can serve as an introduction to critical thinking in architecture. Professional practice credit is given.

The seminar is rigorous; each student will be expected to co-lead at least one seminar on the work and ideas of an architect as framed by their monograph. In addition there will be a number of one- to two-page written assignments. Enrollment is limited to 8-12 students. Interested students are advised to contact the professor: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The course is open to all graduate students including recent and beginning ARCH 200 students. Undergraduates accepted with the consent of the instructor. Thesis prep students can tailor their assignments to develop their thesis topic.

ARCH 238 (FORMERLY ARCH 209A)
DIALECTIC OF POETICS & TECHNOLOGY
UBBELOHDE

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. Formerly 209A. This seminar examines the relationship between technology and design philosophy in the work of architects through analysis of individual buildings within the cntext of the complete oeuvre and an examination of the architect's writings and lectures. The seminar poses the following questions: What is the role of technology in the design philosophy of the architect and how is this theoretical position established in the architect's writings, lectures, interviews? How is this position revealed through the work moves to the developing world? How is this position negotiated in the design and construction of an individual building? Is this a successful strategy for achieving technical performance? Is this a successful strategy for achieving a coherent theoretical statement? A series of lectures explores these questions in relation to the architect and a set of required readings introduces the work of the architect and explores the relationship between technology and design philosophy. Students choose one building to investigate in parallel with the methods and issues discussed in class. These studies are presented in class as completed and assembled for submission as a final project.

ARCH 244 (FORMERLY ARCH 249X)
SECRET LIFE OF BUILDINGS
BENTON

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. This exploratory seminar addresses a secret life of buildings related to physical performance. Students examine architectural, lighting, and mechanical systems in existing buildings with attention to energy use, occupant well-being, and architectural spacemaking. The seminar applies a collection of measurement techniques, often involving novel approaches, to reveal operating patterns in the complex environment of contemporary buildings. The personal experience students gain in performing the evaluations contributes to the students' experiential base at a formative time. Analysis of data collected in the field and the comparison of these data to values given by simulation tools provides a foundation for understanding the more abstract tools and standards used by designers in practice. The juxtaposition of design intention and post-occupancy performance can be a powerful learning experience now, as well as preparation for evaluating building performance in the future.

Extended Course Description

This exploratory seminar addresses a secret life of buildings, one related to physical performance. Think of a building that has been influential in your architectural development. How much do you know about the physical environment it creates? Its amenities as viewed from an occupant's perspective?  The energy it consumes?

The seminar emerged from the VITAL SIGNS Project, a U. C. Berkeley curriculum materials development effort from a few years back funded by the Energy Foundation, NSF, and PG&E (see http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/vitalsigns /brief/index.html). Vital Signs encouraged architecture students to examine architectural, lighting, and mechanical systems in existing buildings with attention to energy use, occupant well-being, and architectural spacemaking. We assembled a collection of measurement techniques, often involving novel approaches, to reveal operating patterns in the complex environment of contemporary buildings.

The VITAL SIGNS approach applies these techniques to profile buildings in operation.  In this process, existing buildings serve as laboratories and offer interesting lessons on the success and failure of various design methods. The approach has a number of benefits. The personal experience you gain in performing the evaluations contributes to your experiential base at a formative time. Analysis of data collected in the field and the comparison of these data to values given by simulation tools provides a foundation for understanding the more abstract tools and standards used by designers in practice. Finally, you can share these experiences with other students and schools in the form of written case studies.  

The class will conduct a series of case study exercises involving the collection of background information, the survey of those associated with the building (e.g.  designers, operators, occupants), the measurement of physical parameters,  analysis, and the writing of short reports. As in the previous offering of the course we will focus some attention on Wurster Hall with the goal of understanding its energy use patterns and then reducing consumption. If we are to talk the talk we must walk the walk.

The course is structured around a series of field assignments and a collection of portable measurement equipment. We will conduct several measurement projects, some conducted by teams, addressing issues from lighting control patterns to thermal comfort. The final project will address a topic of the student’s selection.  The course will also include a series of experiential exercises designed to increase a designer's awareness of the physical environment as an architectural element. The Secret Life of Buildings is conducted as a seminar and will mix presentations by the instructor with discussion, student presentations, class demonstrations, project reviews and guest speakers. We will take advantage of the remarkable larders of hand-held instrumentation belonging to U. C. Berkeley’s Building Science Laboratory and PG&E’s Pacific Energy Center. Class presentations will cover the basic skills required to complete student monitoring assignments.  Students will submit concise reports carefully describing the objectives, methods, data, and findings of each field investigation. Project reports will also be presented in class and posted on the WWW.

ARCH 245
DAYLIGHTING
BENTON

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. Prerequisites: 140 or consent of instructor. This exercise-based seminar explores qualities of daylight with attention to developing an understanding of the physical and perceptual mechanisms that shape our experience of daylight. Students use three-dimensional models as a tool for the investigation of daylight in buildings. The distribution of natural light in architectural space is a particularly complex phenomenon that defies realistic numerical analysis. In contrast to the complexity of a computer simulation, physical models offer a practical tool for understanding natural light in architectural space. Well suited to the skills of an architect, this technique can be used at all stages of the architectural design process. Models can predict a design's performance in quantitative detail and provide immediate visual information for assessment of qualitative issues. Student work will include the construction and analysis of lighting models as well as a series of exercises designed to hone students' capacities to observe and understand light.

Extended Course Description

This course brings physical models, photography, and the powers of observation to bear in exploring the role of daylight in architectural space.  The course has four major objectives: (1) to investigate models as tools for building performance analysis, (2) to discuss qualitative issues in daylighting with attention to the predictive powers of models, (3) to learn the basics of photometrics and (4) investigate the role of perception in designing with daylight.  In meeting these objectives, the course will interweave discussion of daylighting as an architectural element with technical information concerning the measurement, documentation and analysis of light.  Architectural issues will include perception, vision, daylighting techniques, precedents and codes.  Technical presentations in support of modeling will cover photometrics, data acquisition techniques, and model photography.

Student Assignments - the course is structured around a series of modeling assignments.  The best way to learn modeling is by building and studying models.  The exercises are sequenced to introduce increasingly complex issues using models built to represent both existing and hypothetical spaces.  The construction of models as group assignments and the reuse of models will keep student time commitments to a reasonable level.  The course will also include a series of experiential exercises designed to increase a designer's awareness of light as an architectural element (see the additional handout describing typical exercises)

Teaching Methods - the class will be conducted as a seminar and will mix lecture presentations by the instructor with student presentations, class demonstrations, slide presentations, project reviews and guest speakers. Class presentations will cover the basic skills required to complete student modeling assignments.  Reading assignments will be issued from the course bibliography.  There is no required text.

ARCH 249
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT IN BUILDINGS

(1-4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: 140.

ARCH 249 SEC 1
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT IN BUILDINGS
SALTER

Extended description to come.

ARCH 249 SEC 2
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT IN BUILDINGS
LEVITT

Green Studio Companion: Generative Tools for Bioclimatic Design

(2) Three hours of seminar per week for 10 weeks. Class ends on November 2. Prerequisites: 140 or consent of instructor.

This seminar explores the potential of both analytical and phenomenological notions of building performance to shape architectural design. Significant contemporary buildings will serve as case studies for a phased analysis and re-design of their relationships to climate, heat, air, and light. The class will focus on deriving sustainable strategies from an understanding of human perception and response in a quick and generative fashion. Quantitative analysis using calculations and simulations will alternate with speculative explorations based on responses to theoretical texts, art films, and environmental artists’ work.  Both of these “right-brain” and “left-brain” modes of analysis will inform short design interventions. MArch, BArch, and MS students are all welcome.

Assignments
Material presented in lecture will be supplemented by readings and films. The term project will be completed in teams and involve analyzing and re-designing select components of a prominent case study building. The project is divided into four parts: climate, heat, air, and light. Each topic will be analyzed using a quantitative method one week, and then a qualitative method the next. At the same time, project teams will incrementally re-design components of the case study in order to apply the principles and poetics that they've discovered. Weekly presentations, discussions, and critiques will help guide and refine the process.

ARCH 260
INTRODUCTION TO CONSTRUCTION, GRADUATE LEVEL
BUNTROCK

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor. This course is a graduate-level course concerned with the basics of construction, including common practices in California, material choices, building codes and legal context, cost issues, and other related topics. Students will learn through site observation, textbook study, lectures, and regular individual assignments, quizzes, and tests. There may be opportunities for three-dimensional representation of construction or other hands-on work. Graduate students from architecture, real estate, and engineering are welcome.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ARCH 264
OFF-SITE FABRICATION
BUNTROCK

(3) Two hours of lecture and one hour of discussion per week. Prerequisites: 160 or consent of instructor. This seminar looks at the implications of off-site fabrication in architecture: consistent, protected environments; worker efficiency and safety; trades are easy to coordinate; cheaper, semi-skilled labor can be used; construction periods can be shortened; and completion dates may be more predictable. Off-site fabrication can allow for increased refinement and trial assemblies. However, it may also create monotonous sameness when the processes and results are not considered with care.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ARCH 269 (FORMERLY ARCH 269X)
SPECIAL TOPICS IN CONSTRUCTION & MATERIALS
ANDERSON

(1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours of lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Selected topics in construction and materials.

URBAN WATER SEMINAR

No Money Down, and the Water’s Fine
The business of architecture often attempts to justify its role in the economy by describing itself as a profession of efficient problem solvers. Although few clients believe this and actually bet their money on it, the concept still warps the profession in many ways. This is a complicated issue related to many questions of how to work as an architect in positive and meaningful ways. Designing our lives and working methods as creative architects is a much more complicated project than meets the eye. The real and perceived business role of the architect working within the construction economy is a background issue that haunts all architecture projects. We will not solve any of those questions in this seminar, but we will fight back against our powerlessness: we will build the biggest possible construction without spending a nickel, asking nobody for permission. According to popular economic theory, this will not do one good thing to help the economy — but we’re not buying that either.

EPRFTM
I have a plan. But since we are asking nobody’s permission, it also follows that you should feel free to deviate from my plan, or to throw it out altogether in favor of some more radical plan of your own making that is even more powerful and theatrical than every possibility that I am imagining. In either case our plan must be bold, spectacular and effective. I would also like to stipulate that — fairly or unfairly — nobody gets hurt.

This is what I am thinking:
EnormousPlasticRainFlower. We shall build an enormous plastic rain flower that will capture and purify drinking water from the sky. It will look ridiculous of further serve as a wide-spreading public umbrella tree drawing people to gather under its shelter, protected from the sky’s harshness even while succored by its fruit. Like a flower blossoming from cow dung, this machine-flower of human sustenance will blossom from the fertile waste of excessive human consumption. Our flower will be constructed purely of plastic water bottles, sugared beverage containers, and other scrap plastic constructions, stitched together with screw-top cap bolts and structurally layered as translucent, crystalline pistils and petals funneling sunlight and rain drops into corded plastic stems of tuberous filtration drawing downward into threaded, clinging roots spitting small fountains of sweet rainwater sucked freely by passersby delighted by the novelty of drinking water cut free from intercontinental transport, commerce and cash. That’s it, simple and pure — one material, multi-purpose, full with questions and possibilities. How tall can this reach and how far can it spread? What will it look like and where might it grow? Did I mention that this is a seriously purposeful study in structure, construction and materials — EPRFTM, and all of that?

ARCH 277 (FORMERLY ARCH 279)
ARCHITECTURE & MEMORY
SHANKEN

This course examines the relationship between the built environment and cultural constructions of memory. Topics may include, but not be limited to, cross-cultural conceptions of the relationship between place, buildings, and memory; the destruction, neglect, or desecration of memorials; changes in memorial conventions, the recent rise in interest in sites of memory and heritage; commemorative practices; the World Trade Center; impromptu memorials; and phenomenological approaches to the subject. Readings will include selections of Pierre Nora’s Lieux de Mémoire, James Young on the Holocaust, Serguisz Michalski on the politics of European memorials, Françoise Choay on the idea of the monument, Kirk Savage, Nigel Thrift, Bruno Latour, and a range of other essays and books. The course will give students the opportunity to write an original seminar paper about cultural memory and the built environment.

Additional Course Information

The course will be run as a reading seminar for the two-thirds of the semester, and then it will turn into a research workshop, in which students will present and critique one another’s work in a supportive environment. The ultimate goal will be the production of a piece of writing that has the potential to be published.

All required books will be put on reserve in the Environmental Design Library. Articles will be posted on bSpace or, if we do not have an electronic copy, they will either be put on reserve as above, or copies for you to share will be provided outside of my office. The following texts are available for purchase at University Press Books: Serguisz Michalski, Public Monuments: Art in Political Bondage 1870-1997 (Reaktion Books, 1999); Frances A. Yates, Art of Memory [1966] (London, Pimlico, 2001); James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1993); Jack Santino, ed., Spontaneous Shrines and the Public Memorialization of Death (New York: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

ARCH 279
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

(1-4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours of lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Selected topics in the history of architecture.

ARCH 279 SEC 1
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
CRAWFORD

Rethinking Suburban History

Recent historical research about American suburbs demonstrates that they are much more varied and complicated than previously imagined. Descriptions of “the suburbs,” as a generic environment are no longer convincing. We are now aware of African-American, working class, industrial and agricultural suburbs. Continuing exurban development is currently producing phenomena as different as gated communities, ethnoburbs, lifestyle centers, and restructured rural towns. With more than half of the U.S. population now residing outside of central cities, even the name “suburb,” implying dependence on a central city, must be questioned. This seminar will examine, using both scholarly and popular explanations, the economic, social, and cultural debates that have shaped our interpretation of this form of urban development. Topics will include the following: defining the suburb (metropolitan region vs. “shrinking city;” the historiography of the suburb; cultural representations of suburbia (films, novels, comics, popular music and video); comparative exurban development (zwischenstadt, citta diffusa, etc.); race and the suburbs; gender and the suburbs; suburban building and planning typologies; designed vs. vernacular suburbs; and exporting suburbs. Students will be expected to conduct original research on a suburban topic of their choice.

Format: Although the seminar is organized around reading and discussion, there may also be several short lectures or slide shows. Each week, several students will be assigned to pose questions based on that week’s readings and select images to illustrate them. There will also be short typology and representation assignments.

ARCH 279 SEC 2
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
SHANKEN

Architecture & Memory

NOTE: This course number, currently listed under ARCH 279, is transitioning to a new number, ARCH 277. Please see the ARCH 277 description above for information about the course.

ARCH 279 SEC 3
SPECIAL TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
CENZATTI

UTOPIAS and HETEROTOPIAS

This seminar is aimed at introducing two different ways of dealing with space. Utopias and utopian thinking still have a long-standing influence on urban planning and design. They stimulate the production of alternatives to present-day urban and social problems and call attention to the importance of physical space – often to a fault, falling in to the trap of environmental determinism – in shaping a community.

Michael Foucault’s Heterotopia is still a confusing concept, subject to many and often contradictory interpretations. Yet, it offers promising openings by looking at space not as a more or less fixed entity, but as a medium that is continuously produced and reproduced – often conflictually – by the interaction within and between social groups.

In this seminar we will discuss both theoretical underpinnings and material expressions of the two concepts.

ARCH 281
METHODS OF INQUIRY IN ARCHITECTURAL RESEARCH
ALSAYYAD

(4) Four hours of lecture/discussion per week. M.S. or Ph.D. standing or consent of instructor. This is the introductory course in methods of inquiry in architecture research to be required of all entering Ph.D. students in all areas of the program. The purpose is to train students in predissertation and prethesis research strategies, expose them to variety of inquiry methods including the value of scholarly research, the nature of evidence, critical reading as content analysis and writing, presenting and illustrating scholarship in the various disciplines of architecture.

ARCH 299
INDIVIDUAL STUDY AND RESEARCH FOR MASTER'S AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS

(1–12) Course may be repeated for credit. Individual studies including reading and individual research under the supervision of a faculty adviser and designed to reinforce the student's background in areas related to the proposed degree.

ARCH 602
INDIVIDUAL STUDY FOR DOCTORAL STUDENTS

(1–8) Course may be repeated for credit. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Individual study in consultation with the major field adviser, intended to provide an opportunity for qualified students to prepare themselves for the various examinations required of candidates for the Ph.D. This course may not be used for units or residence requirements for the doctoral degree.