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ARCH 100A
FUNDAMENTALS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
DI NAPOLI

(5) Three hours of lecture and five hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: ENV DES 11A-11B. Must be taken in sequence. Introductory courses in the design of buildings. Problems emphasize the major social, technological and environmental determinants. 100A focuses on the design process, social factors and site planning. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings and field trips. 

Extended Course Description

The work of the Studio will be directed towards an understanding of environmental design as a creative process that engages the following considerations:

• sense of place--site and context
• program--function and inspired-use/ celebration of use
• human dimension--experience, human spirit, and social values
• making--poetics of construction: materials, assembly and detail
• concepts--conceptual thinking and project basis
• iterative design process: intuitive + rational
• personal values and agenda.
   

Through the studio’s design work and projects you will explore how these aspects can come together in the discipline of design and, with the skilled use of formal language, form and inform the very essence of a building, its spaces, and experience.

General: Architecture 100A--Fundamentals of Architectural Design--is the third studio in the sequence of four required design courses in the undergraduate architecture core curriculum. This studio continues the development of skills initiated in the earlier studios and serves as a bridge to the complex programs, contexts, and tectonic investigations characteristic of the work in Architecture 100B, and to the personal challenges undertaken as an elective in the Architecture 101 Independent Design Studios.

As a bridge, it is necessary to continue an understanding and appreciation for the fundamentals of program, site, context, structure, and materials/construction in the formation of concepts and in the development of a design. At the same time, it is equally important that the course be structured with special subject areas that specifically develop one’s aptitude as a designer and one’s ability to think in an informed, critical manner. The following are areas of special emphasis:

• Concepts/Conceptual Thinking: Foremost among the pivotal areas for personal development as a designer is the value placed on concept and conceptual thinking--the development of a conceptual basis for one’s design work. This is an understanding that addresses a sense of the whole and how the formal expression is in the service of ideas and issues that have value and provide meaning. This studio will explore how ideas originating from program, site, social/cultural/political circumstances, personal values and interests in architecture, human and experiential considerations, tectonics, etc. have the potential to become powerful factors in informing/forming a strong conceptual basis for architectural form, space, experience, and meaning.
• Design Process--Intuitive/Rational: An essential mechanism in the formation of concepts is one’s ability to think about these originating factors in a creative manner. Accordingly, the first part of the coursework for each project will focus on and encourage your intuitive, more lyrical and poetic side in the creative process and in the formation of concepts. In parallel, we will explore the essential interplay between 'the intuitive' and 'the rational'--the different thought processes of the brain--providing an understanding of how one can successfully move conceptual and poetic ideas and inspiration into the realm of architecture and built work.
• Human Dimension: The importance of the human dimension/realm and social condition--beyond the pragmatic and functional to the celebration of the human spirit--will continue to be the grounding or inspiration for the making of spaces and places.
• Sense of Place: The full nature of 'contexts'--the particular physical; social, cultural and political; environmental; psychological; as well as the less tangible conditions of a site and its surroundings--constitutes a rich source of inspiration for the development of a concept and in the evolution of a project.
• Making: Architecture calls for the engagement of ‘making’--a poetic act of revelation related to experience and meaning, as well as derived from techne--a bringing forth into existence. Architecture cannot form places without the tectonics of making. The studio will explore the importance and influence of the nature of materials, structure, and details [together with light] on building form and space, and the resultant experiential quality.
   

ARCH 100B
FUNDAMENTALS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
IWAMOTO

(5) Three hours of lecture and five hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: ED 11A-11B. Must be taken in sequence. Introductory courses in the design of buildings. Problems emphasize the major social, technological and environmental determinants. 100B stresses structures, materials, and energy considerations. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings and field trips. 

ARCH 101
CASE STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURE
SPINA

(5) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Three hours of lecture and five hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 100A-100B. Problems in design of buildings of intermediate complexity. Each section deals with a selected topic, such as housing, site planning, institutional buildings, community development, and interiors. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings and field trips. 

ARCH 102
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT IN ARCHITECTURE
STONER

(5) Three hours of lecture and five hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 100A-100B. The development of architectural concepts into detailed design including the integration of structure, construction, and building systems, and the production of construction documents. Studio work is supplemented with lectures, discussions, readings and field trips. 

Extended Course Description

INVISIBLE CORVIALE: Architecture Senior Thesis Option 2008

The intention of the course is to provide an opportunity for senior undergraduates who have completed the required series of studios to pursue a more synthetic and theoretically based final project, wherein all coursework is directed toward a final report that combines design work and writing. For this inaugural year, we will examine the weight of the modernist project, literally and figuratively, though the lens of the housing project Corviale, at the periphery of Rome.The form and physicality of this project—a concrete structure 11 stories high and 1000 meters long, will be the substrate for a set of intellectual and aesthetic propositions that challenge the very “ground” upon which it is laid. Just as Italo Calvino extended the visible city of Venice into dozens of alternative architectures in his classic work Invisible Cities, we will evoke out of the singularity of the far less romantic Corviale a set of imaginative architectural propositions that address contemporary theory, vision and aspsiration.

We will conduct the studio in three phases, the first and last in Berkeley, and the second in Rome. Each phase will generate design studies that in the end reflect an integrated set of architectural experiments. The design of the experiments themselves requires a theoretical anchor, a question and subsequent set of investigations that defines the product of this studio as a thesis. This program will be set forth in a parallel set of written essays.

ARCH 109X
SPECIAL TOPICS: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
SPINA

(1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Selected topics in the theories and concept of architectural design.

Extended Course Description

Synthetic Tectonics

Over the last decade we have witnessed how architectural discourse and practice have overflowed with references to new geometries: complex and sensual skins, surfaces and membranes, in which complicated enclosures and envelopes act as attractive and distracting filter devices packaging simple geometries and volume masses. In addition, the widespread use of both Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing not only has drastically altered the industrial paradigm of mass standardization but also assured that -from a computational point of view- the potential of form generation appeared virtually inexhaustible.

However, given these advances in computationally driven methods, recent production often falls short of their potential mainly because architects have repeatedly neglected formal disciplines of geometry and instead turned to reductive principles for conceiving, describing and producing seemingly complex forms. In addition to totally weakening any integrity of formal logic, this computationally aided process mistakenly assumes that, as long as it is CAD/CAM, the resultant form will gain integrity. In seeking a more open set of outcomes, this seminar will be engaging the abovementioned technologies in a way that is commensurate with their possibilities. Working with both top-down and bottom-up approaches, this course will promote the exploration of an alternative way of conceiving and producing architecture by engaging matter across a wide spectrum of scales and regimes.

We will regard the contemporary surplus of computational form as a provocation to develop formal and spatial configurations that demand the development and use of new hybrid, synthetic or composite tectonics in which not only its form but also its material incarnation is integral to that particular architectural expression. Along this line of thinking, we will consider an architectural project working within a wide range of material possibilities and logistics at work: from the immediate qualities and performances of materials––weight, durability, extension, color, etc.–– to directives that architects make on them together with the invisible forces that shape architecture. However, that is not to say that we will only adhere to the pragmatics of conventional continuity between form and construction and accept pure constructive determinism as in any other architectural practice. Alternatively, our interest will focus on harnessing modes of organization based upon matter as an abstract machine.

The course will be designed as a workshop or testing laboratory in tectonic studies. With equal emphasis on formal and graphic analysis, elementary mathematical thinking and numerically controlled material technology, the seminar will circle, in increasing tight loops, the exploration and production of new tectonics and their material effects. As a result, the course will develop competence in inventive tectonic and material design and develop criteria for discussing performative effects which are verifiable by sensing what they do and how they work in reality, by relating them to an extended field of affects and effects.

ARCH 111
HOUSING: AN INTERNATIONAL SURVEY
ALSAYYAD

(3) Three hours of lecture per week. Introduction to international housing from the Architectural and City Planning perspective. Housing issues (social, cultural, and policy) ranging from micro-scale (house) to macro-scale (city) presented with a comparison of housing situations in developed and developing countries. 

ARCH 130
INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN THEORIES & METHODS
CRYSLER/PROTZEN

(3) Forty-five hours of lecture and 20 hours of discussion per semester. Formerly 130A. Comparison and discussion of the theories of environmental design, and development and testing of various methods, tools, and techniques available for environmental designers. Particular emphasis lies on the difficulties of environmental design and related fields. 

ARCH 139X/ARCH 239A
SPECIAL TOPICS: DESIGN THEORIES & METHODS/DESIGN & COMPUTERS
KALAY

(1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: 130.

Extended Course Description

Metropolis of the Mind: Designing Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds were once the province of science fiction authors, like Gibson (Neuromancer, 1984), Stephenson (Snow Crash, 1992), and Wachowski (The Matrix, 1999). The advent of on-line, multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, and ‘alternative’ worlds like SecondLife, made them reality.

Virtual worlds are digital, three-dimensional, immersive, interactive environments that mimic existing, bygone, or fantasy worlds. They are populated by avatars representing individuals participating online in social, economic, educational, and other activities.

Virtual worlds are based on principles borrowed from architectural theory, game technology, and filmmaking, blended and adapted to support specific objectives. They can be used to design and test new places (buildings, cities, etc.), to re-create culturally significant but destroyed places, and to create new types of combined physical/informational places that can only exist in Cyberspace.

Starting with architectural place-making, game design theories, and filmmaking principles, the course will introduce the principles of designing virtual worlds, through readings, discussions, and exercises. Working in groups, students will design of an actual SimVenture (simulation/adventure) of their own choice (e.g., a virtual museum, a virtual learning environment, a virtual cultural heritage, etc.). The course project will be implemented in Virtools (a commercial web-based game engine), which will be taught in class. (PhD students can substitute the course project with a research paper on a related topic.)

The course is open to graduate and undergraduate students, from all departments. Prior knowledge of gaming, programming, or architectural design are desired, but not required.

ARCH 140
INTRODUCTION TO ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
BENTON/BRAGER

ARCH 140 Course Website 

(4) Fifty hours of lecture and 30 hours of discussion per semester. Prerequisites: Physics or equivalent, or consent of instructor. Study of the thermal and lighting environments in buildings, with emphasis on quantitative design techniques.

ARCH 154
DESIGN & COMPUTER ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURE
BLACK

(3) Thirty hours of lecture and 45 hours of laboratory per semester. Prerequisites: 150. Design and analysis of whole structural building systems with the aid of finite element analytical methods. Advanced structural concepts explored in a laboratory environment. 

ARCH 160
INTRODUCTION TO CONSTRUCTION
BUNTROCK/MALLAS

(4) Three hours of lecture and three hours of laboratory per week. This introduction to the materials and processes of construction takes architecture from design to realization. The course will cover four material groups commonly used in two areas of the building assembly (structure and envelope): wood, concrete, steel, and glass. You will understand choices available and how materials are conventionally used. By observing construction, you'll see how our decisions affect the size of materials, connections, and where they are assembled. Architects must understand not only conventions, but also the potential in materials, so we will also study unusual and new developments. 

Extended Course Description

This course is intended as an introduction to the materials and processes that take architecture from design to realization. For many architects, successfully navigating the construction phase is disheartening; there is a sense within the profession that this is the stage when dreams die. But for the best architects, construction is not only necessary, but stimulates good design.

As this is an introductory course, we will cover a number of topics in a relatively short time. The course will focus on three major material groups: wood, especially dimensioned lumber and engineered wood; precast and sitecast concrete; and metals, especially aluminum and steel. We have selected these topics because the materials are commonly used for two major areas of the building assembly: the structure and the envelope. For each subject material, there will be a team-built shop project.

You should not expect to be an expert on these building materials at the end of the semester. Instead, you should be able to understand the choices available to you as a designer, and have a passion for the stuff of architecture. In our experience, much of the mystery that construction holds for students is a lack of awareness about what you already know. Through your experiences—living in buildings, crossing bridges, and doing things like walking out on diving boards—you have already developed a fundamental appreciation of the strengths and sizes of construction materials. (Ever feel like it might be dangerous to walk under something?) In this class, we will help you see what you know, and build on it. Note: In Spring of 2008 only, this class will be co-taught by Dana Buntrock and Lauren Mallas.

Graduate students are welcome, but should also know that a graduate-level course will be offered in Fall 2008.

ARCH 170B
AN HISTORICAL SURVEY OF ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM
LITTMANN

(4) Forty-five hours of lecture and 15 hours of seminar/discussion per semester. 170A studies the ancient and medieval periods; 170B studies the period since 1400; the aim is to look at architecture and urbanism in their social and historical context. 

ARCH 179
PROSEMINAR IN THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
CRAWFORD

(1–4) Course may be repeated for credit. Fifteen hours of lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: 170A-170B and consent of instructor. Special topics in Architectural History. 

Extended Course Description

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; exporting suburbs. Students will be expected to conduct original research on a suburban topic of their choice.