| Spring 2009 Architecture Graduate Courses |
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ARCH 200B (7) Sixty hours of lecture/seminar and 120 hours of studio. Must be taken for a letter grade. Introductory course in architectural design and theories for graduate students. Problems emphasize the major social, technological and environmental determinants of building form. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips. ARCH 201 (5) Course may be repeated for credit. Three hours of lecture and five hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 100A-100B or 200A-200B. Each section deals with a specific problem such as housing, high-rise design, interiors, community development. Studio work is supplemented by lectures, discussions, readings, and field trips. ARCH 201 SEC 1 Seawall Lot 337 An ongoing critical debate exists concerning the appropriate territories of urban design and architecture in the design of our cities. As projects have increased in size, involved multiple uses and have required the sponsorship of private and public entities, the practices of both urban design and architecture have attempted to speak to these issues of scale and complexity in both compatible and at times confrontational ways. This studio has been organized to explore these two disciplines and investigate their interrelation through the physical design of a large site in San Francisco’s China Basin/Mission Bay area. Specifically, the Seawall Lot 337 is a 20 acre waterfront site at the foot of Mission Bay and across the China Basin from AT&T Ballpark. Pier 48 will be included in the plan area. The site is the subject of a recent public Request for Proposal for which schemes have been presented. In order to give equal attention to issues of urban design and architecture, the semester will be divided about the Midterm Review into two halves. In the first 8 weeks, Bill Fain and Kersu Dalal will focus the studio on research, programming, planning and urban design. This will presuppose a process for designing, at an appropriate level of detail, a major section of the city. Key objectives for this half of the studio will be: 1. To explore making an Urban Design Framework within which others will theoretically design buildings. This constitutes the “design of cities without designing buildings.” In the second 8 week period, Scott Johnson and Jed Donaldson will assume that the Urban Design Framework is fixed, that each student has identified his/her building concept and they will work with students on an individual basis to develop the architectural design for their projects. Key elements of this half will be: 1. Detailed programming and design of a building which provides program elements not necessarily included in a commercially-driven mixed-use project (ie social, cultural an/or educational services). Visits to the site will be organized. Additionally, various specialty consultants and professionals with knowledge of the property in question will be brought into the studio for review and discussion. The class will be team-taught. Grading will be conducted throughout the semester and will be based upon interim exercises as well as the Midterm and Final Reviews. The overriding objective of this studio will be to provide students with the opportunity to operate creatively as both an urban designer and a design architect and develop their own sense of the beneficial interplay of each. ARCH 201 SEC 2 Subterra - Submillimiter Array Studying spectral energy distributions between submillimeter and far-infrared wavelengths has been a central astronomic aspiration for the development of understanding cool universe matter. Relic radiation of the Big Bang, cool matter, primarily consists of molecular gas and dust that constitute the stars, planetary systems, and galaxies. This matter has a thermal range registered only at submillimiter wavelengths. But SUBMILLIMETER ASTRONOMY remains a largely unexplored boundary due to the complexity of the required instrumentation and the atmospheric conditions necessary for its implementation which demands high levels of transparency for microwave light. Atacama Desert possessing unique atmospheric transparency makes possible the application of submillimeter (optical and radio) “visualization” technique. Recent technological advances and international collaboration combined to Atacama’s singular atmospheric transparency will constitute by 2011 an unprecedented astronomic observatory regarding scale and technology: ALMA. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) (see note 1 below), located on the Chajnantor plain of San Pedro de Atacama will be conformed of 64 high-precision antennas (10 mm-350 microns/39’ radius) that will have reconfigurable base lines. These antennas will orbit creating an array that will occupy a field ranging between 500 feet to 10 miles creating innumerous conformations. The multiple arrangements of these orbits will create unique territorial and programmatic conditions. This studio’s premise is based on the principal that the discipline of Architectural Design cannot be reduced to a singular specialty or scale of investigation, and as such, it is ideally suited to provide a conceptual framework for the diverse and vast disciplinary criteria that must be accommodated in the design of ecologically compatible systems.
Early integration of performance criteria into the design process is essential for catalyzing technological innovation that can effectively address ecological complexity in order to significantly shift methods of functional models. In order to pursue comprehensive and experimental research we will embrace the challenge of integrative strategies. By defying normative environmental control systems models that behave interdependently but are typically designed independently we aim at formulating integrative and multiple problem sets explored at multiple scales. By addressing a migratory program (orbits) co-dependently to its climatic extremities (cold and arid) we propose to assess how tectonic morphologies and material strategies can work symbiotically with adverse natural systems. By probing into broadscalar data visualization and scripting as research grammar of material, climatic and morphological interdependencies the studio will frame design problem at multiple scalar sets. The studio will propose a dwelling and educational/exhibit complex for ALMA (10,000 sf) developed in two phases. Design inquiries will center on BIO-RESPONSIVE NETWORKS (membrane-structure) as means of capitalizing scarce water resources, extreme low humidity conditions and strong winds. Students will explore responsive membranes utilizing minimal surfaces as de-materialization strategy for the constitution of the entire center focusing on minimizing energy/matter use. FLEXIBLE MEMBRANES will be explored regarding their potential adaptation for the changing arrays created by the transitory orbits and bio-climatic shifts. ARCH 201 SEC 3
>>Download the full Buenos Aires Studio syllabus, including assignment specifications, research methods, travel schedule and budget, filmography/bibliography, etc. When Le Corbusier sketched a proposal for Buenos Aires in 1929, he visualized a business center on an island in the Río de la Plata that would serve as an iconic presence for travelers arriving by boat. Although it was superficially similar to his orthogonal abstract proposal for the Ville Contemporaine (1922), Le Corbusier’s scheme for Buenos Aires was as site-specific in its way as his curvilinear plan for the undulating hills of Rio de Janeiro: vertical towers that were a conceptual response to the meeting of the pampas and the river in a single line stretching across the horizon to infinity in both directions. The seemingly endless horizontal expanse of the pampas has an urban counterpart in the dense sprawl that is contemporary Buenos Aires. Located on the southern shore of the Río de la Plata, the third largest metropolis in South America, with a population of about 13 million, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, a country that once had a bright future, but has seen its prospects dimmed by political and economic turmoil. Variously described as the most cosmopolitan, most beautiful, most European city in Latin America, Buenos Aires is a proud but faded city plagued by poverty, pollution, and decaying infrastructure.
Program: Urban Water Strip The establishment of a sports, working and recreation strip along the river, with an emphasis on water sports in particular, may help Buenos Aires launch a successful bid to become the first Latin American Olympic city. The city intends to locate its new water sports infrastructure along the Riachuelo in a park that will be both productive and recreational, venues for water sports located within a water farming and/or hydroponic park. The specific farming component might be related to energy production, fresh water vegetables, fish, or any combination of these and is meant to give work to the people inhabitant living in the informal settlements along the river. You are asked to design facilities for the following watersports: • swimming ARCH 202A (5) Students may take 202A or 202B but not both; course must be taken in last semester of the Master of Architecture degree program. Prerequisites: Three semesters of 201 and 209D. ARCH 202A SEC 1 ARCH 202A SEC 2 ARCH 202B (5) Zero hours of lecture and zero hours of studio per week. Course intended primarily for research theses. Students seeking permission to enroll in this section must petition the chair of graduate advisors before the end of fall semester. ARCH 209A (3) Topics deal with major problems and current issues in architectural design. ARCH 209X (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. Craft and Materials Manipulation (3) This seminar will examine the poetics of craft and material manipulation through the lens of digital design and CAD/CAM fabrication and rapid prototyping. The seminar will explore various CAD/CAM techniques using the Computer Numerically Controlled Router, laser cutter and 3D printer. Investment in a process moving from designing digitally to the creation of physical objects that are rich with material potential at several scales will be the thrust of the course. Prerequisites for the class include proficiency in 3D modeling using Rhino or FormZ and that students must also enroll in ARCH 198 SECTION 002: Computer-Controlled Machining Practicum. ARCH 212 (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 219A (3) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Formerly 211 and 219A through 219G. Selected topics such as social policy and building form, environments for special populations, for birth and death, social form and housing form, personal and societal values in design, participatory design, and urban parks. ARCH 229A (1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Prerequisites: Designated section of 129. Selected topics such as issues of project development and professional practice, construction law, materials and specifications, construction management, marketing and management, professional writing, issues in community development and public policy. ARCH 235 (1–4) Course may be repeated for credit. Three hours of seminar per week. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Required for doctoral students in this study area. ARCH 239A/ARCH 139X (1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. 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 249X (1-4) Course maybe repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours lecture/seminar per unit per semester. Prerequisites: Arch 140. Selected topics such as climatic design, mechanical systems, natural lighting, artificial lighting, acoustics. For current section offerings see departmental announcement. High Performance Facades Are the aesthetics of transparency necessarily in conflict with thermal and visual performance of the building skin? Is it possible to make a good glass building? How transparent can the building skin be and still be good for the occupants behind the glass? What can day lighting and solar control contribute to the design of a high performance building envelope? In this class we will develop answers to these questions. Initial exercises will focus on defining performance criteria for high performance building skins and developing case studies of recent high tech buildings. Working in teams, the class will address the challenge of designing a Zero Net Energy façade consistent with the desires of architects and clients in contemporary practice. In an iterative process, the initial designs will be developed through evaluation and redesign under four topics: energy use, human comfort, amenities and practice. With each topic, guest lecturers with expertise in research and practice, field trips, readings and lectures will increase the knowledge base and tools with which to approach the performance evaluation and redesign for improved performance. The course will have the benefit of collaboration with Steve Selkowitz, Eleanor Lee and other researchers from the Building Technologies Department of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. Such collaboration offers the course background lectures, access to current research and introduction to lab facilities used in thermal and lighting performance evaluations. Building science students, design students and energy researchers are all welcome. The more diverse the team skills the more interesting the class. ARCH 259X (1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Fifteen hours of lecture per unit per semester. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Special topics such as experimental structures and architectural preservation. ARCH 265 (3) Two hours of lecture and one hour of discussion per week. Prerequisites: 150, 160, or consent of instructor. The class addresses the role craft and construction play in Japanese architecture and applies these lessons to the evaluation of an exemplary recent building having unusual technical features. Buildings are expressions of theoretic and technical intent and a response to cultural and economic forces; Japanese architecture is regarded as particularly innovative. In studying a system where there is an emphasis on collaboration, students also see the values of North American systems of architectural production. ARCH 279D (1–4) Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Prerequisites: 179 or consent of instructor. History of Housing: Small Homes of the Twentieth Century Students in this reading seminar will explore the architectural and social histories of small dwellings—and ideas about them—in twentieth-century Europe and the United States. The discussions will explore both vernacular and high style forms, using a case study approach. Vernacular examples will include tenements and workers' cottages (particularly those of West Oakland), boarding houses, and residential hotels. High-style case studies will include early apartments, European fascination with what the German modernists called the Existenzminimum, American architects' responses with the open-lot bungalow and ideal back yards, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses, and the coalescence of modernist, FHA, and developer minimums in post-World War II subdivisions and new ideas of modular and additive home designs. The goals of the course are learning to think more critically and gaining a better understanding of the social and cultural aspects of American housing history (and some of its overseas counterparts), while keeping actual built space in close view. As a general definition of “small,” we shall focus primarily on dwellings of less than 1,200 square feet. For an additional credit unit, students may write a research paper of 15 to 25 pages. This is an intensive seminar, ideal for M.S. or Ph.D. students from any department, interested in the inter-relation of social groups and built space; also ideal for design-program Masters students interested in housing or considering a housing issue as a future thesis topic. Even if you are not pre-registered, attend the first meeting, since enrollment questions will be decided at that time. A full syllabus is posted outside Paul Groth’s office, 597 McCone Hall. REQUIRED BOOK LIST (list prices given below; some sources offer bargain prices) 1. Sam Davis, Designing for the Homeless: Architecture that Works, 2004 ($34.95) hardback Books will be at Ned’s Berkeley Bookstore, 2480 Bancroft Way, and the ASUC Cal Bookstore. ARCH 300 (2) Three hours of seminar per week. Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Extended Course Description This class is intended for first-time graduate student instructors, especially those working in studio and lab settings. The class covers a range of issues that normally come up when teaching, as well as offering suggestions regarding how to work well with other GSIs and faculty while managing your own liminal role as both a student and teacher. The greatest benefit of this class comes from the opportunity to explore important topics together. Using a relatively light but provacative set of readings, the seminar will explore the issues raised each week; attendance is extremely important in making this class effective. In addition, there will be one assignment intended to help explore your own expectations as an educator. |
The Buenos Aires Studio
Study Area: Riachuelo
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