Back to Offered Courses List

ENV DES 1
PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
DE MONCHAUX

(3) Course may be repeated for credit. Student will receive no credit for 1 after taking 4. Three hours of lecture and two hours of discussion per week. Environmental design involves the study of built, natural, global, and virtual environments. Various forms of practice include architecture, planning, urban design, and social and environmental activism. This course is a survey of relationships between people and environments, designed and non-designed, with an introduction to the literature and professional practices. Open to all undergraduate students in the College of Environmental Design as well as other colleges and majors.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES R3B
READING & COMPOSITION SUSTAINABILITY & ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
WESSEL

Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: UC Entry Writing Requirement or UC Analytical Writing Placement Exam. R1A or equivalent course is prerequisite to R1B. Course may be repeated for credit. This course will expose students to key literature that examines, primarily, the relationship between sustainability and environmental design disciplines. Our goal will be not only to investigate the central ideas that inform the design of sustainable landscapes, cities, and buildings, but also to understand how competing arguments are presented in writing.

Extended Course Description

This course will expose students to key literature primarily of the last two decades that examines the relationship between sustainability and environmental design disciplines. Our goal will be not only to investigate the central ideas that inform the design of sustainable landscapes, cities and buildings, but also to understand how competing arguments are represented in writing.

Though there is broad consensus amongst scientists that climate change exists and is accelerating, there are many non-specialists who remain skeptical or do not think the issues are of urgent significance. Those who are committed to sustainability and who wish to see their ideas gain influence must therefore be concerned with the art of persuasion. The huge (if short –lived) popular success of Al Gore’s widely viewed film and related book, An Inconvenient Truth, was due in large measure to the way Gore wove a complex array of facts into a compelling and accessible narrative.

Those in favor of sustainable design must make the case for a way of thinking that is based on radically different assumptions from those that have guided the built environment professions since the rise of industrialization. As such, arguments in favor of sustainability necessarily present visions of a different (and hopefully better) world. But how different are these worlds from the present, and in what ways? How are arguments about sustainable futures informed by the past? Is sustainable design a question of doing things the way we always have done them, but with greater efficiency? Or does the design of sustainable environments involve questioning not only the way we design buildings, cities and landscapes, but also, the types of social organization they give form to? Where do questions of sustainable design begin and end?

We will focus on three issues: first, on understanding the central arguments and concepts advanced by the course readings; second, on understanding the means of representation (the genres of writing and narrative voice, relationship between text and image, use of visual, statistical, historical, geographical evidence, amongst others); and finally, on developing a analytical and critical understanding of how different modes of writing shape the ideas we are trying to communicate.

Students will read a series of literature organized according to the style of argumentation that predominates in each. We will begin investigating writings on the present as an ecological emergency. This is followed by a sequence of texts that move from acerbic critique of current lifestyles, through accounts that link the production of sustainable environments to visionary thinking. These texts focused on the current issues of sustainability combined with lessons on various genres of writing serve as the basis of the course that will enable students to develop analytical and critical evaluative skills for reading and composition.

ENV DES 10
THE HISTORY OF THOUGHT IN ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
COMERIO

(3) Three hours of lecture/seminar per week. Prerequisites: None. Open to all undergraduates in the College of Environmental Design and other colleges and majors. With emphasis on key events of the 20th and now 21st century, this course introduces the big ideas and individuals that have shaped architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture.

Extended Course Description

This is an introductory course focused on “great books” in Environmental Design—that is, in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, urban design and environmental policy. Students will read 5 required books for discussion in class and choose 2 books from a longer list as the basis for assigned papers. Obviously, there are many great books in each field and this course can only introduce a few, but the intention is to look at the thinking and ideas that have shaped the fields represented in the College of Environmental design. 

ENV DES 11A
INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION AND DRAWING
SULLIVAN

(4) Two hours of lecture and six hours of studio per week. Prerequisites: 1. Introductory studio course: theories of representation and the use of several visual means, including free hand drawing and digital media, to analyze and convey ideas regarding the environment. Topics include contour, scale, perspective, color, tone, texture, and design.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 11B
INTRODUCTION TO DESIGN
PLYMALE

(5) Three hours of lecture, six hours of studio, and two hours of laboratory per week. Prerequisites: 11A. Introduction to design concepts and conventions of graphic representation and model building as related to the study of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning. Students draw in plan, section, elevation, axonometric, and perspective and are introduced to digital media. Design projects address concepts of order, site analysis, scale, structure, rhythm, detail, culture, and landscape.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 100
THE CITY: THEORIES & METHODS IN URBAN STUDIES
CENZATTI

(4) Three hours of lecture, one hour of discussion, and three to four hours of reading, analysis, and research per week. This course is concerned with the study of cities. Focusing on great cities around the world - from Chicago to Los Angeles, from Rio to Shanghai, from Vienna to Cairo it covers of historical and contemporary patterns of urbanization and urbanism. Through these case studies, it introduces the key ideas, debates, and research genres of the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. In other words, this is simultaneously a "great cities" and "great theories" course. Its purpose is to train students in critical analysis of the socio-spatial formations of their lived world.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 101B
WRITING ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN: LONGER COMPOSITIONS
LIFCHEZ

(2-4) Course may be repeated once for credit. Three hours of laboratory per week and one-half hour tutorial every other week. Prerequisites: English 1B and consent of instructor. Formerly 101. This course may serve as an addendum to 101A: Short Compositions. Enrolled students are required or have elected to write an undergraduate thesis. The objective of the course is to assist with this process by defining a topic and constructing a research agenda by which the topic is explored and developed as prose. Students will write the longer composition within a support group which is both critical and encouraging of the individual effort. Topics are individually chosen but refined in concert with the instructor to ensure that the student's objectives can be satisfied within the semester.

The Notebook

The Notebook, Journal, Log, and Diary are various terms for the personal account kept by authors, architects, and artists, as a first step toward producing a work of literary, professional or artistic merit.  The Notebook emerges overtime in response to a disciplined approach to writing regularly about an interest. Illustrations highlight and augment the text.

The intention of this classes is to encourage students, interested in the built environment, to work with words and narrative, so that their understanding of the relationship between people and buildings, objects, and spaces is not limited to what is only observable but is also indicative of felt experience.

The class is conducted as a workshop, with students' writings serving as the text for the weekly discussions. The objectives are (1) to improve one's  craft by recognizing the strengths of the personal voice (2) to develop a sensitivity to the importance of the critic as a positive voice in addressing others' writing.

The Notebook is conceived of as one long composition, the result of 14 weekly writing and reading assignments (principally short stories). The outcome is a personal narrative comprised of the responses to the semester's writings.

ENV DES 101A and ENV DES 101B have special approval as creative writing courses for the Creative Writing Minor. CONTACT This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it FOR ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CREDIT CONTACT This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

ENV DES C169B
AMERICAN CULTURAL LANDSCAPES, 1900 TO PRESENT
GROTH

(4) Three hours of lecture and one hour of discussion per week. Introduces ways of seeing and interpreting American histories and cultures, as revealed in everyday built surroundings--homes, highways, farms, factories, stores, recreation areas, small towns, city districts, and regions. Encourages students to read landscapes as records of past and present social relations, and to speculate for themselves about cultural meaning. Also listed as American Studies C112B and Geography C160B.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 170
THE SOCIAL ART OF ARCHITECTURE
LIFCHEZ

(3) Course may be repeated by students working on thesis or dissertation. Two hours of seminar per week. What is the social art of architecture in America? What was it historically, where is it now, where is it going--and why should you care? In this course, we will explore contemporary and historic attempts to confront social needs through themes: Design by Professionals (Architects, City Planners, Urban Designers, Sociologists, Philosophers, Philanthropists), and Design by Laypeople (Squatters, Intentional Communities, Do It Yourself). The objective is to discharge the false dualism that has emerged in architecture between social concerns and creative design.

Extended Course Description

What is the social art of architecture in America? What was it historically, where is it now, where is it going--and why should you care? In this course, we will explore contemporary and historic attempts to confront social needs through themes: Design by Professionals (Architects, City Planners, Urban Designers, Sociologists, Industrialists, Philosophers, Philanthropists), and Design by Laypeople (Squatters, Intentional Communities). The objective is to discharge the false dualism that has emerged in architecture between social concerns and creative design.

Class readings can be found on B Space under Resources. Additional readings may be e-mailed or handed out in class. There will be a weekly writing assignment, a seminar report, plus a final paper of 5-10 pages plus references and 5 images.

ENV DES 195
SENIOR THESIS
STAFF

(4) Prerequisites: Limited to students with approved individual majors in the College of Environmental Design. Credit option: Course may be repeated once for credit. Directed study leading to preparation of a senior thesis.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 252
URBAN PLACE STUDIES
BOSSELMANN

(3) Three hours of seminar per week. Prerequisites: Students must be in the Master of Urban Design program or obtain consent of instructor. Seminar focuses on individual urban design interests, the design and research work that students are pursuing in other courses, and development of thesis or final design projects.

Extended Course Description

To come.

ENV DES 298
ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN GROUP STUDIES
KELLOGG

(1-4) Course may be repeated for credit. One to four hours of directed group study per week. Four to fourteen hours of directed group study for four weeks. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. Grading option: Must be taken on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis. Topics to be announced at the beginning of each semester.

Extended Course Description

To come.