Representation
Courses
* Denotes an elective course
** Denotes a graduate course
48-120 Introduction to Digital Media I
6 units
Instructor: Brockmeyer, Gannon
IDM is a required course for all first year architecture students. The course introduces students to a wide range of digital methods and concepts available to architects for design, representation, and documentation. The coursework is directly coordinated with Studio assignments providing the students with the opportunity to master their digital skills in a meaningful manner. Due to the amount of content covered there is no single text for this course, but the course is supported by materials created by the instructor. IDM addresses topics such as digital image editing, vector illustration, HTML coding, and 3D modeling.
48-125 Introduction to Digital Media II
6 units
Instructor: Brockmeyer
IDM2 is a required course for all first year architecture students. This course is the continuation of IDM. IDM2 introduces students to measured drafting and the process of creating a construction drawing set. The coursework is directly coordinated with Studio assignments providing the students with the opportunity to master their digital skills in a meaningful manner. Due to the amount of content covered there is no single text for this course, but the course is supported by materials created by the instructor. IDM2 addresses topics such as digital drafting, construction drawings, advanced 3D modeling and HTML programming.
48-130 Architectural Drawing I: A Tactile Foundation
9 units
Instructor: Cooper
Introductory course in a sequence of three drawing courses required by the school of architecture for its professional degree program. It consists of in and out of class exercises in free-hand perspective and general life-drawing. Coursework is built around exercises in the required course text: Drawing and Perceiving, John Wiley and Sons. Part 1 focuses on contour, Part 2 on volume, and Part 3 on mass, a structure that parallels, in some respects, the on-going work in 48-100. Part 3 provides a review of the earlier work of the course as well as a direct application to an on-going studio projects. Topics are introduced through figure drawing and lecture demonstrations and subsequently applied to architectural subjects. The approach of each of these parts is based on the work of Kimon Nicholaides as presented in his landmark book, the Natural Way to Draw. Work is submitted in three portfolio submissions of three to four weeks each.
48-135 Architectural Drawing II: Appearance
9 units
Instructor: Cooper
Understanding Appearance builds knowledge of the order of appearance and drawing as a reasoned response to same. Coursework covers three subjects: 1) free-hand and constructed perspective 2) shade and shadow projection, 3) chiarroscurro drawing and color drawing in pastel, each of 3-4 weeks duration. Work of each is submitted in 3 portfolio submissions.
48-257 Computing for the Arts with Processing *
9 units
Instructors: Roberts
This course is an introduction to Java programming for designers, architects, artists and other visual thinkers, using the popular "Processing" Java toolkit for interactive graphics. Intended for students with little or no prior programming experience, the course uses interaction and visualization as a gateway for learning the traditional programming constructs and the fundamental algorithms typically found in a first course in programming. Students will become familiar with essential programming concepts (types, variables, control, user input, arrays, files, and objects) through the development of interactive games, information visualizations, and computationally-generated forms. Because of limited space, only Architecture majors may take this course.
48-326 Kobayashi Maru and the Perceptual Shift *
9 units
Instructors: Wolff
This seminar-workshop explores the creative process through the mechanics of alternate approach. Kobayashi Maru references the redefining of a problem, or a situation that can only be overcome by changing the rules. Restructuring our conceptual framework allows us to rethink the investigation itself. Lateral thinking creates a shift in our perception of spatial values, expanding potentials for future architectural investigation. In this course, students will act as creative provocateurs, working in media outside of architecture to influence the way we perceive space. The course will include analysis and discussion, with a focus on resources with an open-ended approach to time, space, and structure including works by Ad Reinhardt, Peter Eisenman, Maurice Blanchot, Michael Ondaatje, Julian Schnabel, and Christopher Nolan. Work produced for the course will be studio-project based, with students choosing to work in a variety of media, which may include painting, sculpture, essay, literature, and/or film. 48-355 Perspective *
9 units
Instructor: Cooper
Course addresses perspective on the basis of three distinct understandings of perceptual psychology: 1) A Kinesthetic Basis for Perspective, which is built on the drawing pedagogy of Kimon Nicholaides. It aligns with the transactionalist understanding of perception and considers perspective as partly invented and partly discovered truth. 2)The Order of Appearance, which is built on the early work of the perceptual psychologist, J.J. Gibson, and aligns with the ecological position of Gibson and his followers It considers perspective as an absolute truth of the visual field. 3)Perspective Imposed, which aligns implicitly with the position of Gestalt psychology. It treats perspective as an imposed schema. Along the way some use is made of on-going design work for subject material. Work is submitted in 3 portfolio submissions of 3-4 weeks duration each.
48-357 Anatomy and Organic Form *
9 units
Instructor: Cooper
This course arises out of a brief exchange I had with Tom Maynes, Morphosis Architects, during the Q&A following a lecture he presented at CMU during the spring semester 2010: a lecture in which he had declared drawing ?dead? for architects. It had seemed to me that the work he showed lacked formal order, complexity, scale and proportion (?goo? would be a good word for my sense of it), and I began to speculate that a course in classical anatomy would be helpful in addressing the weaknesses of their idiom?and important most of all for our students because I assume they will tend to pursue the formal clich?s of our time. This course is a studio drawing course with a lot of drawing from the human figure and other organic subjects. Media will be fairly limited: charcoal, cont?, soft pencil, possibly some washes. It will move systematically through muscular groups: torso, shoulder, arm etc. with an emphasis on their structure and proportion. There is an assumption behind this course: that through drawing that focuses consciously upon the formal order of ?real? conditions, we come to assimilate a sense of their order. We will however try to hasten the assimilation with numerous opportunities taken for transfer into design work. Students can expect to spend 9 hours per week on the course: in-and out of class. Prerequisites are 48-130 and 48-135 with preference given to students who have also taken 48-355 (or the discontinued course 48-230) Perspective.
48-420 City as Landscape: Geography as Method and Metaphor
9 units
Instructors: Kline
This design theory seminar will explore the emergence of landscape, ecology, and infrastructure as new conceptual, aesthetic and methodological organizers for architectural and urban form. Over the first decade of the twenty-first century it has become clear that the form of urban settlement is driven by complex interacting systems, ecologies and economies resulting in a physical form that has surpassed our traditional notions of city or landscape, while producing highly unsustainable patterns of development with both ecological and cultural impacts. At the same time contemporary culture has evolved into a hyper-mediated, networked and globalized state which appears increasing unstable, creating both positive negative potentials. During this period the design professions have successfully integrated sustainability at the scale of buildings and products, however, the question of how to best do this at the urban scale remains open for debate. For those working at the scale of the city, one of the most promising recent attempts to reformulate design has been the conceptual merging of landscape and urbanism in to a hybrid practice of landscape, infrastructural or ecological urbanism. Many have argued that landscape architecture, with its emphasis on processes, surfaces, frameworks and ecologies, is better suited to understanding and intervening in the contemporary urban condition. At the same time, much contemporary architecture has explored notions of surface, performance and flexibility, exploring the idea of building as landscape. Both of these approaches have drawn on analytical tools from sources such as geography and ecology to understand spatial and cultural flows. 48-451 Incompletion and the Embodied Experience in Architecture *
9 units
Instructors: Lubetz
This course concerns the development of architecture which physically engages all the body?s senses through embodied experience while it sparks the user?s imagination through the use of incompletion in architecture. For architecture is to fully engage our physical experience, memory and imagination, architects should consider both the mind and body but especially their interaction. The course will reaffirm architecture as a means to link us physically and mentally to the world. 48-470 Exploring Pattern Through Lamination *
6 units
Instructor: Smith
The course, Experimenting with Lamination, Clamping and Cutting, will review standard shop process and expand upon initial instructions the students have already received. Topics will be demonstrated in class and assignments relating to the demonstrations will be issued. Demonstrations may not take the entire class time in which case the students will work under the instructor?s supervision. Multiple assignments will be given throughout the course. Several demonstration topics may be incorporated into one assignment. While assignments are process driven, thoughtful, well crafted execution reflecting good design will be essential. Projects will be idea statements rather than finalized (functional) objects. Each exercise will present a series of basic wood working operations, which, when repeated and recombined will become products of compelling visual character. As visual idea statements you will be asked to experiment, invent and explore and take these standard operations in new directions.
48-576 Mapping Urbanism *
9 units
Instructor: Hutzell
This seminar provides the critical tools necessary to examine the city as both a representation and a reality in flux. Through an interdisciplinary framework, students study urban history, theory, visual thinking and spatial mapping. Weekly lectures introduce world cities and their typologies; e.g. the quintessential city, the shrinking city, the growing city and the megalopolis. Readings, films, presentations, and class discussions focus on global issues and the built environment. Parallel to these urban explorations, students learn to employ a diverse set of representational techniques to create inventive mappings. All upper-level (300 and 400 level undergraduate and graduate) students with working knowledge of Adobe Illustrator and/or InDesign are encouraged to register.