Architectural Materials And Assembly Studio

Architecture
Christine Mondor
Spring 04

The fourth semester in the architectural sequence is currently defined as being “concerned with the development and refinement of architectural design skills as informed by the aesthetic and experiential knowledge related to the meaning of materials and the processes.” In past semesters, the studios have explored “how attention to materials, assembly systems and construction processes can and should influence the architectural design process and results, especially in determining the artistic, conceptual, poetic, creative and experiential aspects of architectural.” The changes to this course take these aspirations as their starting point and will overlay other issues of materiality that support the ability of architecture to fulfill artistic and experiential goals—specifically the relationship of materials to cultural and natural systems. These ideas are often an implicit part of a designer’s decision making process. We seek to make these ideas explicit by exploring topics such as:

• Materials and culture
• The life of materials
• The life of assemblies
• Future materials

The content will be presented in a series of six lectures available to all studio sections. One studio will deal with these ideas in a perspicuous manner in the design problem and approach. The other studios will explore the issues based on the knowledge and interests of the professors. Through the two different studio approaches, we will be able to evaluate the effect of explicit and implicit consideration of environmental values on the design of form and space.

Additional technical material will be presented in the companion technical course, Materials and Assembly (48.215), through 2 lectures with exercises. The exercises will ask students of all studios to apply some of these ideas to their studio projects, regardless of the approach of the individual studios.

Because the subject of this course, the creation of habitable form and space, is a discipline that directly affects the environment, the ideas of systems thinking, life cycles and decision-making assume an applied approach to understanding environmental impact. Building an awareness of the diversity of the issues and the overarching ideas will be important. However, all this will be lost if the students do not find relevance in their own design pursuits.