HI
TIME
The best way to predict the future is to DESIGN it.
– Buckminster Fuller
This semester, students will investigate the concept of time and the various ways it is represented by architecture. Projects will allow students the opportunity to explore a variety of conditions in which time is a central theme of design. This variety also permits an overview of the ways that architecture changes across time and an understanding of the forces that shape those changes. Topics this semester will include:
- Historic trends and patterns in domestic architecture (the house)
- Landscape architecture
- Domestic architecture of the future
- Design for self-sufficiency and protection in an apocalyptic future
Proposed Projects
Architectural Design Studio
Architecturally Significant Houses - Dwelling Across Time
For this project, students will be developing a set of architectural drawings and construction documents for a historically significant house. Students will research and analyze the work of the house’s architect as well as the design characteristics of the house itself. With this understanding, they will create a set of design drawings that permit detailed exploration of an architectural work while permitting the student opportunities for expressing their own voice about the architecture they observe. This process will require in-depth research, detailed inquiry, and the development of reasonable interpretations.
For students exploring architecture, this project will provide an overview of many different aspects of the profession. We will have the opportunity to explore history, design theory and technique, as well as the various technologies and materials that make architecture possible.
Houses used for this exercise will come from a pre-selected list of homes that:
Students will create the following drawings as part of their effort to understand and express the work they observe:
For students exploring architecture, this project will provide an overview of many different aspects of the profession. We will have the opportunity to explore history, design theory and technique, as well as the various technologies and materials that make architecture possible.
Houses used for this exercise will come from a pre-selected list of homes that:
- are significant in the history of architecture
- reflect the thinking, beliefs, and technologies of their time
- were created by architects who have made or continue to make significant contributions to our built environment
Students will create the following drawings as part of their effort to understand and express the work they observe:
- Concept Drawing of their Architect
- Floor Plan
- Elevation/Facade
- Interior Perspective
Safehouse - Architecture for the Zombie Apocalypse
Zombies are apocalyptic in nature. They belong to a class of monster that doesn't just hunt humans, but seeks to obliterate that entire human race.
- Max Brooks, Author, World War Z
To compliment students' work in the past for Project 01, the second project allows students the opportunity to explore an apocalyptic future with a design of their own creation. To establish the premise for this project, students were given the following scenario from which to begin their investigation of a house to survive a zombie apocalypse:
“In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Victims of zombies may become zombies themselves. This causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading phenomenon swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilized society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness.” (Wikipedia)
As architects, students were asked how they would use design skills to prepare for and survive this event. This is not a situation that will fix itself in a short period of time, so students were tasked to design for the long haul. How can architecture help you get through…alive?
“In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Victims of zombies may become zombies themselves. This causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading phenomenon swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilized society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness.” (Wikipedia)
As architects, students were asked how they would use design skills to prepare for and survive this event. This is not a situation that will fix itself in a short period of time, so students were tasked to design for the long haul. How can architecture help you get through…alive?
Advanced Architecture Studio
A Garden for the Ages
Landscape is history made visible
– J.B. Jackson, Landscape Writer
Through the course of history, Architecture (the intervention of humankind on the landscape) is the artifact that remains across time. It has the ability to reflect a specific society, culture, critical events, or thinking of the time when it was created and made. Students' design objective for this project is to achieve this goal…for an age prior to the one in which we are currently living.
Students were allowed to freely develop a hypothetical client for their individual projects. The requirement was to design a garden for their client that represents a particular historic era. The historic eras to be addressed by each student were assigned randomly during the preliminary research portion of the project:
Students were all given a 75'x150' site on which to design their gardens. Students could select a location anywhere in the world for their client's garden so long as that location was relevant to their historic age. The garden was also required to include an architectural folly as an integral element that used light to represent a significant event from their historic age.
The garden design is the first phase of a larger project that will be completed in the second half of the semester.
Students were allowed to freely develop a hypothetical client for their individual projects. The requirement was to design a garden for their client that represents a particular historic era. The historic eras to be addressed by each student were assigned randomly during the preliminary research portion of the project:
- The Enlightenment Age
- The Industrial Age
- The Atomic/Space Age
- The Information Age
Students were all given a 75'x150' site on which to design their gardens. Students could select a location anywhere in the world for their client's garden so long as that location was relevant to their historic age. The garden was also required to include an architectural folly as an integral element that used light to represent a significant event from their historic age.
The garden design is the first phase of a larger project that will be completed in the second half of the semester.
The Shift Age House
As an Architect, you design for the PRESENT, with an awareness of the PAST, for a FUTURE which is essentially unknown
– Architect, Sir Norman Foster
In the first studio project, students were able to explore how Architecture has the capacity to reference and make concrete, IDEAS of the past. In this final studio project, students will fix their gaze into the hovering mist of the future. Just as Architecture is a lasting artifact of the past, it is equally capable and responsible for exploring and defining our future. In this project phase, students will explore the future through Architecture’s most common artifact…the house.
How can architecture designed in the present represent the coming trends, thinking, and development of human civilization in the future? To establish a direction for how we think about the future, the studio was directed to investigate the work of futurist David Houle who has established the concept of The Shift Age. Students conducted research in the primary characteristics of The Shift Age to establish a working knowledge and foundation for their own design work. From this research, students created a house for their garden client in Project 01 to link a house of the future with a garden of the past.
Students were all given a 75'x75' site adjacent to their garden on which to place their house. Physical and implied design connections between garden and house were encouraged. In addition, students were instructed to re-think the concept of life in The Shift Age and to design a house that reflected these new possibilities for inhabiting domestic space.
How can architecture designed in the present represent the coming trends, thinking, and development of human civilization in the future? To establish a direction for how we think about the future, the studio was directed to investigate the work of futurist David Houle who has established the concept of The Shift Age. Students conducted research in the primary characteristics of The Shift Age to establish a working knowledge and foundation for their own design work. From this research, students created a house for their garden client in Project 01 to link a house of the future with a garden of the past.
Students were all given a 75'x75' site adjacent to their garden on which to place their house. Physical and implied design connections between garden and house were encouraged. In addition, students were instructed to re-think the concept of life in The Shift Age and to design a house that reflected these new possibilities for inhabiting domestic space.
