The University of Texas at Arlington
School of Architecture
ARCH 5670
Fall 2011
Steve Quevedo
Assistant Professor
817-272-2801
Office hours MWF 1:00 -2:00 PM
Syllabus
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
ARCH 5670 Advanced Design Studio: (3-9)
Studio course emphasizing the analysis and design of building aggregations within the urban context. May be repeated for credit.
Monday Wednesday Friday 2:00 – 5:50 PM
Course Objectives + Pedagogy: The design process incorporates analysis, urban and environmental concerns as a building relates within its context. Further development of the building focuses on refining design ideas within a comprehensive understanding of an urban setting. Teaching urban design stresses the need for rehabilitation of an urban space, addresses the making of an urban room, focusing on material selection, historical research, urban infrastructure and accessibility:
• CONTEXTUALISM: The investigation of buildings and their role within the context of the city serves as an imperative for which all buildings respond to their surroundings. The contextual role advances the idea that buildings must provide and enhance their surroundings, adding to complete the context, preserve landmarks and provide public space.
• URBAN DESIGN: The understanding of the medium of urban design is an interwoven relationship of spaces, which incorporates the entire spectrum of sequences connecting the public, the semiprivate to the private.
• DESIGN PROCESS: Emphasis on development of a systematic design process, which can be taught and practiced. Students learn the development of a project over a period of time by means of sketches and study models, understanding and response to critiques as objective evaluation. Emphasis is placed on the completion of assignments on due dates with all required drawings and models.
• DESIGN THEORY: Development and understanding of design as methodological spatial investigations, realized by the making of drawings and models. Students, through scholarly research and reiteration of history as a source for architectural precedence, will explore the creation of architectural ideas as workable knowledge, tectonics and reflection on a society, culture, traditions and environments. Students are assigned a series of reading articles and are expected to incorporate and implement these design ideas and theories.
• DESIGN CRITIQUE: Investigate and further introduce the design process as a continuous and evolving series of sketching, study models, presentation drawings design critique and design response via desk critiques, pin-ups and juries.
• DESIGN VOCABULARY: Continuing development of a design vocabulary of terms, principles and realized through their application throughout the design process. The analogous relationship of language can be seen as an enhancement towards the development of an architectural idea and the shaping of theory. The design vocabulary is one of both written words and text but reinforced through the graphic language of conventional and conceptual drawings.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES:
This course will address the following outcomes, as outlined by the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB). Please see attached Student Performance Criteria.
Ability—Proficiency in using specific information to accomplish a task, correctly selecting the appropriate information, and accurately applying it to the solution of a specific problem, while also distinguishing the effects of its implementation.
Understanding—The capacity to classify, compare, summarize, explain and/or interpret information.
Realm A: Critical Thinking and Representation:
A.1. Communication Skills: Ability to read, write, speak and listen effectively.
A.2. Design Thinking Skills: Ability to raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret information, consider diverse points of view, reach well-reasoned conclusions, and test alternative outcomes against relevant criteria and standards.
A.3. Visual Communication Skills: Ability to use appropriate representational media, such as traditional graphic and digital technology skills, to convey essential formal elements at each stage of the programming and design process.
A.5. Investigative Skills: Ability to gather, assess, record, apply, and comparatively evaluate relevant information within architectural coursework and design processes.
A.6. Fundamental Design Skills: Ability to effectively use basic architectural and environmental principles in design.
A.7. Use of Precedents: Ability to examine and comprehend the fundamental principles present in relevant precedents and to make choices regarding the incorporation of such principles into architecture and urban design projects.
A.8. Ordering Systems Skills: Understanding of the fundamentals of both natural and formal ordering systems and the capacity of each to inform two- and three-dimensional design.
A.9. Historical Traditions and Global Culture: Understanding of parallel and divergent canons and traditions of architecture, landscape and urban design including examples of indigenous, vernacular, local, regional, national settings from the Eastern, Western, Northern, and Southern hemispheres in terms of their climatic, ecological, technological,
socioeconomic, public health, and cultural factors.
A.10. Cultural Diversity: Understanding of the diverse needs, values, behavioral norms, physical abilities, and social and spatial patterns that characterize different cultures and individuals and the implication of this diversity on the societal roles and responsibilities of architects.
A.11. Applied Research: Understanding the role of applied research in determining function, form, and systems and their impact on human conditions and behavior.
Realm B: Integrated Building Practices, Technical Skills and Knowledge:
B.1. Pre-Design: Ability to prepare a comprehensive program for an architectural project, such as preparing an assessment of client and user needs, an inventory of space and equipment requirements, an analysis of site conditions (including existing buildings), a review of the relevant laws and standards and assessment of their implications for the project, and a definition of site selection and design assessment criteria.
B.2. Accessibility: Ability to design sites, facilities, and systems to provide independent and integrated use by individuals with physical (including mobility), sensory, and cognitive disabilities.
B.3. Sustainability: Ability to design projects that optimize, conserve, or reuse natural and built resources, provide healthful environments for occupants/users, and reduce the environmental impacts of building construction and operations on future generations through means such as carbon-neutral design, bioclimatic design, and energy efficiency.
B.4. Site Design: Ability to respond to site characteristics such as soil, topography, vegetation, and watershed in the development of a project design.
B.5. Life Safety: Ability to apply the basic principles of life-safety systems with an emphasis on egress.
B.9. Structural Systems: Understanding of the basic principles of structural behavior in withstanding gravity and lateral forces and the evolution, range, and appropriate application of contemporary structural systems.
B.10. Building Envelope Systems: Understanding of the basic principles involved in the appropriate application of building envelope systems and associated assemblies relative to fundamental performance, aesthetics, moisture transfer, durability, and energy and material resources.
B.12. Building Materials and Assemblies: Understanding of the basic principles utilized in the appropriate selection of construction materials, products, components, and assemblies, based on their inherent characteristics and performance, including their environmental impact and reuse.
Realm C: Leadership and Practice:
C.2. Human Behavior: Understanding of the relationship between human behavior, the natural environment and the design of the built environment.
SUGGESTED TEXTBOOKS:
Design of Cities; Bacon, Edmund N.; New York, Viking Press, 1974.
Suburban Transformation, Paul Lukez
Thom Mayne’s Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior Of Collective Form Explores New Directions And Approaches To Urban Planning And Design. Stray Dog Cafe ( www.straydog-cafe.com ); 1ST edition (2011) ISBN-10: 0983076308; ISBN-13: 978-0983076308
Ecological Urbanism, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Lars Muller Publishers, 2010. ISBN:978-3-03778-189-0
READING FILE: A number of articles will be assigned on a regular basis throughout the course of the semester. These articles have been selected as further explanation of class lectures and enhancements to the studio projects. Throughout your tenure these articles may resurface in other classes. It would be worthwhile for your education to maintain a file binder of these articles for future references. Periodically you will be tested on both lectures and reading assignments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
“Architecture as an Integral Part of the City” by Werner Goehner in The Cornell Journal of Architecture, vol. 1
Cities of Artificial Excavations: The Work of Peter Eisenman, 1978-1988, edited and with an introduction by Jean-Francois Bedard, Centre Canadien d’Architecture/
Montreal.
“Collage City”, by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, Architectural Review 158, no. 942 (August 1975) p 66-90.
“Contextualism: Urbanism Ideals and Deformations” by Thomas Schumacher, Casabella no 359-360 (1971): p 79-86.
Court and Garden from the French Hotel to the City of Modern Architecture by Michael Dennis, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1986.
Design and Analysis by Bernard Leupen, Christopher Grafe, Nicola Kornig, Mark Lampe, and Peter Zeeuw,; Van Nostrand Reinhol, New York, 1997.
Design of Cities; Bacon, Edmund N.; New York, Viking Press, 1974.
Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture from Brunelleschi to Palladio, Furnari, Michele, Rizzoli; 1995.
Koetter Kim & Associates : Place/Time New York : Rizzoli, 1997.
Investigations in architecture : Eisenman studios at the GSD, 1983-85, Jonathan Jova Marvel, editor ; Margaret Reeve, curator of exhibitions.
Peter Eisenman-Diagram Diaries, Eisenman, Peter; Universe Publishing, 1999
Teaching Architecture-Bernard Hoesli at the Department of Architecture at the ETH Zurich, Jurg Jansen, Hansueli Jorg, Luca Maraini, Hanspeter Stockli, editors.
“Urban Design Tactics” by Steven Peterson in Roma Interrotta AD Profiles 20, edited by Michael Graves, Architectural Design, London, 1979.
“Urban Transformations and the Architecture of Additions” by Leon Krier in Architectural Design, AD April 1978
“Visual Notes for Architects and Designers” by Norman Crowe and Paul Laseau; John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York, 1984.
MAJOR EXERCISES AND PROJECTS
Weeks 1 – 3: Three Case Studies
August 26 to September 9, 2011
Analysis project of recent works dealing with first an urban design, secondly, an institution and third, a building system. This analysis will involve a series of diagrams, which explore design principles, building systems, contextual relationships, plans, sections and façade investigations. The analysis will be comparative in nature and include sketches, models and final presentation drawings.
Week 4 – 6: Urban Design: Connective Links
September 12 – 23, 2011
This first project will address the larger urban strategies for the city. This investigation will address historic urban plans as well as recent theoretic process to establish stronger spatial links to Fair Park and specific nodes of the city.
Week 7 – Week 8: A New Site Plan for Fair Park
September 26 – October 07
This investigation will determine a site selection for a new entry into the cultural area of Fair Park. This project will advance the previous Urban Design links by creating a specific site design for the new academy.
Week 9 – Week 13
October 10 - November 11: Building Design
Execution of the building design for a new science academy at Fair Park.
ATTENDANCE:
The attendance policy for this course allows for three absences after which time you will be advised to withdraw from the course. However, three absences is an entire week of missed classes and serious compromises your success in passing this course. As current university policy emphasizes that it is the student’s responsibility to withdraw if you are unable to attend class. Therefore your instructor will not drop you, but your grade will be affected as daily progress is recorded on your work. The studio space provided should be considered your workplace. Attendance means coming to class on time, using the studio time to its full potential for work. Class attendance may be taken at any time during posted studio hours. If you leave during studio time, this is considered an absence. Appointments, shopping errands to the art store, working in the computer lab, etc. should all be scheduled at other times than studio. Working on other class assignments during studio will result in lessening your opportunity for critique on that day. You would no more build a study model during one of your lecture classes so you should afford this instructor the same consideration.
In addition, I cannot make allowances for personal problems, which may arise in your life. As a student, training to be a professional architect, you must practice a discipline to access whether you should continue in this class if circumstances outside the school distract or inhibit you from performing to your fullest potential. It is unfair to all in the studio to ask for special compensation because factors in your life are not together. Your grade is based on your work and I cannot make a special grading policy for personal crisis. If issues in your life require your utmost attention, please take the necessary time to attend to them, but please do not compromise your education by allowing them to jeopardize the time required for studio. In other words, drop this class if you have to, but do not ask for extensions, make up time or an incomplete, which cannot be offered to everyone in the studio.
Drop Policy: Students may drop or swap (adding and dropping a class concurrently) classes through self-service in MyMav from the beginning of the registration period through the late registration period. After the late registration period, students must see their academic advisor to drop a class or withdraw. Undeclared students must see an advisor in the University Advising Center. Drops can continue through a point two-thirds of the way through the term or session. It is the student's responsibility to officially withdraw if they do not plan to attend after registering. Students will not be automatically dropped for non-attendance. Repayment of certain types of financial aid administered through the University may be required as the result of dropping classes or withdrawing. Contact the Financial Aid Office for more information.
Last Day to Drop is November 5, 2010
Use of aerosol materials, paints, and other hazardous chemicals:
Due to health and safety regulations and University policy, no spray paints, adhesives and other hazardous aerosol products are allowed in the building. Furthermore, no painting or use of flammable or other hazardous chemicals is allowed anywhere in the building, including and especially the fire stairs. Use of such chemicals is a hazard to your health and safety and that of other building occupants. It is also against the law. Spray painting and similar activities are only permissible in the approved ventilated spray booths in the School Shop.
Violations of this policy will be subject to both academic and civil penalties.
GRADING:
Students’ projects will be evaluated on the basis of an ability to successfully execute studio assignments reflecting an understanding of design principles and the development of spatial concepts and objectives. 2/3 of your grade will be based on design work and 1/3 on graphic presentation. Each week counts as 1/15 of your grade. The total amount of time per week spent on each exercise and project will be calculated in determining your final grade. On the three major projects, invited jurors will assign grades based on your completion of the project objectives. Their grades will be averaged and distributed accordingly. Throughout the semester, a series of reviews and juries will be scheduled. These “pinups” will require a number of sketches, final drawings and models. The reviews are mandatory, equivalent to tests and therefore cannot be missed. In other words, pinups are not an option! Typically a letter grade reflecting your progress will be given at this time. Late work is not acceptable and will not be graded..