Directed student research of selected topics in environmental building design. These topics will be further explored in ARCH 7080: Bioclimatic Design Studio and will provide the basis for the research documents developed with each student’s design project. Course work will include lectures, discussions, weekly readings, and in-class exercises. Each student will be required to make a presentation and submit a research report.
This seminar will explore the history of buildings as mechanisms of climate management, and the theoretical and conceptual frameworks that pertain. In particular, we will examine how visual and mediatic interventions became a crucial aspect of architectural engagement with climate systems, and how, simultaneously, architectural image-making techniques became an important interdisciplinary site for understanding the cultural effects of scientific knowledge.
This course serves as preparation for a research project by students in the MSD-EBD or PhD programs. The students will learn how to develop, plan, and conduct experiments and will develop the tools to write research papers based on these experiments. During the semester, topical lectures and case-studies of novel work in architectural technology will be presented to the students by the instructor and guest lecturers. The research proposal developed during the course will be used as a basis for hands-on exercises in the lab portion.
This course will examine the ecological nature of design at a range of scales, from the most intimate aspects of product design to the largest infrastructures, from the use of water in bathroom to the flow of traffic on the highway. It is a first principle of ecological design that everything is connected, and that activities at one scale can have quite different effects at other scales, so the immediate goal of the course will be to identify useful and characteristic modes of analyzing the systematic, ecological nature of design work, from the concept of the ecological footprint to market share. The course will also draw on the history of and philosophy of technology to understand the particular intensity of contemporary society, which is now charachterized by the powerful concept of the complex, self-regulating system. The system has become both the dominant mode of explanation and the first principle of design and organization. The course will also draw on the history and philosophy of technology to understand the particular intensity of contemporary society, which is now characterized by the powerful concept of the complex, self-regulating system. The system has become both the dominant mode of explanation and the first principle of design and organization.