ART1831: Architectural Design Process

Abstract

Explore the process of architectural design through a series of increasingly complex discoveries of how spaces are made. The focus will be on the development of the visual and verbal skills needed to approach conceptual and three-dimensional problem solving intelligently. Students will begin to understand basic design skills as well as develop a vocabulary for expressing their intentions.¶ The course will employ a dual approach: analysis and synthesis. Beginning with analysis of specific buildings from the canon of twentieth-century architecture, students will learn how the designer applied a vocabulary of visual concepts to built form. They will explore and enrich their understanding of the buildings by drawing them and producing a series of abstract diagrams clarifying the intentions of the designer.¶ The second segment of the dual approach will address synthetic skills. Through a three-week sketch problem, students will design a work area for themselves or for a key figure in the history of western culture. This assignment will provide the opportunity for more detailed study at a smaller scale, before approaching the more complex design of the final project. The final project, the design of a chapel, will ask students to apply the design concepts considered in the previous assignments to a real setting with pragmatic constraints.¶ Class time will include the introduction of projects and the review of desk work. At the end of each project there will be a presentation.