Please see here the list of elective courses available for next semester:

SPRING 2015.

ARCH4020 Bedford Sem: Advanced Building Structures (Civil)

This interdisciplinary seminar consists of students from both the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering department. Presentation of a variety of structural typologies bears direct relation to practical experience and the necessity for constructive interdisciplinary discourse. Specific structural typologies are examined through historic and contemporary project examples that are critically deconstructed and critically analyzed with respect to their basic engineering principles and architectural concepts. Students will be exposed to the collaborative methods inherent within the architect/engineer relationship. The course consists of lectures concerning each topic, case studies and presentations of relevant projects, an interdisciplinary design project and discussion of the projects and presentations with respect to interdisciplinary discourse. Content and delivery may vary by instructor. Wilfred Laufs. R 6-8:50 pm. Cr. 3. Taught with CIVL4020. Prerequisite: Arch2230 Structures 1.

ARCH4070 Twisted Siblings: Relationship Between Cont Paint

Architecture and Painting are two of the oldest forms of societal expression and have been historically linked in complex and dynamic ways. In the 20th century, the movements of Cubism, Futurism, Neo-Plasticism, Constructivism, Purism, Surrealism and Dadaism consisted of dynamic dialogs between architecture and painting. These exchanges allowed each to have a profound and deep impact upon the other. By contrast, in early 21st century, there seems to be all but a mute relationship between the two. This course intends to help break that silence. This course will begin to bridge the divide by establishing new connections between the current preoccupations with materials, procedures and affects that are emerging in both, contemporary painting and architecture. Twisted Siblings seeks to explore and discover new relationships between the most cutting-edge digital technologies and how painting may influence the expressive capacities of these technologies. As contemporary painting and architecture seek to establish future directions, a new dialog and exchange of ideas should be emerging, to ensure a dynamic and radical future for both. The course will consist of a series of lectures, discussions and presentations. Students will be expected to research a number of individual architects, painters and writers who are producing work of related interest. Students will be responsible for completing a research project, which synthesizes the content of the course. Anthony Titus, R 10-12 Cr. 2

ARCH4170.80 Environmental Parametrics

The work of this course sets out to describe the meaning, values, and methods of using parametric techniques as both an analytical tool and a generative device in comprehensive performance-based building design.  The students learn techniques to set-up feedback between analysis and tactical response in performance-based design while also situating these techniques within the broader discourse and methodology of fostering design ecologies and creating ecologies of design as they relate to the construction of the built environment and contemporary issues of sustainability. Demetrios Comodromos. Cr 2. CASE in NYC.

ARCH4340 Structural Morphology

This is a research-based course that examines the structural behavior of various complex systems and complex forms in the context of their performance. Innovative and emerging structural topologies are of special interest. A form-finding investigation and exploration will include computer evaluation, load testing of physical models, and laser scanning of the geometry to feed back into the computer models. In addition, the course will address fragility and robustness estimates. This work is individual or a group research project that may continue work from previous years. The course will also allow for architectural and structural explorations driven by specific student interests. Ivan Markov. W 10-12.Cr.2

ARCH4580.80 Materials Systems & Prod

The goal of Material Systems and Production is threefold: to develop a fundamental understanding of materials through first principles, classification, production, and impacts, to develop models for material properties and testing, and to develop criteria to make reasoned choices for the implementation of materials in the built environment. Students will engage directed research projects with the intent of opportunistically identifying intrinsic material properties, exploiting production-forming logics and developing a prototype detail assembly for testing. Staff. Cr. 2. CASE NYC

ARCH4730 Sustainable Building Design Strategies

This course addresses an exploration of design strategies that produce environmentally responsible buildings. A review of the principles for a variety of green strategies will be presented. Case studies will be employed to demonstrate best practices in the design integration of green strategies. The material covered can be incorporated into a studio design development course. Oliver Holmes. T 8-10 pm. Cr 2.

ARCH4850 Architecture Acoustics 2

In the spring semester, students will have the opportunity to design their own performance hall. This process will include continued studies of acoustics measurements, simulated sound fields, community noise issues, and professional practice in acoustics consulting. The course will also have detailed lectures on concert hall acoustics, sound quality, and synthesized sound fields. Students will be introduced to a variety of simulation software and measurement equipment in the Acoustics research Laboratory. After both Architectural Acoustics 1 and 2, the student should be prepared for a basic entry-level position in either acoustics in architecture or in acoustical consulting. Prerequisite: ARCH4840 or instructor approval. Todd Brooks. F 10–1:50 pm.  Cr 4.

ARCH4931.01 The Man Next Door: A. Hitchcock + the Arch of Fear

This seminar will explore the cinema of Alfred Hitchcock via the urban condition.  The narrative structures of Hitchcock’s films often move the characters from pastoral settings to urban contexts, and vice versa.  These allegories track naive or innocent characters as they move into self-awareness, a transition always reflected in the costumes, music, lighting, editing and direction.  Famously averse to shooting on location, Hitchcock invented and refined techniques for controlling shifts in scale, perspective and space – all part of his reliance on the studio for a kind of ‘world building’.  For example, as a way to save on location costs, Hitchcock developed back-lit film transparencies at the scale of architecture. His techniques of sonic and visual abstraction, defamiliarization, continuous takes, color saturation and disorienting perspectives all have analogs in the operations of the modern city.  His themes of voyeurism, doubling, mistaken identity and paranoia are hallmarks of the modern human condition.  He made the first film to address psychoanalysis as a subject (Spellbound, 1945), shot an entire film on one set (Lifeboat, 1944), and his dark comedy Frenzy (1972) looked at the urban phenomenon of serial murder. From the 39 Steps to Rear Window to Psycho, Hitchcock torqued the city grid as a symbol for both freedom (anonymity) and oppression (chaos). The Master of Suspense has also been seen as a misogynist, sadist, humorist and cultural critic. We will critically engage his works via screenings, writing and our own attempts at storyboarding and set design. Michael Oatman. M 7–9:20 pm.  Cr 2.

ARCH4936.80 Research Investigations

CASE Studies Students Only.

ARCH4960.01 Self-Organizing Spaces

The subject of the seminar will be a discussion about increasing materialism of the last years, which draws attention to the creativity of matter. More and more we see that matter is full of creative energy and capable of incredible self-organizing solutions. Does this mean that the position of the architect-creator is moving towards the direction of the architect-researcher who understands himself, or herself as a modest, but well prepared observer, who creates conditions that allow the matter to flourish? What implications, for our profession, will these changes have? Zbigniew Oksiuta. W 10 – 12. Cr 2.

ARCH4961.01 Research Seminar in Universal Design

This seminar investigates the application of sensor, effector, processing, and communications technologies relative to the design of residential spaces for individuals of mixed physical abilities and for aging in place. We will coordinate with local medical experts and focus on home health care. The seminar will be both informative and speculative, individually proposing transformations to normative environments and collectively producing a schematic design for a prototype residence that incorporates the various ideas generated. Ted Krueger. W 10 – 12. Cr. 2

ARCH4962.01 Sculpting the Intangible

Architecture mediates our body with the environment. It describes the way we understand our position in the world and how we perform within it. Light, intrinsically attached to the spatial experience, is able to affect, transform and stimulate not only our visual, but our mental and even bodily perception of things. As designers, we must understand the specificities of a given ambience, its affects and mechanisms to cultivate a formal precision necessary to reproduce concrete experiences that we might be looking for. How can we use light, an intangible matter, as building material? How color, form and texture affect the ways light is diffused, reflected or aggregated? In other words, how they condition its different manifestations? What are the effects and the effects of the absence of light, shadow or twilight? This seminar intends to refine our ways of seeing and test these new observations through making. It is not about the use and interpretation of light through architectural history. It is about the study of light as a device that transforms or even generates space. It engages with the phenomenological and will compare different artifacts, buildings, and expressions that give an answer to similar questions with independence of the time and location they were created. We will study these different forms of light and their implicit meanings; their capacity to create different illusions, rhythms and relations. The seminar will conclude with “the city of the stars”; light studies of an artifact designed by you that could be used to further inform your studio design work. Elena Perez-Guembe. R 10 – 12 pm. Cr. 2.

ARCH4965.01 Latin America Architecture

This seminar will explore current developments in Latin American architecture and urbanism within a research matrix connecting issues such as domestic and public space, hybridity, nature, informality, migration, and history. Canonical and recent projects, and main tendencies will be identify, analyzed and discussed in relation to their own architectural tradition as well to current global trends. Pre- requisites: ARCH-2140 (required), ARCH-4140 (recommended). Gustavo Crembil, W 10 – 12:00 pm. Cr.2.

ARCH4965.70 Indian Discovery

India has a wealth of unique spatial conditions that occur at every scale from individual buildings, to building complexes, to urban conditions, to landscape phenomena. Historically and contemporarily many of these are rooted in the sui generis religious and metaphysical traditions indigenous to India. Others have been brought to India by outsiders but have nevertheless been affected by the sensibilities implicit to Indian culture and civilization. Through first-hand experiences in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and other locales throughout India, students will explore through writing, sketching, and drawing the essential characters of India’s spatial diversity. David Bell. Cr.4.India Program Students only.

ARCH4974.70 The Culture and Civilization of India

India Studies Students only.  David Bell. No Professional Elective. Cr 2.

ARCH4976.70 Topics in Architecture

Using the ATMA Building in Ahmedabad India as a test case, this course will examine the phenomenon of what Le Corbusier called “ineffable space”. In pursuing this quality of architectural space in Le Corbusier’s work in general and in the ATMA Building specifically, students will examine not only Le Corbusier’s architecture but also his various drawings, paintings, and other creative works.  Students will produce written responses to issues posed in various writings by and about Le Corbusier and analytical as well as conjectural drawings related to le Corbusier’s architecture. Outside of France and Switzerland, India has the largest number of architectural works by the 20th century master. Four of them are in the city of Ahmedabad. David Bell. Cr.2

ARCH4970.70 Architecture & the Urban Condition in India

CEPT faculty and David Bell (India Program students only) TBA Cr 2.

ARCH6110 Design  Explorations 1

Case studies – Investigations into architectural knowledge using case study methods. Selective architectural works will be deconstructed are analyzed in order to uncover the knowledge invested in them. Case studies will be Individual buildings are subjected to modes of inquiry that will reveal their deep content from conception to realization, including the mental frameworks of the designers, The methods of representation, the technological knowledge employed, the methods of production, and the ingrained cultural values. Students to develop methods of inquiry that will enable them to pursue similar investigations of any architectural work. Lonn Combs. MR 12-1:50 pm. Cr 4.

ARCH6330.80 Built Ecologies 2

In this seminar, students develop and analyze an ecologically sensitive built system related to their thesis topic with particular attention to the architectural, social, and political implications of the work and their inter-relationships. An awareness of the political and economic forces that are instrumental in the development of contemporary built ecologies creates opportunities for innovation in the cultures of making. (Taught at CASE in NYC)  Cr 3.

ARCH6890 Aural Architecture

In this course, design processes in architectural acoustics will be studied from a psychoacoustical perspective. Different concepts to create physical and virtual acoustic spaces will be discussed based on perceptual design goals. Topics include ecological psychoacoustics, sound quality, auditory virtual environments, and auditory computational modeling. Jonas Braasch. T 1- 3:50 pm.  Cr 2.

CIVL4450 Conceptual Structures Systems

This course covers concept of structural systems. The course is aimed to understanding of behavior of different structural systems and how they respond to various loading conditions. The concept of load transfer, shaping and form finding is of particular interest. This concept is reinforced through analytical, digital, and physical modeling intended to foster intuitive thinking. The course includes the following: approximate analyses of statically indeterminate beams, rigid frames, and vierendeel frames; cable suspended structures, arch supported structures; masonry structures, space frame and folded plate structures; spherical, cylindrical, and hyperbolic shells; net and tent structures; air-supported and air-inflated structures, and hybrid structural systems. The course includes guest lectures, project, and testing of physical models.  Ivan Markov.  MR 10:00 – 12:00. Cr. 3. Prerequisites:  CIVL 2670 Introduction to Structural Engineering or ARCH equivalent.

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