Elective Courses available:

ARCH4020/CIVIL4020 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. Holger Schulze-Ehring W 12-2 pm. Cr. 3. Taught with CIVL4020. Prerequisite: Arch2230 Structures 1. 

ARCH4170.80 / Environmental Parametrics w/6380.80

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. Taught at CASE NYC.

ARCH4580.80 / Materials Systems & Productions w/6340.80

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

ARCH4750.01 / Sustainable Building Design Metrics (2018)

A review of current and anticipated metrics associated with sustainable building design will be reviewed as well as construction practices in the building industry will be discussed. We will review how sustainable design practices can mitigate the climate change in a positive way. An understanding of energy terminology is useful for this course. Lectures, discussions, field trips and assigned reading will be utilized to explore the subject matter. Holmes. M 6-8 pm. Cr. 2

ARCH4840.01 / Architectural Acoustics 1

Providing an overview of the essentials for architectural acoustics design of performance and public spaces, including concert halls, theaters, museums, classrooms, sports arenas, courtrooms, and religious buildings. The course may be used as a concentration in an architecture student’s professional electives, or the beginning of a master’s degree in acoustics. Covering basic principles of sound, room acoustics, sound absorption in rooms, sound isolation and privacy, acoustics of mechanical systems, and sound quality. After Architecture Acoustics 1 & 2, students should be prepared for a basic entry-level position in either acoustics in architecture, or in acoustical consulting. Todd Brooks F 2 – 5:50 pm. Cr 4. (can be used towards a minor in Acoustics).

ARCH4961.01 / Veil and Beam: Architectures of Espionage in Cinema

Emerging from the literature of James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Spy” (1821) and Robert Erskine Childers’ “The Riddle of the Sands” (1903) came a lively and secretive cinema – of espionage. From “Spies” (Lang, 1928) to much of Hitchcock’s oeuvre, the genre has made for an inexhaustible set of spaces, plot devices and syntactic layers that restrict viewers, thrill them and construct the visual forms of our greatest personal phobias, social anxieties and conspiracy theories. “Veil and Beam” will examine the architectural and technical aspects of spy cinema, the (often) political agendas of the filmmakers, and provide a close-viewing of the observer ‘observing’ (and being observed). The films studied have a specific relationship to architecture and include The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 and 1956, Hitchcock); The Third Man (1949, Reed); 5 Fingers (1952, Mankiewicz); North by Northwest (1959, Hitchcock); Dr. No (1962, Young); The Conversation (1974, Coppola); Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1980, BBC; and 2011, Alfredson); and a recent masterpiece, The Lives of Others (2006, von Donnersmarck). Michael Oatman. M 7 – 9:50 pm. Cr. 2.

ARCH4963.01 Contemporary Ceramic Assemblies

This course provides a platform, in the form of ceramics, to execute and deploy digital design, material and engineering principles at full scale using the SOA clay printer, and kiln. Instruction will be conducted as a seminar and workshop and will introduce design methodologies that are unique to ceramic processes through the process of designing a ceramic assembly. Rhett Russo. R 10 – 11:50. Cr. 2. 

ARCH4964.01 / Projecting Light

The relationship between light, projective geometry and drawing existed since antiquity. Different aspects of light are examined in mini-labs through their literary origins parallel to physical and optical explorations with light. The concluding project is a light construction that explores a thesis about projection in physical form. Yael Erel. T 10 – 11:50. Cr. 2. 

ARCH4965.01 / Sculpting the Intangible: The Phenomenological Experience in Architecture

Light and materiality, 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. This seminar intends to refine our ways of seeing by examining different artifacts, buildings, and expressions that engage with the phenomenological. Elena Perez-Guembe. R 12 – 1:50. Cr. 2. 

ARCH4966.01 / Portfolio Development

The portfolio is a critical document standing on it’s own as both a representation of an architect’s (or graduating architect’s) body of work as well as a projection of the depth and breath of it’s authors imagination. More often than not you will depend on the impact and clarity of your portfolio as the primary vehicle for gaining future opportunities, whether in a top tier design office, an academic institution or when applying for commissions. Many of these opportunities are evaluated on the portfolio alone with no space for leveraging the public presentation skills of a seasoned graduating architecture student. More than a mere collection of projects, the portfolio demands a finely crafted set of editorial strategies that encompasses an array of visual representation skills, editorial skills, graphic design, book design and the subtle art of persuasion through non-verbal communication. This seminar requires you to reassess your work and develop a global editorial strategy where you position your entire body of work in the framework of an architectural thesis. Drawings will be remade, renderings will be reworked and regenerated, layouts scrutinized and the conceptual underpinnings of any given project will be interrogated for it’s value and contribution to the larger narrative you will create around your work. The course will not seek to develop a complete portfolio, rather to identify a top level editorial approach and layout in connection with an in depth reassessment and representation of a number of projects. This process will allow you to develop the editorial approach of your portfolio and to clarify the expectations of each page, each project, through the in-depth reassessment of individual projects. Lonn Combs. R 12 – 1:50 pm. Cr. 2.

ARCH4968.01 / Nature & Architecture in the Times of Digital Reality Consequences and Hopes

“Transformation of information, not energy, is the fundamental building block of the universe.” (Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics 1949)
“Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information” (Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden 1995)
We are walking already “in the digital age of biology in which the once distinct domains of computer codes and those that program life are beginning to merge, where new synergies are emerging that will drive evolution in radical directions.” (Craig Venter, Life with Speed of Light 2013)
In this seminar we will study the new frontiers of architecture of the future. Zbigniew Oksiuta. M 12 – 1:50. Cr. 2

ARCH4969.01 / Upfolding Topology

This course will explore materially optimized strategies for bringing freeform surfaces into reality using computational design tools, digitization strategies, and robotics.  The seminar will provide an overview of conventional digital fabrication methods, and introduce students to robotic fabrication through projects which engage a variety of scales and materials. Ryan Luke Johns. M 10 – 12. Cr. 2.

ARCH4971.01 Indefinite Form

‘Indefinite Form’ explores the relationship between flat murals and built form. In this class we will look at graffiti and objects with delineated volumes and transform these into flattened instruments through digital manipulation and techniques of digital sculpting. These instruments will maintain the allure of their volumetric counterparts with the use of slicing, layering and an image projection (flatbed printing). Throughout the course of the seminar we will investigate graphics, representation and fabrication techniques, through the configuration of an architectural form. William Virgil. M 12 – 2. Cr. 2.

LGHT4230.01 / Lighting Design

A design studio that explores the roles of light in architecture and its application by design. Students conceive, evaluate, and synthesize solutions that contribute to successful lighting and architectural design. Russ Leslie. TF 2–4:50 pm. Cr 4. (Recommended for 4th and 5th year architecture undergraduate students – also can be used towards a minor in Lighting).

LGHT4770.01 / Lighting Technology and Applications

This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of the components of advanced lighting systems and enables them to critically explore applications of those components. Through lectures, readings, assignments, and application projects, students acquire working knowledge of the relevant products and techniques for lighting application and develop solutions to lighting problems. Students will undertake practical applications of advanced lighting technologies and develop skills in the application of photometric data, use of manual and computer-based lighting calculations, and the development of lighting specifications. TF10–11:50 am. LRC Gurley Bldg. Cr 4.

LGHT4840.01 / Human Factors in Lighting

An introduction to lighting and human factors, including classical literature and contemporary studies and development of skills needed to conduct and evaluate human factors research. Fall term annually. Mariana Figueiro. MR 10–11:50 am. Cr 4. (Recommended for 4th and 5th year architecture undergraduate students – also can be used towards a minor in Lighting).

LGHT6830.01 / The Physics of Light (w/4830)

A comprehensive overview of the physics of light and its applications for lighting. The course uses a variety of instructional methodologies, including lectures, laboratory sessions, hands-on experimentation, and individual student projects and presentations to cover various areas of lighting study. Topics include geometric optics, physical optics, lighting calculations and measures, spectroradiometry, measurement techniques for advanced light sources, radiometry, and photometry. Nadarajh Narendran. TF 10-11:50 am. Cr 4. (Undergraduates must receive permission of instructor).

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