Elective courses available:

ARCH4020.01 / Bedford Seminar: Advanced Building Structures

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. Marchewka. Cr. 3. Taught with CIVL4020. Prerequisite: Arch2230 Structures 1.

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. Portelli. Cr 2. CASE in NYC.

CIVL4450.01 / 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. Pilla. Cr. 3. Prerequisites: CIVI- 2670 Introduction to Structural Engineering or ARCH equivalent.

ARCH4850.01 / Architectural 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. Cr 4.

ARCH4880.01 / Aural Architecture w/6890

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. Cr 2.

ARCH4936.80 / Research Investigations CASE

CASE Studies Students Only.

ARCH4951.01 / Hoops and Loops Hyper Stitch

In this seminar, we will explore crochet as a conceptual method of design and examine its topological traits as well as its ductility. We will introduce the technique of crochet as research and as a hands-on assignment simultaneously. The crochet stitch will be explored in its spatial and structural capacities and subsequently transformed to acquire radically new space-making and material qualities.” Baurmann. Cr. 2.

ARCH4960.01 / Building Envelopes

This course introduces students to the technical design of building enclosures. Students undertake an enclosure design project that evolves as the design intent is inflected by considerations of materiality, system typology, structural and environmental performance, and constructability. Through lectures, seminars, and workshops, students are introduced to the tools and methods of performance-based design, along with the technical documents and standards that define performance criteria. The execution of custom facades will be considered, along with the role of contract documents in ensuring a positive outcome that meets the design intent. Brainard. Cr. 2. Note Architecture student’s 4th and 5th year.

ARCH4962.01 / Structural Anatomy of Buildings

This course explores design and development of structural feasible complex, static and dynamic free forms in an interdisciplinary fashion. Efficiency of various topologies is of the special interest. The form finding investigation and the evaluation include, building physical models, use of laser scanner to generate computer models, use of computer simulation to refine models based on results of load-deformation tests and photo elastic observation. Various optimization techniques are explored to conceptually determine fragility of the form. This course is a based on new or continuous research projects and is open for explorations of specific students’ interests and is structured on team or individual work. The course at times involves field trips, international collaborators, and guest lecturers. Alongside Architecture, the course is open for students from other disciplines especially CEE, CS, MSE, BE, HASS, GAMING or others with permission of the instructor. Pilla. Cr. 2.

ARCH4963.01 / Latin American Studies

For Latin American Program students only. Crembil. Cr. 1.

ARCH4964.01 / Models of vs Models for

This course seeks to address the need to elevate the model building culture in the School. By engaging a series of techniques; additive, subtractive, casting, and assembly, with an emphasis on precision and craftsmanship, the seminar will build both model making skills and insight into the appropriate approach to select relative to the task at hand. Tooling and jig-making will be introduced as elements that both aid precision and save time. Students should expect to purchase tools and materials as part of the course. Krueger. Cr. 2.

ARCH4966.01 / The Man Next Door: A. Hitchcock and the Arch of Fear

This seminar explores 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), oppression and 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. Oatman. Cr. 2.

ARCH4967.01  / Atmospheric Attributes <> Principal Shapers of Space

Phenomena are observable events. They constitute the world ‘as we experience it’. And according to 18^th c. philosopher Kant, humans cannot know things-in-themselves, only things as we experience them. In the seminar will concern ourselves with the understanding of phenomena through the study of the work of artist Olafur Eliasson, and the development of Primary Source Experiential Research. Students will be expected to spend time at an appropriate site to actively record and evaluate aspects of the experience. Sites should be selected based on the availability of sensory, visual, or other experience. The seminar aims to expand the relevance of a phenomenological approach to architecture and furthermore examine and address the physiological aspects of perception as the principal shapers of space. For that we will give a close look at the elements that contribute to build architectural atmospheres (material/form/textures/ flight /color /pattern/ Air/ Sound / humidity [temperature) and how these collection of sensorial attributes that the space radiates affects the human experience. Student research emphasis is on experimentation and inquire from were an atmospheric attribute design concept rooted in experience could be constructed. Evaluations will be made based on class participation and the quality of the final project. Vetcher. Cr 2.

ARCH4968.01 / Contemporary Ceramic Assemblies

This seminar will involve the design and construction of a ceramic assembly, using the SOA Deltabot 5500 ml ceramic extruder and the ceramics lab to 3d print using clay. Students interested in developing ceramic finishes, prototypes or architectural assemblies in their studio project are strongly encouraged to enroll. The seminar will be run as a lab to investigate and test forms of production using clay and glaze. The course will provide each student with an opportunity to study and produce prototypes and develop methods for adapting designs to the limitations of the clay. A considerable portion of this course involves the testing of the workflow necessary to leverage the extruder’s capabilities or the limits of mold making. Developing a high level of craft through making tests will be a priority. This course provides a platform, to execute and deploy architectural & engineering principles. It will be conducted as a seminar and workshop and will introduce students to a variety of design methodologies that are unique to ceramic design. The course will engage in many of the considerations that are affiliated with CAD/CAM production; digital modeling, efficient use of materials, material methods, mold making and optimization. Russo. Cr. 2.

ARCH4969.01  / The Arch of the Screen: Relationships Between Film/Arch

While architecture is one of the oldest forms of cultural expression, film, by comparison is one of the youngest. Although seemingly at odds with one another, due to the physicality of architecture, and the image based condition of film, architecture has learned a great deal from the expressive capacities of film. In this seminar we will study the manner in which certain filmmakers have captured the physical environment in dynamic and provocative ways. Anthony Titus.  Cr. 2.

LGHT6760/4760.01 / Lighting Workshop

The Lighting Workshop is a research and design studio integrating scholarship, technology, design, policy, and communication in an intensive, project specific context. The course includes a number of topics, selected each year by faculty. These topics are selected to emphasize scholarship; require a variety of written and verbal presentation techniques; increase synthesizing skills in design, applications, and visualization software; and require teamwork and individual efforts. The Lighting Workshop emphasizes studio and seminar work supplemented with lecture, class discussions, and individual and group research, design, writing, and reading assignments. Narendran.  Cr. 4.

LGHT6770/4870.01 / Light and Health

This course will explore the effects of light and lighting on people’s physical and psychological health and well-being. Lectures will focus on the physiology of the visual and circadian systems, the relationship between lighting and visual performance and circadian photobiology, including the relationship between lighting and Alzheimer’s disease, sleep disorder, alertness, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and breast cancer. The course will conclude with a research project studying the interaction of light and human health in the built environment. Students will learn to apply their newly acquired knowledge of the health effects of light to lighting design and application. Figueiro.  Cr. 4.

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