DESIGN STUDIO
Required design studios within the Master of Architecture comprise the following:
ARCH 500: Elements of Architectural Design
ARCH 501 Advanced Vertical Design Studio
ARCH 520: Advanced Vertical Design Studio
ARCH 521: Comprehensive Housing Studio
ARCH 540: Advanced Vertical Design Studio
An advanced vertical design studio in Architectural Design Abroad, ARCH 539, is available alternate years over the Fall term as budget and faculty availability permits.
ARCH 500 ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
The first term design studio enrolls students with diverse academic
backgrounds; this is understood to be one of the great strengths of
graduate level architectural education. The required studio is an
introduction to a discipline that is both extremely specific in its
practical application and material resolution, and quite broad in its
inevitable engagement with the borders of other political and cultural
discourses. The curriculum of the term is comprised of four design
projects at different scales. These projects focus on conceptual
development, design synthesis, principles of typology, organization and
representation. Requirements and modes of representation vary both
among the projects and within the design process of individual
problems. It is intended that a range of approaches, increasing in
complexity throughout the term, acquaint the student with the
fundamental conventions of architectural design and the extent to
which these conventions themselves hold the keys to meaningful
invention.
ARCH 501, 520, 540 ADVANCED VERTICAL DESIGN STUDIOS
Vertical studios generally reflect faculty interests. Projects engaged with immediate urban planning concerns co-exist alongside discreet building programs alongside projects that are more theoretical in their undertaking. Through the selection of a sequence of design studios, students have the opportunity to construct a significant portion of their own curriculum. As such, it is the student’s responsibility to simultaneously address the need for a breadth of experience appropriate to an accredited degree program while acknowledging the need for developing select and particular skills demanded by contemporary culture.
Vertical Studio offerings:
Fall 2011:
In Context. JGates
Reality Shortage. MSoules
Exhibit A. MLewis
The Haptic City. RBayer
Shoreline and Drift. CMacdonald
Burkina Faso Reload. JDahmen | DRoehr
Urban Acupuncture. IRoecker
Spring 2011:
Concepts in Form and Energy. JDahmen
Fall 2010:
heavy studio 2010. BPechet
ROBOstudio: SENIORrobo. AMeyboom / JWojtowicz
Exploring Space. TRobins with JEidse
Central Broadway Corridor. MFujita
Spring 2010:
vds.MONDANEUM. JWojtowicz
Value+ Studio. IRoecker
The Future UnReal Condition. MHalverson, IRMcDonald
Fall 2009:
The Making of Space 2. PPatkau
City Limits. CMin, TWai
House [Home] City. AVaughan
Area 10. JVorbrodt
ROBOstudio. JWojtowicz
Spring 2009:
Weather Register. CMacdonald
Housing Urbanism. Architecture as a Social Art. IRoecker
Fall 2008:
The Urban Corridor: Armature for Sustainable Urbanism. Collaborative Design Studio. CMacdonald, PCondon
The Making of Space. PPatkau
vdsGLOCAL. JWojtowicz
ARCH 521 COMPREHENSIVE BUILDING STUDIO | HIGH DENSITY HOUSING VANCOUVER
Spring 2012
ARCH 539: ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN ABROAD
Fall 2010
Tokyo. GWagner
HISTORICAL DESIGN CURRICULM REQUIREMENTS:
ARCH 501 | A CULTURE OF MAKING
The Culture of Making studio was a component of the design curriculum Spring 2008 through Spring 2011, following Arch 500 as the second required design studio. The studio introduced key issues of material culture in architecture while
suggesting the rich fields of disciplinary and interdisciplinary
inquiry that such issues engage.
More specifically, the studio introduced students to the essential and
formative contribution that structural and material issues bring to an
understanding of architecture while more broadly, grounding the term’s work in the understanding that the varied cultures of construction
have direct implication on subsequent cultures of inhabitation.
Recognizing that the discipline of architecture is both expansive in
its cultural engagements while highly specific in its material
resolution, the studio addressed such breadth of purpose via focused enquiries regarding scale, force, material property, geometry,
assembly, and manufacturing process. Concurrently, students were introduced to appropriate digital fabrication tools as an integral component
of project investigation.
It was intended that the range of project types acquainted students
with the extent to which issues of construction contributed to both
enduring value and meaningful invention in the discipline. While it is
evident that architectural ideas and experience depend on material
realization, this studio suggested that, from a different perspective,
it is possible to understand material enquiry as truly generative. It
is not evident that material organization depends on a priori
conceptualization in architecture. It might just as well be true that
material enquiry fosters the experiential and the conceptual.
ARCH 520|21|40: COMPREHENSIVE HOUSING AND PUBLIC BUILDING VERTICAL STUDIOS
“An approach to differentiating between cultures is to compare and contrast their technologies. Cultural technologies are especially prevalent in architecture. ‘Show me your house, and I’ll tell you the nature of your soul.’”
Transsolar: Climate Engineering. Anja Thierfelder, Ed.
The Comprehensive Housing and Comprehensive Public Building vertical studios were a required component of the studio curriculum for those admitted Fall 2010.
It was the intention of the these two vertical studios [CHPB] , together with the Culture of Making studio, to provide learning contexts that offered students an opportunity to exercise quite specific critical agendas with a high level of building design resolution.
The expected outcome of a CHPB studio was not a broad generalization of accomplishment, but rather the demonstration of an ability to probe deeply within contained topics and articulate their rich synthesis through varied scales of design. Upon completion of their vertical studio sequence, students would have explored this process in the context of a comprehensive housing and a public building design studio.
The CHPB studios included a focus on those essentially immaterial forces that nevertheless have significant consequence upon formulation and resolution of the architectural project. These would include the various constituents of the natural environment - forces of air movement, climate, and light, for instance - but simultaneously refer to the various constituents that characterize our contemporary culture - scientific and artistic ideas, economic, social and political forces, for instance.
Since the CHPB studios are to produce comprehensive work at the scale of buildings, immaterial facts, scientific and artistic ideas, and socioeconomic forces are to be embedded in the spatial, technical and material organization of buildings. Students are expected to produce projects that are well resolved at a minimum of three distinct and appropriate scales, represented in well-crafted drawings and models.
The Comprehensive Public Building Studios and Comprehensive Housing Studios were introduced into the design curriculum beginning the Fall of 2010.
Comprehensive Housing Studio offerings:
Spring 2011
trans_par'_en_cies2. MLewis
dens_city. spatial operations for alternate models of housing. JGates
Comprehensive Public Building offerings:
trans_par'_en_cies2. MLewis
The Library of Los Angeles. MSoules
Fall 2010
I-House: Comprehensive Renewal. CMacdonald
ARCH 520|21|40: ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIO
The Environmental Studio [E-Studio] was a required component of the design curriculum for those admitted 2007, 2008 and 2009. The E-Studio promoted a comprehensive understanding of environmental aspects of building design together with an in-depth resolution of one or more key technical concerns arising from such an understanding.
E-Studio offerings:
Spring 2010:
Peak Water. JBass
Fall 2009:
Sustainable Pleasures. BPechet
Minimum/Maximum. MSoules
Spring 2009:
WestVanMAAD+. JWojtowicz, NLegate
Fall 2008:
EcoDensity. BPechet
Zoodio. MFujita