Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 2 hours / session
Description
This course is an intensive introduction to the disciplines that impact the reciprocity between drawing and making in architectural design process, learned primarily through a series of weekly or bi-weekly exercises. The pedagogical aim of the course is two-fold.
First, the exercises, lectures and workshops are designed to impart specific skills associated with the generation and representation of designed objects. These skills range from techniques of hand drafting, to generation of 3D computer models, physical model building, sketching, diagramming, and computing. The conceptual basis of each exercise is in the interrogation of the geometric principles that lie at the core of each technique, thus ‘generalizing’ the specific technique in order to display its wider generative possibilities. This process will also serve to exhibit the biases inherent in all drawing techniques as well as their relationships to their methods of making. These exercises establish a relationship with studio, and anticipate the instruments necessary to approach studio design problems.
Second, the weekly lectures and pin-ups address the conventions associated with various modes of architectural representation, and their capacity to convey ideas. Instances of representation throughout the history of architecture will illustrate the relationship between specific techniques and the kind of architecture they engender. Pin-ups will address the entire range of issues associated with presenting architecture through drawings, including conceptual clarity, presentation manner, legibility, and the like.
Exercises will require 3–8 hours of work (outside class meeting times) each week to adequately complete. This course is conceived to serve design studio rather than interferes with it; therefore students should not exceed 8 hours of work per week on the exercises. In general, lectures and assignment presentations will occur on Thursdays, with pin-ups and workshops on Tuesdays. Attendance at all class meetings is mandatory. Most importantly, be respectful and engaged during fellow students’ pin-ups.
Prerequisites
Because this course is offered to first-year Master of Architecture students, all participants are expected to have a fundamental understanding of design principles as well as a substantial skill set in both computer and physical modeling.
Required Resources
Students will be asked to employ various techniques in modeling and representation. A variety of tools and software are available for the design process, and it is up to the student to elect which is most applicable.
As a general rule, however, students will find themselves using Rhinoceros® for computer-modeling, and V-Ray for renderings.
