This is a Masters of Architecture Graduate Design 2 core studio at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
See full course syllabus here.  See Section syllabus here.  

Architecture is a synthetic process, bringing together disparate parts into a conceptual whole. The GD2 fall studio is an important point in our core studio sequence where pedagogies around the mimetic (professional standards and practice) and synthetic (through material experimentation, theory and conceptualization, critical representation), merge in our curriculum. 

This studio explores the conceptual framework of architectural design through a holistic integration of site, program, material, structure and the environment centered on the design of buildings. 


The challenges of a future facing complex and critical global issues such as climate change, social inequities, technological change and rapid urbanization increases the importance of engaging and assimilating diverse content at the scale of individual buildings, urban contexts and natural sites, and ecosystems. In response, our material understanding of buildings can expand beyond building tectonics to new design opportunities for the integration and expression of complex factors of program, site, energy performance as well as new methods of building construction. Social practices and cultural contexts are of critical importance as we, as architects, learn to see the energy and material flovws inherent in our various building practices. This calls for an architecture of empathy and openness, grounded in the processes of seeing, making/experimentation, and questioning. 

The GD2 fall studio emphasizes site-specific conceptual thinking to guide the synthesis of building components, systems (structural, mechanical), and materials through the design of a complex architectural project. An important part of the semester is mastering the balance between research, material exploration, and developing conceptual understandings of form and space that underpin human use concurrently with material economies. This foregrounds social activity (through program), circulation systems (including life safety codes and accessibility) and energy/environmental processes (site orientation, material, energy flows, material use) as primary drivers of form and materialization. Another objective of the GD2 fall studio is the development of the ability to establish and sustain an agenda for integration in the design of an architectural project and a specific response to a particular program and site. This synthesis through building design creatively engages less visible temporal processes and flows (social and environmental) as well as forces (structure and material) as part of the design process and expands our agendas and ambitions for our own creative practice.


architectural
ethnography
and the multiverse of urban infill




ARCHITECTURE:  “The physical enclosure that protects and supports human life and activity” (Momoyo Kaijima 2018)
ie, a building, assemblage of buildings, the space surrounding them, the city...

ETHNOGRAPHY: the representation of a society and culture of a group based on fieldwork.
tends to focus on daily life (not making large claims or assumptions, outcomes can be seemingly mundane or obvious) 

In an age of consumerism, digital experiences, and intellectualization, buildings are sold under single, normative narratives to the highest bidder - the intent of a building becoming more powerful than the impact. And, we live in a diverse world reckoning with climate change, desiring human connection, and seeking to uncover the realities of our present everyday. Normative systems are being challenged and many are looking for ways to design for plurality. Architecture participates in either maintaining, transitioning, or disrupting systems through its physical form of cultural production.  

Sited in a diverse neighborhood and constrained site, this urban infill studio will use architectural ethnography as a research and representational tool to critically evaluate the multiple perspectives (pl.) embedded in a design proposal. Students will analyze material forms against multiple variables of urban life and visually represent potential outcomes to determine the priorities of building. Variables such as:

HUMANS: local societal behaviors and assumptions (normative and non), interactions between people, individual relationships to space…
NATURAL ELEMENTS: basic physics, light, thermal, water, wind, climate, ecosystem, extraction...
PHYSICAL CONTEXT: buildings, streets, pathways, landscape...
TIME: minutes, hours, days, seasons, generations...


Architecture acts both within this active field of existing variables, as well as upon it; moderating, anticipating, and expanding relationships in the city through design. This studio contends that architects can play a larger role in shaping new ways of using space and designing for plurality. 



SEQUENCE AND LEARNING OBJECTIVES
First, two interconnected exercises in teams or pairs (4 weeks)

IMAGINATIVE STRUCTURES: evaluating abstract potentials.Using physical modeling and imaging this project aims to study structural and material assemblages and their speculative engagement with humans, natural elements, context, and time.
  • Develop generative hands on, material and structural ways of modeling
  • Thinking through iterative modeling and imaging to develop feedback loops that connect material, form, and space
  • Establish an interconnected workflow between modeling and imaging to link abstraction and representation
  • Develop an understanding of perceptual scale through imaging and figures    
  • Critically evaluate the representation of humans in constructed imagery
  • Establish a rigorous methodology for analyzing experimental outcomes and communicating decision-making and design prioritization.
 REAL BUILDINGS: re-presenting complexity.Through the dissection and reassemblage of existing local urban architectures, students will manage the complexity of built and functioning buildings while uncovering the impact(s) of the urban architecture. Focus will be around structure, material, space and form as it relates to the variables above.
  • Learn to read the complexity of materially existing and practically functioning architecture through construction documents and existing imagery.
  • Develop an understanding of the relationship between architectural representations and architecture experience through site visits
  • Establish an interconnected workflow between drawing, diagramming, and image manipulation that uncovers implicit architectural priorities and decision-making.
  • Work beyond description of the building, uncover relationships between architectural components and systems and generate design ideas.
  • Connect the scale of idea to the scale and level of detail in the drawing or diagram.

Then, integrated design building project (10 weeks)

URBAN INFILL ARCHITECTURE:
The design project is sited on one of the last vacant lots along Nicollet Ave. in Whittier, the most diverse neighborhood in Minneapolis. Based on a recent RFP from the Whittier Neighborhood Alliance, the program includes community gathering, office space, and alternative housing with a focus on affordability, sustainability, and accessibility - each term having a broad definition.
  • Establish an ethnographic workflow of studying the existing context and the proposed architectural intervention,
  • Link an ethnographic workflow to the mode and focus of representation (drawing, imaging, modeling loops).  
  • Develop a critical stance on the spatial and social organization of the program given.
  • Determine a conceptual agenda through an ethnographic lens.
  • Engage less visible, temporal processes and flows (social and environmental) as well as forces (structure and material) as a part of the design process.
  • Work collaboratively and iteratively with structural engineers in the development of an architectural idea and to understand the criteria used in determining systems.
  • Rigorously and specifically communicate design ideas to allow a visual understanding of the range of built and physical possibilities for the conceptual agenda.  Be willing to change and modify the design agenda as new priorities emerge through the design process.
  • Maintain clarity and complexity through the project.