Student will engage with faculty on selected topics in Architecture Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor

Independent research on topics selected by individual students in consultation with a faculty advisor

Independent Design Research Studio for 4th year students in their final year. Prerequisite: ARCH 4010 and ARCH 4100, permission of the chair.

Just as physics and math inform design, so can behavioral sciences, which offer rigorous and rapidly advancing insight into how people interact with their environments and with each other. This project-based course will expand students' design repertoires by connecting to psychology and related fields. This course is for "designers" broadly construed: those who wish to influence areas such as architecture, engineering, policy, and business.

This course takes a systems perspective to study and design for sustainability in the built environment at various scales (e.g., materials, buildings, cities, and regions) and for different types of systems (e.g., physical, social, information). Students from SEAS, A-School, and other majors are welcome in this course, which emphasizes interdisciplinary design collaboration and diversity of thought.

Which is the role of publications in the contemporary architectural debate & in a school of architecture? The seminar has the purpose of experimenting the critical edition of contents, reflect on the instruments & educate in the related skills. It will combine the research on themes & other publications, the presence of experts & the editorial staff meetings, & will include short exercises, the definition of an editorial line.

This course offers a foundation in understanding climate and energy in buildings and cities, and teaches the tools to parametrically analyze, model, visualize and design for energy impacts. Starting from real energy in real buildings through physical and data exploration, the course then teaches parametric tools to propose interventions and analyze for performance. The course is open to students in both Architecture and Engineering.

Combining tools, spaces, and skills of Arts Grounds, this course explores the design and construction of large moving creatures that culminates in The Stan Winston and Steven Warner Festival of the Moving Creature. Students will gain hands-on experience with materials, craft, and prototyping, and learn lessons from professional designers, artists, and Hollywood creature makers. This is a collaborative course, diving into storytelling and movement to bring each student's vision to life. Graduate students will have additional requirements.

This comprehensive introduction to grasshopper also covers the spatial inventions of current design practice through case studies and demonstrations. Ideas and techniques such as variables, fields, transformations, attraction, data structures, and conditional logic will be explored in the first half of the semester. Mesh structures, grasshopper fabrication, analytic methods, and workflow for studio projects are the focus of the final six week.

Worldwide urbanization processes will increase in the next years reaching a rate of 75% until the middle of the century. Shrinkage, stagnation and rapid growth will be simultaneous phenomena and to achieve urban sustainability it will be important to innovate analytical methods and urban design frameworks. Discussions, lectures, and readings in combination with an urban design group project will introduce students to contemporary urban design methodologies.