1.0 Course Description

This studio will investigate the prospect for middle class sustainability from a historical perspective.

By "middle class sustainability" I mean a set of living habits that are consistent with both contemporary middle class social values and the environmental conditions and forces found in the place where those habits are practiced. In this case we will be proposing a series of projects for Point Arena-a small town in northern California with an economy historically based on sheep ranching and timber extraction, but now facing the threat of suburban development. Sustainability as a design attitude has been most frequently applied to design for clients at either end of the economic spectrum. The rich can be receptive to sustainable design principles because they have the education and expendable income to experiment with more satisfying ways of living. The poor can be receptive to sustainable design principles because they can't afford to waste resources. The American middle class, however, tends to be skeptical of experimentation and generally satisfied with consumption of their hard earned resources. Simply put, sustainability is a concept, or discourse, that is not very attractive to them. The disparity of class-related interest in sustainability is significant because the vast majority of the built environment is designed by or for middle class citizens.

To investigate this problem from a "historical perspective" requires that we learn something about the social and natural history of Point Arena, but also something about the Sea Ranch-a much praised development about 30 miles to the south of Point Arena designed by landscape architect Larry Halprin in collaboration with architects Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, William Turnbull, and Tom Whitaker in the 1960s. The Sea Ranch received multiple design awards at the time of its construction and was awarded the AIA's 25 Year Award in the early 1990s in recognition of its proto-sustainable design innovations and its enduring value to design culture. As successful as the Sea Ranch has been, however, the project has been heavily criticized by some environmentalists and the designers themselves. In this context the Sea Ranch offers important lessons to the studio.

As a whole, the studio is conceived as a series of four design problems, each of which will begin with a research phase to gather the data required to solve social and environmental problems. The first three problems are best understood as the historical and sustainable development of a single site. The final problem, "synthesis," will provide you with the opportunity to reflect upon the development of your own design thinking.

problem 1:	problem 2:	problem 3:	problem 4:
enclosure	farm	urban ecology	synthesis

And just as there are four related problems to solve, the studio will focus upon four media to articulate your proposals: pencil drawing, physical modeling, digital modeling, and written narrative. Each of the four projects must be "rendered" in each of the four media.