ARC 310L
Design II: First Year Design Studio

Lance Tatum

This course is intended to address the fundamental elements of BUILDING DESIGN in urban contexts along with relevant issues focusing on ³The making of architecture² as well as value judgements in the design process. The course will place a great deal of emphasis on skill and knowledge foundations necessary for designing more complex buildings and urban settings in courses following this semester, hence the vehicles for the content of the course will be a series of small-scale architectural projects of varying scope and length which will attempt to synthesize graphic/model and written/verbal skills in an intense studio setting with HIGH EXPECTATIONS for DESIGN EXCELLENCE !

The criteria for evaluation of student projects will be based on performance in areas of PROJECT ANALYSIS,CREATIVITY, DESIGN SKILL, COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS and WORK CAPACITY. All work will be expected to be done in the studio and work done outside the studio will not generally be accepted for credit in this course. Studio and lecture attendance as well as attendance at reviews is mandatory and three unexcused absences unrelated to course work will result in the grade of F in the course. One of the most important elements of the design process covered in this course will be the understanding of COMMITMENT to the design process. All projects and exercises issued will be intensely supported with slides, visual material, demonstrations and field trips whenever possible as well as work which will be required of each student in the library involving a required reading list assigned per specific project. A general reading list is provided here at the beginning of the studio semester and specific reading requirements will be issued along with each assigned project.

A fundamental platform for the course which will be stressed is that architecture is a state of HIGH ART which is intrinsically complex since it brings together attitudes of shelter, culture, time, art and technology particular to each place, designer and circumstance. Hence, the more complex our society becomes, the greater the pressure is on the designer to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of the elements in our society affecting architecture as well as more intellectually informed attitudes toward the synthesis of these elements. Your education here should help you to develop these more informed attitudes through FREEDOM and that is where each of us should be able to make our own distinction between EDUCATION and TRAINING.

The semester will begin immediately with an exercise in the fundamentals of composition. That will be followed by an exercise in research, analysis and interpretation of one or more significant architectural precedents. Exercises will typically stress skills in include models and / or drawings and which document the investigative efforts and interpretations of architectural objects and space, hence, the ³making of architecture². The initial exercises will be followed by a series of small projects for the duration of the semester. The studio will follow a directed design process and will demand a great deal of emphasis on preparation and development of corporeal design concepts along with thorough development of specific components of the project and will provide for an intense setting of analysis and synthesis supported by cogent library investigation. The exercises will place a great deal of emphasis on model building and drawing as development tools and it will be presumed that students registered for this course will have a thorough grasp of the rudiments of good developmental drawing and model skills and it is recommended that at least one advanced level - topic studio in a long session semester prior to registration for this studio will have already been successfully completed. Work will be reviewed at each studio meeting in wall pin - ups of groups of 4 projects and the format for all reviews will be design work sessions. Numerous methodologies will be introduced which will be applied to various phases of the course although a particular design process will be introduced initially to follow as a ³grounding² of the various types of exercises for each project with the encouragement to ³build² on this process as each subsequent course here in the School of Architecture is taken.

My role, as studio instructor, is to be a provocateur, a co-designer with each of you, but not one who will ³design your projects for you². Consider, if you will, that you and I are a 2-person team of 2 designers, engaged as ³students of architecture² committed to solving problems together. When I agree to teach a design studio, I make a commitment is to attempt to be (if possible) twice as prepared for each studio session as you are. What I expect to see is YOUR ideas, YOUR inventiveness and YOUR project for which YOU have absolute authorship. My role is to assist you in clarifying your intentions, your diagrams and ultimately your overall project to enable you to take the project to its highest potential but it is YOU who will need to provide the impetus for the project. I am there to support you in your success or failure.