ARC 396J
Instructor: Daniel Koehler
This course draws the city as an architectural practice. Within the practice of architecture, the city exists in the literality of its physical form. Although a physical reality, the city is architected - a virtuous form of cultural imagination. Partly virtual, partly real, architecture bridges through its discrete physics the plural complexities of urban developments and governance. Participating in a city through physical form, architectural practice synthesizes extra-disciplinary knowledge from engineering, politics, economics, sociology, planning, and environmental studies within its physical form. This course introduces traditional and contemporary architectural positions on the city, their physical implications, and principles.
What is urban in the architecture of a city? Which parts of a building envision, build, and place the city? How can we identify the urban forms that shape cities today and in the coming decades? How can we induce change, improve access to urban spaces, unbuild social inequalities barriers, and integrate the complexities of urban ecologies? Resonating between histories and futures, this course emphasizes the critical challenges for the built environment of urban equality, climate change, cultural diversity, and digitalization.