This seminar explores the varied ways American architecture and design have lent themselves to processes of racialization, from embodied experiences of race within the built environment to racialized representations of architecture. How might the built environment change how we perceive, understand, and experience race? How does architecture not only reflect race but constitute a way of seeing and feeling race? To expand our understanding of architecture's relationship to race, our approach will be interdisciplinary, including readings from fields such as but not limited to urban studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, and performance studies.

The objective of this course is to provide a broad overview of the discipline of architecture: its history, theories, methodologies; its manners of thinking and working. Rather than a chronological survey, the course will be organized thematically, with examples drawn from a range of historical periods as well as contemporary practice. Through lectures, readings, and discussions every student will acquire a working knowledge of key texts, buildings and architectural concepts.

The first in a series of design studios offered to students interested in majoring in architecture, this an introductory studio to architectural design. Issues and ideas about space and form will be explored through a sequence of projects based on specific architectural representational techniques. The students will be confronted with progressively complex exercises involving spatial relations. The course will stress experimentation while providing an analytical and creative framework to develop an understanding of structure and materials as well as necessary skills in drawing and model making. Two three-hour studios with lectures included.

The course focuses on the social forces that shape design thinking. Its objective is to introduce architectural and urban design issues to build design and critical thinking skills from a multidisciplinary perspective. The studio is team-taught from faculty across disciplines to expose students to the multiple forces within which design operates.

This introductory course sets out two goals: the first is to examine and understand the status of architecture's relationship to geometry; the second is to develop representational techniques through four thematic drawing exercises engaging manual and computational processes. Each exercise is structured around an introductory lecture, a tutorial, and a group discussion focusing on specific readings related to the topic at hand. Work in progress will be discussed at individual desk crits and in small groups. Each exercise will culminate in a course-wide review.

Transit structures consist of tunnels and waiting zones, elevators and turnstiles, stairs and highways. Such architecture can perform social organization, exercise the work of the state, or equip subjects with "cultural techniques" (Siegert). We will study the spatial treatment of bodies in architectural literature, art, film, media, and critical theory: How do perspective and motion in art shape architectures of transit? In what way do such spaces function as media apparatuses? When do art and film produce tools of transit theory? What are the political dimensions of the organization of movement? How can transit enforce or undermine control?

This course examines two places that play an outsized role in the American economy: Wall Street and Silicon Valley. They are distinct and similarly enduring locations. They embody a divide between urban and suburban, East Coast and West Coast, skyscrapers and office parks, tradition and innovation, conservative and liberal. Despite the ubiquity of electronic trading, firms still congregate in Lower Manhattan. Tech workers fight traffic to maintain a presence in Mountain View. What makes these places endure? How do their histories, architecture, economic dynamics, and distinct cultures shape them as places?

This course offers a history of architectural theory, criticism, and historiography from the Renaissance to the present, emphasizing the texts, media and institutions that have supported architecture's claim to modernity since the late 17th Century. Architectural thought is examined in its social and cultural context as it relates both to the Western philosophical tradition and to design method and practice.

The seminar explores the implications of technologically networked cities for architectural programming and the design of spaces and places, including: 1) how information technology is reshaping the nature of architectural programming and our ideas of spaces, places and community; 2) how programs for spaces, buildings, places, and the city are being transformed by the increasing mobility, fluidity, and "blurring" of activities in space; and 3) the history of ideas that shape our understanding of technology and urbanism, programming and architecture: the networked global city; the sentient city; smart cities; big data; and hybrid places.

This junior studio will focus on a number of specific design techniques in a highly regimented manner. We will continue to sharpen our skills in model-building, with emphasis placed on the value of accurate representation both by fostering craft and by exploring novel techniques of drawing and modeling.

This course provides an introduction to computing in architectural design and develops novel methods for the generation and evaluation of architectural forms. The course introduces students to a range of computational design methods, while at the same time questioning the status of computational design today. The semester is organized around a series of tutorials and exercises for students to gain the required technical expertise, experiment with algorithms and push the boundaries of existing computational design methods. Concepts introduced include: parametric modelling, growth algorithms, optimization methods and machine learning.

A graphic skills course that focuses on the techniques, craft, and ideologies of collage as a form of architectural representation. There are in-class workshops and weekly projects involving (handmade) collages. There are also a limited number of supplementary readings to situate our work within the context of architectural history and theory.

Zoning has preemptively defined what is possible to build, occupy, and design in the largest cities in the United States for over one hundred years. In the 21st century, zoning also enters cities and regions as a means of interpreting and defining effects of climate change, parameters of protest, movement of water, and economic investment. This course introduces students to zoning as an urbanistic tool related to representation, classification, and design. Readings investigate zoning as a form of both ideation and technology.

This course bridges the gap between pedagogy on Western cities, and that on cities of the so-called Global South, to compare urbanization and social movements across the Americas and South Asia. Specific course units will examine the development of informal settlements, urban segregation, enclave urbanism, privatization of public spaces, evictions, gentrification, homelessness, and the criminalization of the urban poor. Attention will also be paid to social movements focused on the right to the city. It asks how these processes and phenomena are similar, different, and / or interconnected across contexts.

Part two of a two semester sequence in which fundamental design skills are taught in the context of the architect's wider responsibilities to society, culture and the environment. Students acquire a command of the techniques of design and representation through a series of specific architectural problems of increasing complexity. Both semesters are required for three-year M.Arch. students.

In this studio, architecture is conceived primarily as a technical endeavor. We approach design in consideration of ecology, environmental technology, building materials and structure, but also in respect to the integration of communications, robotics, geolocation and sensing technologies in the built environment. The studio is supported by technical experts. Students are required to investigate in depth a relevant technology and construct their projects around it. Projects are developed to a level of detail sufficient to demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the chosen technology.

Vertical Design Studios examine architecture as cultural production, taking into account its capacity to structure both physical environments and social organizations. Projects include a broad range of project types, including individual buildings, urban districts and landscapes.

Vertical Design Studios examine architectural design in the intersection of materiality, technology, sociality and politics; taking into account its capacity to rearticulate physical environments and social organizations. Projects are intended to explore the role of architectural apparatus to intervene daily urban enactments, by the development of a broad range of architectural devices: including buildings, urban districts, landscape and the interactions that bring them all into shared performances.

The Master of Architecture Thesis is an independent design project on a theme selected by the student. The student begins with a thesis statement outlining an area of study or a problem that has consequences for contemporary architectural production. Marking the transition between the academic and professional worlds, the thesis project is an opportunity for each student to define an individual position with regard to a specific aspect of architectural practice. As an integral part of the design process, it is intended that the thesis project incorporate research, programming and site definition.

The Master of Architecture Thesis is an independent design project on a theme selected by the student. The student begins with a thesis statement outlining an area of study or a problem that has consequences for contemporary architectural production. Marking the transition between the academic and professional worlds, the thesis project is an opportunity for each student to define an individual position with regard to a specific aspect of architectural practice. As an integral part of the design process, it is intended that the thesis project will incorporate research, programming and site definition.

An introduction to building systems and the methods of construction used to realize design in built form. First half of the course is an overview of the primary systems, materials and principles used in construction of buildings and the fabrication of elements, through lectures and accompanying lab sessions. The second half allows students to design, detail and fabricate a custom fabrication utilizing principals explored in the lectures.

Introduction to the design of building structures of steel, timber and reinforced concrete.

The course introduces the students to the main themes of performance oriented technical design of the building enclosure while reinforcing the generally understood idea of the facade as the primary language for communication of the architectural idea, developed in harmony with material, its techniques and several other forces of the industry. The students develop a historical, theoretical and practical understanding of the contemporary building enclosure and the architect's role within the process of its design and execution.

Design and analysis of a 100,000sf net-zero energy building (or equivalent) using techniques, tools and information from ARC 514 (a full set of course materials are provided to students not taking 514). Selection, design and evaluation of environmental systems including air-conditioning, ventilation, lighting, power and renewable energy systems with an emphasis on design integration with architecture and structure. Selection of building envelope components and materials for optimum thermal performance. Sustainable design concepts and energy conservation are stressed throughout.

This seminar will examine the relation of construction, structure and building services to the production of meaning through a series of case studies of buildings and bridges and as well as general surveys of the work of specific engineers and architects.

The course focuses on the intersection of architecture and film, and its crucial role in establishing the formal, hermeneutic, and semiotic parameters of both arts. We examine the visual implications and signifying functions of the evolving intermedium condition that joins them.This condition and the artistic practices it generates presuppose a set of spatial and temporal intuitions that extend from architectural form to codes, both narrative and spatial, for reading the city as a real, an ideal, and anti-ideal space (that is, as a potentially utopian and dystopian space).

Data about environmental risks and harms play an instrumental role in conflicts around pollution. But often, the circumstances of how data were collected, whose interests they represent, and which perspectives they include are equally controversial as their content. This seminar provides a framework for the production, use, and critique of environmental data. With a site in New Jersey as a case study, we explore technologies for sensing the environment and investigate the politics and justice issues entangled in environmental data collection.

Among the most pressing questions facing contemporary architectural practice concerns the perceived value of expertise and the status of forms of knowledge that have traditionally been deprivileged. Who has currency, representation, authority, and legitimacy to exert power, impart knowledge, and design buildings? This course examines the role of amateur creators in the digital age in order to broaden our understanding of how knowledge circulates through underrecognized forms of architectural design and building practices today. Students work individually and collaboratively to produce a design project informed by their research.

This course supports students in the development of a broad range of thesis topics optimized to the faculty of the SoA. A series of exercises guide students to identify the primary questions that currently structure the discipline and those extra-disciplinary concerns which architecture must engage today. Throughout the work, analyses of these issues are linked to contemporary architectural production. All work is conducted by small teams and harnesses the dynamic feedback between specifically architectural problematics and the general logic of contemporary culture in preparation for future thesis work.

Urbanism requires anticipatory and transdisciplinary thought about the future, which is uncertain by definition. Scenario planning and futures studies provide the techniques and conceptual frameworks for developing strategy in spaces of uncertainty. This seminar provides an introduction to fundamental techniques and concepts from the practices of scenario planning and apply them to specific questions about the future of cities and metropolitan areas.

Recurring catastrophe, from earthquakes and eruptions in the pre-industrial era, to the bombing campaigns, tsunamis, and climate changes of the post-atomic present - all now under the sign of the Anthropocene and Global Warming, with attending enforced migrations, conflicts over resources, and political turmoil, have challenged any residual belief in the progressive theories of Modernism. This course examines the ways in which architectural practice and theoretical discourse, has historically responded to catastrophe.

An overview of the major themes running through the various strands of modern architecture in the twentieth century. While overarching in scope, the seminar is based on a close reading of selected buildings and texts by prominent figures of the modern movement and its aftermath. Special emphasis is given to the historiography and history of reception of modern architecture, as well as the cultural, aesthetic and scientific theories that have informed contemporary architectural debates, including organicism, vitalism, functionalism, historicism and their opposites.

This seminar departs from the hypothesis that in the anthropocene, ecological and technological concerns have become the key questions for cities in the near future, and therefore, a central concern of urban practices and theories. As an alternative to the prevailing humanist scope of urban theories, based on functions, communities or population groups, the seminar will be structured around nine non-human commons: air, water, energy, vegetation, mobility, communication, sensing, making and recycling. and is aimed to identify their casuistic and theorize them, with the objective to ground updated urban discourse.

This course allows a group of students to work closely with a faculty member to complete a significant piece of research in contemporary architecture and urbanism which may be published, exhibited or performed publicly, with a goal of receiving feedback in the form of reviews, peer response, and public discussion. Projects vary year to year. Recent projects have included, e.g. set design for Meyerhold's "Boris Gudonov" (public production) and New Jersey sprawl (exhibition).

Review and analysis of the dynamics and process inherent in starting, developing, managing and operating your own architectural practice, including marketing, finance, human resources, project process, liability, insurance, and general management. Areas of particular emphasis include project accounting, public presentations, and the development of a business plan.

Taught at the Embodied Computation Lab for the School of Architecture, the Robotic Architecture Workshop focuses on non-linear processes in design and construction. Students work on semester-long projects using ABB robotic arms, parametric tools in 3D Rhino, and other software tools and hardware.

This advanced pro-seminar investigates research methodologies in architectural discourse and practice. Each year the pro-seminar focuses on a specific theme addressing the history of the discipline from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students engage as a group in an in-depth reading of theoretical and historiographic sources on architecture and related fields.

The pro seminar is offered to incoming PhD students in the PhD track in Computation, Energy, building Technology in the School of Architecture (open to other interested graduate students as well) and is organized as a research seminar to introduce the participants to scientific research methods in the context of design in Architecture and science in engineering. It is structured as a series of introductory presentations of exemplary methods based on case studies and a number of guest presentations from collaborating disciplines.

Architecture has always been deeply collaborative, like moviemaking or opera where the credits are long and layered. But in architecture there is a huge effort to credit a single figure. Why this pathological need to keep collaboration secret? What is so threatening about the collaborators? What are we afraid of? What is at stake? This seminar explores questions of authorship, the signature, copyright, the anonymous, networks, labor, etc. It also thinks through the ideological implications of this narrative and the implications of its undoing. What would a post-author discourse look like?

The story around objects encountered in architecture and the urban realm is often presented as smooth and contained. Taking a closer look, they are enmeshed in larger contradictory narratives that implicate them in a complex series of systems and networks permeating into the realms of architecture, landscape, and urban issues. Considering objects such as the bicycle, barbed wire, asphalt and solar panels, this research seminar's goal is to expose the fissures in an object's prevailing narrative, and also to develop with students a set of tools to better articulate and frame arguments around design.

Architecture is essential to the coming energy transition: design plays a role in the technological intensification of energy efficiency, and is also crucial to fostering a culture of low-carbon living. This course examines iconic buildings - Neutra's Lovell House, the Bauhaus Dessau, Mies' Seagram tower, among others - in their energy context in order to understand how architecture has both produced and responded to changing energy regimes. Students combine archival/textual research with visual and performance analysis to produce knowledge about the past that can also inform practice in the climate-changed present.

A survey of architectural history in the west, from ancient Egypt to 20th-century America, that includes comparative material from around the world. This course stresses a critical approach to architecture through the analysis of context, expressive content, function, structure, style, building technology, and theory. Discussion will focus on key monuments and readings that have shaped the history of architecture.

Known as "Bridges", this course focuses on structural engineering as a new art form begun during the Industrial Revolution and flourishing today in long-span bridges, thin shell concrete vaults, and tall buildings. Through critical analysis of major works, students are introduced to the methods of evaluating engineered structures as an art form. Students study the works and ideas of individual engineers through their basic calculations, their builder's mentality and their aesthetic imagination. Illustrations are taken from various cities and countries thus demonstrating the influence of culture on our built environment.

Known as "Bridges", this course focuses on structural engineering as a new art form begun during the Industrial Revolution and flourishing today in long-span bridges, thin shell concrete vaults, and tall buildings. Through laboratory experiments students study the scientific basis for structural performance and thereby connect external forms to the internal forces in the major works of structural engineers. Illustrations are taken from various cities and countries thus demonstrating the influence of culture on our built environment.

The course looks at the most inventive structures and technologies, demonstrating their use of form finding techniques in creating complex curved surfaces. The first part introduces the topic of structural surfaces, tracing the ancient relationship between innovative design and construction technology and the evolution of surface structures. The second part familiarizes the student with membranes(systems, form finding techniques,materials and construction techniques.) The third part focuses on rigid surfaces. The fourth part provides a deeper understanding of numerical form finding techniques.

The course presents anthropogenic global changes and their impact on sustainable design. The course focuses on understanding the underlying principles from natural and applied sciences, and how new basic Internet of Things digital technology enables alternative system analysis and design. Material is presented in 2 parts: 1) Global Change and Environmental Impacts: studying our influences on basic natural systems and cycles and how we can evaluate them, and 2) Designing Sustainable Systems: synthesizing the environmental science with new IoT in an applied design project.

An introduction to the influence of materials in artistic, architectural, and product design. Primarily focused on the artist, architect, and designer who want to know more about materials and the principles of materials science and characterization. This class is also for the engineer who wants to study more about design. Focus will be on how technical properties, aesthetics, sustainability, manufacturability, and ergonomics relate to material properties and selection.

This course will examine different crises confronting cities in the 21st century. Topics will range from informal settlements, to immigration, terrorism, shrinking population, sprawl, rising seas, affordable housing, gentrification, smart cities. The range of cities will include Los Angles, New Orleans, Paris, Logos, Caracas, Havana, New York, Hong Kong, Dubai among others.

This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. Students will be introduced to a range of drawing issues, as well as a variety of media, including charcoal, graphite, ink, oil stick, collage, string, wire and clay. Subject matter includes still life, the figure, landscape and architecture. Representation, abstraction and working from imagination will be explored. A structured independent project will be completed at the end of the term.

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting. The areas to be covered are color and its interaction, the use of form and scale, painting from a model, painting objects with a concern for their mass and interaction with light.

Operating at the intersection of art, science and technology, this course investigates how scientific theories shape aspects of culture and society. We will engage in the practice of "speculative design", creating sculptures, wearables, and objects that envision different futures, while reflecting on social, political, and ethical implications of various technologies. Students will develop skills in industrial design, physical computing, and fabrication, as well as sensing and responsive technologies (including hardware/software integration, sensors, micro-projection, biometric sensing, etc), while applying them to critical social discourse.