Arch 556: Architectural Design IX

6 credits
Prereq:
Arch 510

Schematic and design development of graduate project, a self-directed architectural design study with faculty consultation within a studio context. Students will demonstrate their capacity to apply appropriate programming and research methods. The project culminates with a project book prepared by the student.

Dwaine Carver, Trout Architects

The Edge Urbanisms project reacts to a fundamental problem of urban planning and building design: that we draw a boundary between the built environment and the natural environment, the urban and the geographic, and end up with cities that are less vibrant and less connected to our unique place and time. The Edge Urbanisms project is about engendering a holistic sense of place by folding together urbanity and geography to create a more complete environment for human beings.

The fold of built and natural manifests physically in the site plan of the project and takes its specific shape because it reacts to flooding on the site. Flooding was embraced by the project because it offers a welcome temporal change to the urban environment. Temporal folding also happens daily as the building shifts with the sun and seasonally through changing native plantings. The fold becomes physical again in the construction of the building, where plant screens fold over a modular steel grid and serve as building skin as well as landscape.

Much of the project is focused on the experience of a person moving through the site and the path that links this development with the rest of the foothills. Travelling along the path, time can be marked by water lines on concrete and gabien walls, weathered copper paneling, growing plants and the building’s configuration relative to the sun.

Through folding urbanity and nature formally, temporally, tectonically, and experientially the Edge Urbanisms project seeks to create a more fulfilling environment for human beings.