Steven Christensen Final Winter Review
This course provides an introduction to the role of program, activity, culture, context, and climate in the shaping of architectural environments. The dynamic relationship between space and behavior will be a primary focus of the studio, and projects will closely examine architecture’s role in supporting social performance.
Introductory design projects will focus on the development of formal technique through a sequence of abstract geometric exercises. Students will evaluate the performative qualities of their spatial experiments, and apply this understanding to each successive iteration. A final project will focus on the synthesis between architectural form, a comprehensive program, and the complex qualities and constraints of a physical site.
The course seeks to cultivate critical thinking abilities and enhance students’ ability to build abstract relationships between multiple theoretical, social, cultural, and environmental contexts. It will introduce students to the role of case-study analysis in uncovering disciplinary issues within design problems, and will develop students’ techniques for the graphic representation of their design concepts.