Experimental Computer Architecture Studio

INTRODUCTION:

This upper level (6600 or above) experimental computer studio is intended to explore our current understanding of housing in Lower Downtown Denver (LODO). The computer will be the vehicle used to develop a concept of dwelling within the urban community. We will examine with rigor various approaches to design and analysis. The studio will be conducted in conjunction with the 1996—1997 ACSA Otis International Student design competition.

REQUIREMENTS:

A suggested and required reading list will be supplied in December, 1996. Students will be encouraged to purchase hardware and software to accompany this course offering (this is not a prerequisite). Wait, however, until compatibility and availability issues are resolved. We will be using Photoshop, Pagemaker, Autocad and 3DStudio MAX. Computer access time will be coordinated with studio time.

Work in progress will be posted by each designer on his/her internet home page developed in conjunction with this studio. Final work will be of portfolio quality.

COURSE OBJECTIVE:

• To analyze, through the prism of information technology, the canonical precedents of housing (historic and contemporary) which have developed as a continuous architectural effort within the revolutionary changes of the 20th century.
• To utilize an exploratory, investigative design tool - the ‘Lowest Common Design Denominator (LCDD)’ to formally, programmatically and structurally distill the inherent, essential order of the precedent in question.
• To complement the computer aided analysis with an understanding of the direct or indirect references and implicit values - the ideology of politics, economics and cultural values - embodied in the specific time and place of the precedents.
• To challenge the traditional assumptions of the nature of the public realm vs. private spaces in the cultural fabric of Denver and to raise the critical question of what kind of urban housing is viable at the threshold of the 21st century.
• To project adaptations and transformations upon the essential order of historical housing precedents in light of contemporary American culture. The meaning of home/housing, private/public, nuclear family/non-traditional family, living place/work place will be re-evaluated in the formation of new approaches to urban housing.
• To frame a series of individual analysis/ design strategies that promote an understanding of site, program and responding architectural form within the inseparable notions of ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’.