NEW: Xtreme Habitats ARCH 607 FALL 11
Nakagin Capsule
Nakagin Capsule, Kisho Kurokawa
Fall 2011 ARCH 607 ARCHITECTUAL DESIGN III, section 604.
Location: LANGFORD A 4TH FLOO
Instructor: Associate Professor Peter Lang
Office: Langford A, Rm. 343. Office hours: M, T, 2pm-5pm
COURSE DESCRIPTION: 607. Architectural Design III. (2-12). Credit 6.
Application of verbal, graphic, research, critical thinking and comprehensive design skills to advanced architectural projects or design competitions that address cultural traditions, human behavior and diversity, the context of architecture, collaborative skills, ethics and professional judgment. Core design studio. Prerequisite: ARCH 606.*
The Border Studio: XtremeHabitat
www.xtremehabitat.tumblr.com
The Borderstudio is a multi-semester architectural design studio developed by Associate Professor Peter Lang focusing on a specific unincorporated community with over 3000 inhabitants in Las Lomas in Starr county, one of the most impoverished counties in Southern Texas.
In 1989 local leaders founded the non-profit community-based organization “Colonias Unidas” to provide assistance towards legalizing property rights and develop a community center for children’s after school activities. The Border Studio was developed in the Spring of 2010 as a way of presenting students with issues that commonly afflict many parts of the globe, dealing with migration, informal settlements, widespread poverty and lack of infrastructure. The class researches historical precedents and examines contemporary case studies to better understand this expanding global condition. Over the course of the semester, students exchange ideas with community leaders and develop micro scaled and low impact cooperative projects that can directly benefit the lives of the local residents.
habitat |ˈhabiˌtat|
a : the place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows b : the typical place of residence of a person or a group c : a housing for a controlled physical environment in which people can live under surrounding inhospitable conditions (as under the sea) *
Studio Goal:
The Xtreme Habitat Studio presents a number of overlapping objectives that will run in tandem through the semester. These objectives fall into two main categories: Research and Analysis, and Design Development. Research and Analysis will include historical technological and contextual studies and analyses. Design Development will include conceptual sketches, and working documents: digital plans, sections, elevations and axonometrics as well as scale models. A final prototype (developed collectively by the studio) will be erected on a site currently under development in Las Lomas, Texas.
Students will be required, above and beyond research goals and design development, to maintain a web based Blog documenting weekly progress of their work and the collective work of the studio section.
REQUIRED READINGS:
Michelle Galindo, Ice Architecture, (Germany, Braun, 2009)
Michelle Galindo, Desert Architecture, (Germany, Braun, 2009)
REFERENCES:
Michael Franklin Ross, Beyond Metabolism: The New Japanese Architecture, (New York, Architectural Record, 1978)
WEEK 1.
MONDAY August 28. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. MINI ASSIGNMENT: research and document Playground structures, Jungle Gyms, children’s outdoor game sets. Each student will be asked to design a modular “Children’s outdoor playset” using wood construction only.
Drawings ½” scale elevations, ½ “ scale model, and rendering.
Preliminary solutions due Monday September 5.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: the Children’s Outdoor Playset,
Colonias Unidas, Las Lomas, Starr County, Texas
Participating Faculty:
Professors Peter Lang, Department of Architecture
John Nichols Department of Construction Science.
Consulting Faculty: Cecilia Giusti, Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning.
Advising Faculty (Department of Architecture): Marcel Erminy, Craig Babe, Michael O’Brien.
The Children’s Outdoor Playset is a joint design-build project led by Peter Lang and John Nichols, with graduate students from ARCH 607 and COSC 608. The Playset project is being designed by architecture students over a one-month period during the Fall 2011 semester and then developed and assembled by students in Construction Science with a deadline in early December.
All students will travel to and participate in assembling on site at the Colonias Unidas community center. This unique experience bringing graduate students from two departments in the College of Architecture is helping to build on multi-disciplinary working relationships while also bringing these students in contact with some of the most protracted and difficult challenges facing poverty stricken communities living along the border.
http://playscapetexas.blogspot.com/
WEDNESDAY August 30: Research Assignment (in parallel) Each student should research and select an Inuit tribe, or community living in Arctic or high altitude environments and document in as much detail as possible daily life among the local inhabitants.
From Wikipedia: Inuit describes the various groups of indigenous peoples who live in the central and northeastern Canadian Arctic, as well as in Greenland. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn. The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climactic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometers of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America and Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit of central and east Arctic. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the five-thousand year long history of a typical hunting culture which allowed the Inuit peoples and their ancestors to achieve one of the most remarkable human accomplishments, the population of the Arctic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_culture
FRIDAY September 2: Preliminary “Children’s Outdoor Playset” drawings and scratch models due! Also: Be prepared to talk about your Playground research and documentation.
WEEK 2:
MONDAY September 5: Preliminary research and documentation on Inuit tribes and communities to be presented in class.
WEDNESDAY September 7: Final research and documentation to be reviewed and uploaded onto website. DESK CRITS. Mini discussion on Existenz Minimum housing standards.
FRIDAY September 9:
WEEK 3
MONDAY September 12. FINAL JURY REVIEW: “Children’s Outdoor Playset” Jurors: Craig Babe, John Nichols.
WEDNESDAY September 14,
Assignment: DESIGN DEVEOPMENT: By Individual Student: Research and Develop designs for the first Xtreme Habitat for Arctic environments based on previous research and documentation. Total square footage for units will be standard for all student projects based on Existenz Minimum standards**.
FRIDAY September 16 Desk Crits
WEEK 4
MONDAY September 19 Playset Review and Discussion with Tom De Blasis, NIKE Global Design Director plus: LECTURE: Tom De Blasis, The Game Changer. (Attendance Obligatory)
WEDNESDAY September 21 (Final studies Research)
FRIDAY September 23 . (Final studies Research)
WEEK 5.
MONDAY September 26:
WEDNESDAY September 28, Desk Crits
FRIDAY September 30. Desk Crits
WEEK 6.
MONDAY October 3, Desk Crits
WEDNESDAY October 5 Desk Crits
FRIDAY OCTOBER 7: COMPLETION OF PLAYSET WORKING DRAWINGS.
WEEK 7,
MONDAY October 10 LECTURE: Albert Pope, Rice University (attendance required)
WEDNESDAY October 12 Desk Crits COMPLETION OF PLAYSET COST ESTIMATE DRAWINGS.
FRIDAY October 14, Final Review, Inuit Arctic Habitat with James Dart, NJIT.
WEEK 7.
MONDAY October 17 Desk Crits
WEDNESDAY October 19, Desk Crits
FRIDAY October 21 Desk Crits.
WEEK 8.
MONDAY October 24, ALL DAY RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM –NO CLASSES
WEDNESDAY October 26, Desk Crits Habitats
FRIDAY October 28. Dallas
WEEK 9
MONDAY September October 31 Desk Crits (Habitat)
WEDNESDAY November 2, LECTURE: Paul Lewis, Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis Architects, New York, Architects for Art House, Austin.
WEEK 10
MONDAY November 7, LECTURE: Michel Rojkind Architect, Mexico City
WEDNESDAY November 9,
FRIDAY November 11
WEEK 11:
MONDAY November 14 LECTURE Kyong Park, UCSD, Nomadic Practices
REVIEW XTREME HABITAT PROJECT with Kyong Park.
WEDNESDAY November 16 Desk Crits
FRIDAY November 18 Desk Crits
WEEK 12:
MONDAY November 21,
WEDNESDAY November 23 Desk Crits
FRIDAY November 25 THANKSGIVING
WEEK 13:
MONDAY November 28: FINAL REVIEW AND SUBMISSION FOR XTREME HABITAT PROJECT
WEDNESDAY November 30 TBA
WEEK 14:
MONDAY December 5-6
Field Trip to Las Lomas, Rio Grande City PLAYSET CONSTRUCTION
WEEK 15: POST-PRODUCTION (NO FINAL REVIEW) ALL STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO UPLOAD ALL WORK FROM THE SEMESTER ONTO THEIR BLOGSITES LINKED TO THE CLASS WEBSITE.
James Dart, NJIT. Sean Howard
Meredith Butler, Arctic Mobile Unit
Ice Habitat, Kaiji Zhou
