Christopher Bardt has over 25 years of experience as an architect and professor of architecture at RISD. He is a founding principal of 3sixØ Architecture, which Architectural Record named one of 10 leading vanguard firms worldwide in 2002. His extensive professional experience includes furniture design, residential, commercial and institutional commissions and planning studies, ranging from small urban interventions to large-scale metropolitan development. His research on the geometry of sunlight, materials, materiality and tectonics as critical to architectural making and thinking has been widely published and exhibited.
Bardt has been a member of the Architecture faculty at RISD since 1988. He teaches upper-level studios, architectural history, the history and theory of projective geometry and foundation courses and has coordinated and authored the curriculum of all three core semesters. He led the development of the celebrated drawing curriculum, which fuses digital and physical (hand) approaches to architectural drawing. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the National Academy of Design and Art, Slovakia and the China Academy of Art and has served on the Board of Governors of the RISD Museum. Bardt holds a BArch from RISD and a MArch from Harvard University.
Academic areas of interest
Bardt’s research interests are focused on materials and the role they play in our self-definition. For the past two decades he has developed new pedagogy based on material engagement and resistance. He has been thinking about how materials guide the imagination and how their properties generate insights. Materials resist us and make us aware of their resistance, a necessary condition of creativity. His new book Material and Mind (MIT Press) was inspired in part by the mysterious connection between creativity and material engagement in the studio. Earlier in his career, he examined sunlight and used the problem of its geometry to “catch” it with a large-scale tectonic construction wholly generated by sun movement over time. The sunlight research continues, prompting a current book project on self and place or “umwelt” and their deep entanglement, a fundamental yet unfathomable fact of existence.
Courses
Fall 2023 Courses
ARCH 2196-04 - THESIS SEM: NAVIGATING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
Period Fall 2023
Credits 3
FormatSeminar
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
ARCH 2196-04
THESIS SEM: NAVIGATING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
PeriodFall 2023
Credits3
FormatSeminar
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2023-09-06 to 2023-12-13
Times: W | 1:10 PM - 4:10 PMInstructor(s): Christopher BardtLocation(s): Bayard Ewing Building, Room 219Enrolled / Capacity: 12Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
We begin work on your Thesis Projects from the outset of the semester: navigating arbitrary beginnings; setting boundaries like nets; developing a whole language of grunts, smudges and haiku; gathering the unique and unrepeatable content, forces, and conditions of your project; hunting an emerging and fleeting idea; recognizing discoveries; projecting forward with the imagination; and distilling glyphs, diagrams and insight plans.This course satisfies the prerequisite requirement for Thesis Project.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr), MArch (2yr): Architecture
These studios, three of which are required for graduation, are offered by individual instructors to students who have successfully completed the core curriculum. They are assigned by lottery. Once assigned to an advanced studio, a student may not drop studio.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Fee: Some advanced studio sections have a fee for course supplies or field trips. The fee is announced during the registration lottery held in the department.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr), MArch (2yr): Architecture
Spring 2024 Courses
ARCH 2102-01 - ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
Period Spring 2024
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
ARCH 2102-01
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
PeriodSpring 2024
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: MTH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Christopher BardtLocation(s): Bayard Ewing Building, Room 302Enrolled / Capacity: 12Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Design principles presented in the first semester are further developed through a series of projects involving actual sites with their concomitant physical and historic-cultural conditions. Issues of context, methodology, program and construction are explored for their possible interrelated meanings and influences on the making of architectural form.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2198-04 - THESIS PROJECT
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
Period Spring 2024
Credits 6
FormatStudio
Mode In-Person
Start date
End date
ARCH 2198-04
THESIS PROJECT
LevelUndergraduate
UnitArchitecture
Subject Architecture
PeriodSpring 2024
Credits6
FormatStudio
ModeIn-Person
Start and End2024-02-15 to 2024-05-24
Times: MTH | 1:10 PM - 6:10 PMInstructor(s): Christopher BardtLocation(s): Bayard Ewing Building, Room 412Enrolled / Capacity: 12Status: Open
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Under the supervision of a faculty advisor, students are responsible for the preparation and completion of an independent thesis project.
Estimated Materials Cost: $50.00 - $200.00
Permission for this class is based on the student's overall academic record, as well as their performance in the Wintersession course ARCH 2197: Thesis Discursive Workshop. If the department recommends against a student undertaking ARCH-2198: Thesis Project, two advanced elective studios must be taken instead.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr), MArch (2yr): Architecture
