Architecture Courses
ARCH 101G-01
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-02
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-03
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 101G-99
GRADUATE CORE STUDIO 1: SUBJECTS. TOOLS. PROCESS.
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The first of three graduate core studios focus on iterative making and critical discourse to challenge disciplinary conventions and learn how to make self-authored design decisions in service of abstract spatial ideas. The agency of architecture lies in its capacity to be enactive. It is occupied, experienced and materialized; it constructs, organizes and extends relations among the many. Its forms, spatial orders, materials, and systems result from the designed consideration of physical and spatial interdependencies with the practices, habits and aspirations of its subjects. Providing a precise and specific set of tools and armatures, this first of three core studios introduces the art of architecture as a design process and language that activates, mediates and politicizes the built environment and its subjects.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $500.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch (2yr) and (3yr): Architecture
ARCH 102G-01
GRADUATE CORE 2 STUDIO: CONSTRUCTIONS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The second core studio addresses the agency of the building to simultaneously construct new spatial, social, and material orders in the context of the contemporary city. The second core studio situates architecture as the strategic interplay of spatial and constructive concepts towards specific aesthetic, social, and performative ends. The studio seeks to create a productive friction between abstract orders (form, pattern, organization), technical systems (structure, envelope), and the contingencies of real-world conditions (site, climate, politics). The studio asks students to link disciplinary methods to extra-disciplinary issues, with concentrated forays into the realms of structure, material, and critical preservation. Students iteratively develop architectural concepts, ethical positions, and experimental working methods through a series of focused architectural design projects with increasing degrees of complexity, culminating in the design of a mid-scale public building in an urban context.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 102G-02
GRADUATE CORE 2 STUDIO: CONSTRUCTIONS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The second core studio addresses the agency of the building to simultaneously construct new spatial, social, and material orders in the context of the contemporary city. The second core studio situates architecture as the strategic interplay of spatial and constructive concepts towards specific aesthetic, social, and performative ends. The studio seeks to create a productive friction between abstract orders (form, pattern, organization), technical systems (structure, envelope), and the contingencies of real-world conditions (site, climate, politics). The studio asks students to link disciplinary methods to extra-disciplinary issues, with concentrated forays into the realms of structure, material, and critical preservation. Students iteratively develop architectural concepts, ethical positions, and experimental working methods through a series of focused architectural design projects with increasing degrees of complexity, culminating in the design of a mid-scale public building in an urban context.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 102G-99
GRADUATE CORE 2 STUDIO: CONSTRUCTIONS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The second core studio addresses the agency of the building to simultaneously construct new spatial, social, and material orders in the context of the contemporary city. The second core studio situates architecture as the strategic interplay of spatial and constructive concepts towards specific aesthetic, social, and performative ends. The studio seeks to create a productive friction between abstract orders (form, pattern, organization), technical systems (structure, envelope), and the contingencies of real-world conditions (site, climate, politics). The studio asks students to link disciplinary methods to extra-disciplinary issues, with concentrated forays into the realms of structure, material, and critical preservation. Students iteratively develop architectural concepts, ethical positions, and experimental working methods through a series of focused architectural design projects with increasing degrees of complexity, culminating in the design of a mid-scale public building in an urban context.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 103G-01
GRADUATE CORE 3 STUDIO: CITIES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
The Core 3 Cities studio uses the lens of housing and housing policy to dissect the ways in which these architectural choices impact residents' access to dignity in their cities. In the market of the built environment, where does architecture start? You may think it is the napkin sketch or AutoCAD but think instead of something more mundane: the government official's zoning map or the development firm's financial projection. In the architectural profession, we often lament our lack of agency in the creation of space. The architect must wait for the client, the request for proposal, or the competition. We are then at the mercy of local, state, and federal policy-responding to regulations, sightlines, zoning, and more. But how can we see the mechanisms of governance and finance as inherent parts of design? The Core 3 Cities studio uses the lens of housing and housing policy to dissect the ways in which these architectural choices impact residents' access to and dignity in their cities. Through assignments, readings, and discussions we will explore what is at stake in the urban environment and endeavor to discover new forms of design intervention that respond with nuance to those stakes.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 1513-01
*JAPAN: DESIGN, DEGROWTH, DEMODERN JAPAN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
How would we happily degrow?
How do we design a new future?
The Industrial Revolution rapidly modernized Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the other hand, Japan's modernization began in the late 19th century, with a century delay from that in Europe due to the 200-year isolation of the Edo period. Since the country opened its border in 1854, Japan's growth snowballed and became the world's second-largest economy during the so-called "Japanese Economic Miracle" in the late 20th century. With its peak in 2008, however, Japan's population started to decline, dragging everything else on the same track. Cities are shrinking; rural communities are disappearing; houses, schools, and stores are unoccupied; the economy is stumbling.
Moreover, the ultimate comfort, convenience, mass production, and overconsumption became the products of industrial modernization at the cost of environmental degradation and human health threats. Globalization has concurrently led to a loss of cultural identities in many parts of the world, and Japan is no exception. The shrinking society also contributes to a potential loss of tradition and cultural practices.
The architectural critic and historian Kenneth Frampton elaborated the concept of critical regionalism, which refers to the regional styles created with influences of global ideas but personalized by the specific contexts. He claims that the concept of local or national culture is a paradoxical proposition not only because of the current apparent antithesis between rooted culture and universal civilization but also because all cultures, both ancient and modern, seem to have depended for their intrinsic development on an inevitable cross-fertilization with other cultures. He cites Paul Ricoeur, "Regional or national cultures must be ultimately constituted as locally inflected manifestations of 'world culture.'"
During the industrial modernization of the late 19th Century in Japan, the country built infrastructures incorporating Western models and modernized the society at an unprecedented speed. These physical outcomes that formed their built environment reflected the local and global hybridization before the International Styles took over as cities continued to urbanize.
How do we look for cultural identity when global influences are inevitable? What are the opportunities for designers to address degrowth in the pressing environmental crisis? Where do we find cultural appreciation and appropriation in future design approaches? This course claims that those physical outcomes that helped modernize the country may be the more explicit representation of Critical Regionalism. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has named buildings, facilities, machinery, and equipment that represent the process of Japan's industrial modernization as "Heritage of Industrial Modernization" in 1990, certifying 1115 items across the country. Students will visit some of these sites and find the cues in the design of the built forms that reflect the locality and the global influences, which may give insight into how we intervene as designers in the future.
Students must complete an application through RISD Global to be added to this course. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required, good conduct standing, and permission of the instructor. GPA, Student Conduct Standing, and standing with Equity and Compliance will be verified and may preclude a student from participation, either before or during the term. Most courses are open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental and Foundation Studies.
Elective
ARCH 1560-01 / ID 1560-01 / IDISC 1560-01
*PORTUGAL: DESIGN WITH AND FOR NATURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In this 3-week, 3-credit summer course, we will learn about design with nature, by designing for nature inspired by the Azores. We will explore the potential of biofibers working with our partners from University of Azores. Biofibers were for centuries one of the primary materials used in the design of ordinary products and building components. With the introduction of plastics and other synthetic materials at the advent of the 20th century, the use of the natural materials declined. But thanks to a growing environmental consciousness and new attitudes, traditional crafts are being reconsidered in innovative ways. In the Azores and Portugal, the traditional handicraft culture is still thriving. Artisans continue to create beautiful objects including wonderful woven baskets, hats and fiber dolls. We will explore these traditions and then look at new approaches that use multiple techniques for a varied set of applications that range from pressed composite containers, algae based fabrics, to 3d printed woven and compressed building components.
Through multiple field trips, we will learn about the island’s rural and urban landscapes. We will examine the crossovers between our communities and study the intersection of ecology, traditional economy, and contemporary cultural activities. The main focus of this research is to use the invasive Conteira plant (Kahili ginger) as a resource for the development of a bio-based composite using biopolymers (i.e., PHA, PLA, cellulose, or starch) in order to produce a new sustainable material for biodegradable building solutions, such as textiles (netting) and other malleable surfaces. We also will visit with, and work in the studio of, a local arts organization called Walk&Talk who will be hosting their annual summer arts festival. In addition, students will be exposed to local craft traditions from wood working, basket weaving, to embroidery as a means to learn from past and to look toward an ecologically hopeful future.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00
Elective
ARCH 1575-101
*JAPAN: POST URBAN JAPAN
SECTION DESCRIPTION
What if Tokyo becomes a forest?
The population in Japan is decreasing, and the population is aging faster in cities. In Ukraine, 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the exclusion zone became a forest where wild animals thrive. Considering the foreseen scenarios of our future technologies, such as remote medical treatment, flying cars, driverless buses, and AI-operated white-collar jobs, the definition of convenience may no longer be based on location.
The concept of a Circular Economy puts pressure on all manufacturing companies to increase material efficiency. The extraction of raw materials will hopefully decrease, therefore, unpopulated areas can regain nature. The Japanese population currently occupies 50% of their land, which is predicted to fall to 40% due to depopulation in 2050 (*1). 70% of the land is currently forested, and Tokyo is only 0.6%.
What is the ideal life in the post-urban forest?
Instead of trying to increase the population, how can we happily accept depopulation?
How do we seek the happiness of individuals? Students will envisage a new Actor Network (*2) connecting inhabited and uninhabited environments.
- *1. National long-term outlook by National Land Council, Policy Subcommittee, Long-Term Outlook Committee, 2011
- *2. We will discuss the concept of Actor-Network Theory developed by Bruno Latour and some examples by Atelier BowWow using the concept.
Registration is not available in Workday. Students must complete an application through RISD Global. A minimum GPA of 2.5 is required and permission of instructor. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Most courses are open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental and Foundation Studies.
ARCH 2007-101
ARCHITECTONICS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
An introduction to the principles of architectural design beginning with a close examination of materials, forces and the human body. The examination will progressively widen in scope to include issues of form, space, structure, program and site. This condensed architectural studio is intended for freshmen and students outside the Division of Architecture and Design.
Elective
ARCH 2019-101
FROM PRINT TO PIXELS: EXPLORING 3D PRINTING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
In the tsunami of digital fabrication, where are designers washed ashore? In this studio, students are called to not only equip themselves with the most exciting and cutting-edge tools, but also contemplate designers’ role through curating and storytelling. We will explore 3D printing and AI (artificial intelligence) generative arts, examining different models and workflows and encouraging students to understand the vast potential and limitations of these tools. By engaging in both hands-on activities and conceptual frameworks, we start to navigate, question, speculate, evaluate, and attempt to find a path into the future of design and construction. The course includes a seminar portion that aims to establish shared vocabularies and provide context for the upcoming coursework. The studio component is divided into three individual or pair exercises that each focus on 3D printing, AI, and interdisciplinary design approaches. Throughout these exercises, students will receive both individual desk critiques and group pinups, leading up to a final review of the work produced.
Elective
ARCH 201G-01
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course connects the methods, traditions, and conventions of architectural drawing with contemporary technology and representational cultures. This course recognizes that for architects to operate productively, politically, socially, and ethically given the ubiquity of the digital image, both an advanced command of computational techniques and drawing techniques are immediately and primarily necessary. The digital image is the standard by which aesthetic content is transmitted, published and processed. Its pervasive role in contemporary architectural culture-and humanity-is mediated and confronted in this course. Relatedly, material drawing traditions are essential, valuable and provocative. The techniques covered in this studio-taught course include the manual and automated manipulation of digital images and material drawings at dramatically varied scales and dimensions. A structure of creative prompts continually positions the drawing and the image in parallel, with an emphasis on developing students' sensibilities, and capacity for both improvisational and scripted constructions. Students will create from memory, from life, from imagination, and from reference. As a result, students develop an architectural language that can engage multiple media and subjects.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 201G-02
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: DRAWINGS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course connects the methods, traditions, and conventions of architectural drawing with contemporary technology and representational cultures. This course recognizes that for architects to operate productively, politically, socially, and ethically given the ubiquity of the digital image, both an advanced command of computational techniques and drawing techniques are immediately and primarily necessary. The digital image is the standard by which aesthetic content is transmitted, published and processed. Its pervasive role in contemporary architectural culture-and humanity-is mediated and confronted in this course. Relatedly, material drawing traditions are essential, valuable and provocative. The techniques covered in this studio-taught course include the manual and automated manipulation of digital images and material drawings at dramatically varied scales and dimensions. A structure of creative prompts continually positions the drawing and the image in parallel, with an emphasis on developing students' sensibilities, and capacity for both improvisational and scripted constructions. Students will create from memory, from life, from imagination, and from reference. As a result, students develop an architectural language that can engage multiple media and subjects.
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 202G-01
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: MODELS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course centers around the digital model as a thing to be built, as a multivalent medium for architectural discourse, and as representation of built form. This course uses abstraction as the common thread between its prerequisite, Architectural Drawing, and an inquiry into the elements, natures, structures, and forms of the complex, temporal, cultural, material and political construct often referred to as "the building." Operations in the course are the techniques of analysis, translation and synthesis. The contemporary digital model is delimited and constrained by architectural software. This course recognizes that expertise in multiple digital modeling software-from Rhino to Building Information Modeling (BIM)-is as imperative as are skills to manipulate, undermine, link, automate and hack the media that dominate the discipline of architecture. A series of creative prompts engage the computational principles that underpin all digital modeling software. This "under the hood" approach is balanced by "over the hood" approaches that see students designing workflows, automation and output between software and material. The course engages the digital model as sample, system, and database as well as continually interrogates the translational relationship between model and drawing and model and image.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 202G-02
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: MODELS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course centers around the digital model as a thing to be built, as a multivalent medium for architectural discourse, and as representation of built form. This course uses abstraction as the common thread between its prerequisite, Architectural Drawing, and an inquiry into the elements, natures, structures, and forms of the complex, temporal, cultural, material and political construct often referred to as "the building." Operations in the course are the techniques of analysis, translation and synthesis. The contemporary digital model is delimited and constrained by architectural software. This course recognizes that expertise in multiple digital modeling software-from Rhino to Building Information Modeling (BIM)-is as imperative as are skills to manipulate, undermine, link, automate and hack the media that dominate the discipline of architecture. A series of creative prompts engage the computational principles that underpin all digital modeling software. This "under the hood" approach is balanced by "over the hood" approaches that see students designing workflows, automation and output between software and material. The course engages the digital model as sample, system, and database as well as continually interrogates the translational relationship between model and drawing and model and image.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 202G-99
GRADUATE REPRESENTATION STUDIO: MODELS
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course centers around the digital model as a thing to be built, as a multivalent medium for architectural discourse, and as representation of built form. This course uses abstraction as the common thread between its prerequisite, Architectural Drawing, and an inquiry into the elements, natures, structures, and forms of the complex, temporal, cultural, material and political construct often referred to as "the building." Operations in the course are the techniques of analysis, translation and synthesis. The contemporary digital model is delimited and constrained by architectural software. This course recognizes that expertise in multiple digital modeling software-from Rhino to Building Information Modeling (BIM)-is as imperative as are skills to manipulate, undermine, link, automate and hack the media that dominate the discipline of architecture. A series of creative prompts engage the computational principles that underpin all digital modeling software. This "under the hood" approach is balanced by "over the hood" approaches that see students designing workflows, automation and output between software and material. The course engages the digital model as sample, system, and database as well as continually interrogates the translational relationship between model and drawing and model and image.
Students are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | MArch: Architecture (3yr)
ARCH 2101-01
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture
ARCH 2101-02
THE MAKING OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES
SECTION DESCRIPTION
This course, the first in a two semester sequence, explores design principles specific to architecture. Two interrelated aspects of design are pursued:
- the elements of composition and their formal, spatial, and tectonic manipulation
- meanings conveyed by formal choices and transformations.
Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00 - $200.00
Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Sophomore Architecture Students.
Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture