Introduction to means of representation of ideas for Interior Architecture through various types of drawings: orthographics, axonometrics, perspectives, freehand sketching and mixed media. Work will be done on site from existing structures as well as in the studio concentrating on concept development through drawing.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

Introduction to means of representation of ideas for Interior Architecture through various types of drawings: orthographics, axonometrics, perspectives, freehand sketching and mixed media. Work will be done on site from existing structures as well as in the studio concentrating on concept development through drawing.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of color and light as they apply to spatial and visual perceptions in the built environment. It is an opportunity to study color theory in conjunction with light, lighting systems and the effect of light on color and form.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies, MDes Interior Studies

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of color and light as they apply to spatial and visual perceptions in the built environment. It is an opportunity to study color theory in conjunction with light, lighting systems and the effect of light on color and form.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies, MDes Interior Studies

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of color and light as they apply to spatial and visual perceptions in the built environment. It is an opportunity to study color theory in conjunction with light, lighting systems and the effect of light on color and form.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies, MDes Interior Studies

Interiority and Power addresses dominant power structures and narratives within the field of Interior Architecture, challenging students to build counter-narratives through engagement with historical, theoretical, and practical texts, case studies, and intellectual debates.

Practices of ‘situating’, ‘unlearning’ and ‘futuring’ ask students to identify systems of colonization, define their role as tools of cultural dominance in architectural design, and seek an alternative through forms of anti-colonial, representative, collective, and reparative practice. The course addresses the architectural canon, Western aesthetics, the concept of positional dominance, policy and planning histories, race and decoloniality, ecological and environment, and the politics surrounding adaptive reuse and architectural terminologies.

The course will also examine historiography, and how history is written, moving topically rather than emphasizing linear history. Through collaborative research, readings, debates, and the construction of a collective lexicon, students learn to challenge and decenter localities of power and aesthetics, allowing them to reframe values for design futures. This historical and theoretical framing positions students to engage with their studio and material practices as critical and historically-situated thinkers.Students learn the vital importance of a critical approach and implementation of this course’s learning outcomes into other course subjects and learning/designing in general.

The course is structured as a seminar, with a portion of each class day devoted to lecture and discussion, as well as periodic structured debates asking students to research and reflect on assigned module topics.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Architecture

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is defined as a digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. Revit is one of the most comprehensive and widely used BIM programs in the world. The software closes the gap between 3D geometry and building component data. This course will introduce students to Revit utilizing a hands-on approach. The class will introduce the essential concepts of the software through weekly class lectures/ tutorials. Weekly assignments will allow students to use their knowledge to complete real-life design tasks. Hands-on exercises will also focus on software interface, creation of parametric families and creation of construction document sets. Participants must have laptop with Windows, w/ Parallels recommended for Mac users. Free student download of Revit available.

Elective

This course explores the principles of construction and design detailing. The student will detail the construction of a previously designed studio project. Finish materials, window treatments, light fixtures, and furniture will be selected. Construction methods and materials will be examined as well as the performance and appearance retention of finishes. Individual presentations will be made on a variety of traditional and nontraditional materials.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

Human factors is a field of knowledge concerned with the interaction between humans, technology and the environment. A tripartite set of relations defined along the principles of a system: A more or less organized whole composed of interrelated, interdependent elements. The field concerned in promoting performance and efficiency: Performance as a measuring criteria to analyze how one or a group of elements in the tripartite affects the others at multiple scales; Efficiency as a set of tools to determine whether the three elements in the system achieve the goal on contributing towards human well-being.

During the course of the semester, we will generate questions and speculate on what constitutes the discipline’s core of study and what is its purpose to the field of Interior studies. Our focus will be to situate human movement in space at the center of our study. We will intersect principles of pure human motion to assess how the interaction between humans, technology and the environment achieve human comfort. At the core of our study will be a dissection of the forming of internal movement and the shape form created by body movement in space.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

Drawing in the Architecture and Design disciplines is historically understood as serving two purposes: to simultaneously precede the construction and manufacturing of a building or artifact or; constitute the analytical tool to measure or render the dimensions of a space or a shape. In the former, drawing is a generative tool; while in the latter is a survey instrument. In both cases, information whether real or virtual, is provided through visual representation conventions, more or less subjective, quantified and laid out according to the rules of applicable geometries. 

Nevertheless, beyond serving generative and analytical purposes, simultaneously or independently, drawing can be also the only visual reference of an idea, in the form of a memory representation of a model or a rule: an image of a city or building that no longer exists; a space or fragment that was never built; an inventorial of typological styles or; the visual representation of series of adaptive transformations. This broad spectrum is of great relevance within the disciplines of Interior Architecture and Adaptive Reuse. In our discipline both generative and analysis phases overlap. Our field of operations is based on the transformation of an existing environment. As such, drawing can constitute an efficient process of understanding real and contribute to its adaptability. Therefore, we propose a method that hybridizes analysis and generation, starting from a projective reality never realized.  This approach will be developed from the collection of examples of series of visionary drawings from unbuilt structures archived in publications at RISD Fleet Library collection, whose artistic value, is of important relevance for the Architecture and Design disciplines. Over the period of 12 weeks, we will engage all four means of representation and iteratively purpose a drawing method to combine deductive transformations from the archival drawing by proposing a set of inductive instructions.  Our aim will be to on one hand to focus the class on the need to acquire a personal technique in the representation of visual information and on the other hand to be capable of developing drawing methodologies to face the complexity of an intervention driven by the constrains of an existing structure or artifact.

Throughout the semester the class will develop a process in 7 exercises that include the reconstruction in axonometric projection; the subsequent formal manipulation of tridimensional translation in axonometric projection; introduction to parametric modeling to construct a model for rapid prototyping; and the CNC milling of a panel exploring the technique of bas-relieve. The class will take advantage of the Rhinoceros 3D modeling platform simultaneously, for the construction of orthographic projections, rendering visualization, 3D modeling manipulation, Grasshopper, Paneling tools plug-in for Rhino; Rapid Prototyping, and CNC milling fabrication, while developing knowledge of film editing software.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

Drawing in the Architecture and Design disciplines is historically understood as serving two purposes: to simultaneously precede the construction and manufacturing of a building or artifact or; constitute the analytical tool to measure or render the dimensions of a space or a shape. In the former, drawing is a generative tool; while in the latter is a survey instrument. In both cases, information whether real or virtual, is provided through visual representation conventions, more or less subjective, quantified and laid out according to the rules of applicable geometries. 

Nevertheless, beyond serving generative and analytical purposes, simultaneously or independently, drawing can be also the only visual reference of an idea, in the form of a memory representation of a model or a rule: an image of a city or building that no longer exists; a space or fragment that was never built; an inventorial of typological styles or; the visual representation of series of adaptive transformations. This broad spectrum is of great relevance within the disciplines of Interior Architecture and Adaptive Reuse. In our discipline both generative and analysis phases overlap. Our field of operations is based on the transformation of an existing environment. As such, drawing can constitute an efficient process of understanding real and contribute to its adaptability. Therefore, we propose a method that hybridizes analysis and generation, starting from a projective reality never realized.  This approach will be developed from the collection of examples of series of visionary drawings from unbuilt structures archived in publications at RISD Fleet Library collection, whose artistic value, is of important relevance for the Architecture and Design disciplines. Over the period of 12 weeks, we will engage all four means of representation and iteratively purpose a drawing method to combine deductive transformations from the archival drawing by proposing a set of inductive instructions.  Our aim will be to on one hand to focus the class on the need to acquire a personal technique in the representation of visual information and on the other hand to be capable of developing drawing methodologies to face the complexity of an intervention driven by the constrains of an existing structure or artifact.

Throughout the semester the class will develop a process in 7 exercises that include the reconstruction in axonometric projection; the subsequent formal manipulation of tridimensional translation in axonometric projection; introduction to parametric modeling to construct a model for rapid prototyping; and the CNC milling of a panel exploring the technique of bas-relieve. The class will take advantage of the Rhinoceros 3D modeling platform simultaneously, for the construction of orthographic projections, rendering visualization, 3D modeling manipulation, Grasshopper, Paneling tools plug-in for Rhino; Rapid Prototyping, and CNC milling fabrication, while developing knowledge of film editing software.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This course will examine the development of adaptive reuse practice in the context of its social, political, technological, and economic circumstances, as it pertains to the design culture of the period. Special emphasis will be given to interior renovations, additions, transformations and other interventions of adaptive reuse. Attention will also be given to design theory, and the evolving doctrines relating to heritage. This course will be conducted in seminar form with graduate level discourse and discussion. Requirements include midterm, final exam and research presentation.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This seminar is intended as a reinforcement of and preparation for the self-choice Design Thesis taking place the following Spring. The seminar will assist the student in becoming more aware of factors which determine a successful outcome for a design intervention within an existing building. As the first part of the three-part thesis sequence, the course serves as the building block for INTAR-2397 and the student's approved Design Thesis Feasibility Report.

Open to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This course builds on the foundations gained in previous studio and course work to further design development abilities. The studio will require the integration of the student's emerging knowledge of site analysis, mapping & documentation, innovative tectonics and systems, applicable theoretical issues, relevant cultural precedents, and material investigation into a cohesive design agenda.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This course builds on the foundations gained in previous studio and course work to further design development abilities. The studio will require the integration of the student's emerging knowledge of site analysis, mapping & documentation, innovative tectonics and systems, applicable theoretical issues, relevant cultural precedents, and material investigation into a cohesive design agenda.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This course will focus on factors influencing the design of the interior environment through exploring issues of anthropometrics (the study of the characteristics of the human body), ergonomics (the application of anthropometric data to design), and proxemics (the study of the effect of cultural/psychological factors on design). It will be complemented by a study of acoustics as it relates to the relationship between the built environment and sound; predicting and designing for the acoustic performance of spaces, and executing acoustic measurements (impulse response, reverberations).

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This course will focus on factors influencing the design of the interior environment through exploring issues of anthropometrics (the study of the characteristics of the human body), ergonomics (the application of anthropometric data to design), and proxemics (the study of the effect of cultural/psychological factors on design). It will be complemented by a study of acoustics as it relates to the relationship between the built environment and sound; predicting and designing for the acoustic performance of spaces, and executing acoustic measurements (impulse response, reverberations).

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

This class introduces the student to an overview of codes and its implementation through construction details as related to the study of adaptive reuse. It will provide in depth focus on pertinent parts of local and national building codes that address issues affecting interior architecture such as egress, materials, planning, and accessibility. The student will be asked through quizzes as well as short design projects to implement these rules and regulations and to demonstrate a familiarity with the codes.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies

Building on the final advanced studio in the undergraduate program, the seminar engages the graduating senior with research and design studies that expand the focus of the final studio. This will involve reading, group discussions, topical studies, concept development and the crafting of an artist's statement - all in service of understanding the design intervention and its relationship to the context of its host structure. The course will culminate in a group project: the design and installation of the Senior Show as a demonstration of a design intervention within an existing structure.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

The Design Thesis is the culmination of the Master of Design studies in the Department of Interior Architecture in both concentrations, Adaptive Reuse [AR] and Exhibition and Narrative Environments [ENE]. A thesis needs to propose a line of research and exploration in the context of each discipline. Throughout the semester students embark on a series of investigations that will lead to a unique set of questions that can be arguable and eventually contribute to the knowledge base in a field. The class provides an opportunity for graduate students to demonstrate their knowledge and acquired skills in that field through personal investigation, leading to the postulation of a hypothesis, and the testing of this hypothesis during the course of the Spring semester.

This course will enable students to focus on both conceptual and applied issues emerging from a critical analysis of a subject matter of their interest and understand how they unfold in the built environment and/or the realm of exhibitions and narrative environments. Work this semester will grow from each student’s unique field of inquiry as explored through the Spring courses Investigating Interiority (AR) and Topics in Exhibitions and Narrative Environments (ENE) and expanded upon during the Summer. This work will be the connection to Design Thesis.

As part of the 2-semester thesis sequence, Design Thesis Preparation focuses on a further investigation of a thesis topic through the articulation of a thesis argument and line of research towards an exploration of context whether physical in the built environment whether a curatorial framework in the disciplines of Exhibition and Narrative Environments. Such explorations will lead to the establishment of a design approach. Each of these areas will contribute to the design process in the following Spring. The design process will conclude at the beginning of May when thesis book production and graduate thesis show design and installation will begin. The successful graduate will enter the professional world equipped with a design thesis, a thesis publication and a designed exhibition.

Enrollment is limited to Graduate Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies