The artifacts of Japanese material culture, ranging in scale from ephemeral objects to monuments, will be considered for an interrogation into what it means for design to be a cultural product. We will travel to Kyoto, the historic cultural center and imperial capital of Japan for over a thousand years. Kyoto remains a premier hub for traditional Japanese culture, arts, and crafts. We will experience the wholistic art form of Japanese tea culture that blends architecture, calligraphy, painting, ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, metalwork, and woodwork. In Tokyo, we will visit design innovators and discuss the remarkable transnational influence of contemporary Japanese material culture.

Registration is not available in Workday. All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the Wintersession travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where Wintersession travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

The course focuses on understanding the origin of museums and recognizing the influence that certain dominant design aesthetics, approaches, and narratives had on exhibitions. The museum architectural space and its interior exhibition design are never 'neutral' and the study of its history, codification, and exploitation are essential to rebalance and subvert the structural inequalities between Trouillot's agents (museums/institution), actors (curators/exhibit designers), and subject of museum narratives (artifacts/art/belongings). Through lectures, readings, and class debate, students will be encouraged to question how aesthetics impregnate exhibition environments through materials, light, colors, forms, and meanings; to acknowledge that architecture and exhibition design aesthetics are always politicized and that in the tiniest details of their morphology and their organization, museums have the power to validate, the power to corroborate, the power to include, and the deliberate power to silence. 

Major Elective: MDes ENE

Topics in Exhibition and Narrative Environments I is the first part in a year-long exploration of a fluid field in which exhibition occurs in museums as well as other environments. This seminar offers various approaches for that exploration and will provide the student insight into different aspects of exhibition: curatorial matters, experience design, narrative creation, graphic design, new media, user participation, installation, site specificity, production, etc. The content may change from year to year to include special projects. The content may change from year to year and may include theory, hands-on installation, curatorial matters, research, design planning, materials, new technology, time based interactions, and, of course, design of the narrative environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Exhibition and Narrative Environments

Topics in Exhibition and Narrative Environments II follows upon INTAR-2102 and continues the exploration of the principles of exhibition from curatorial matters, experience design, narrative creation, graphic design, new media, user participation, installation, site specificity, production, etc. Topics II will conclude with the selection of a potential Thesis subject.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Exhibition and Narrative Environments

This course focuses on the hands-on process of designing and constructing exhibitions. Students will explore the key elements of exhibition design, including spatial planning, material selection, lighting, signage and way-finding. They will also be exposed to standard fabrication and printing techniques commonly used within the industry.

Working collaboratively, students will design and build exhibits, moving from concept development to the physical installation. Emphasis is placed on real-world problem-solving, project management, and understanding the technical aspects of exhibition construction.

The course will culminate in fully realized exhibits giving the students opportunities to engage the public and share their work. 

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

Interior Architecture and the work of adaptive reuse pose a challenge: To understand an existing idea, concept, materiality, and context, which then becomes the starting point for architectural transformation.  The origin may be ill-used or obsolete; the challenge is to knit together that which exists, with newly created form and materiality.  Through a series of intertwined projects students will use multiple hand hewn modalities to draw and model proposals. This introductory studio is not designed for students with prior architectural training.

Elective

This course, the first in a sequence, explores design principles through design problems involving the unique fundamental framework for the reuse of existing structures. The semester is arranged around several projects, providing access to the discipline from as many related perspectives. The project assignments require the student to visually and verbally convey clear design intent, think visually in two and three dimensions, formulate and develop abstract design concepts, discern relationships between design interventions and their physical and contextual setting and develop presentation skills to effectively communicate propositions and positions.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course, the first in a sequence, explores design principles through design problems involving the unique fundamental framework for the reuse of existing structures. The semester is arranged around several projects, providing access to the discipline from as many related perspectives. The project assignments require the student to visually and verbally convey clear design intent, think visually in two and three dimensions, formulate and develop abstract design concepts, discern relationships between design interventions and their physical and contextual setting and develop presentation skills to effectively communicate propositions and positions.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course further develops design principles from the first semester and introduces students to methodological thinking in the relationship between context, scale and use. Real site situations are introduced and students develop individual design processes associating topological relationships between the interior and exterior, at multiple scales of interventions. Students will have the opportunity to explore design issues through both traditional and computer generated design.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course further develops design principles from the first semester and introduces students to methodological thinking in the relationship between context, scale and use. Real site situations are introduced and students develop individual design processes associating topological relationships between the interior and exterior, at multiple scales of interventions. Students will have the opportunity to explore design issues through both traditional and computer generated design.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This lecture course is designed to familiarize students with structural principles and systems as they relate to the study of interior architecture and adaptive reuse. The course will examine the performance and composition of various structural systems, including wood, lightweight metal, steel, masonry, and concrete structures. Local examples in the built environment will be explored to gain an understanding of structures, their materials and components in adaptive reuse. Course work will be complimented by visits to local examples in the built environment.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This course provides students with an opportunity to study how distinct building systems are constructed to form a comprehensive whole. Through case studies, students will examine approaches to integrating a variety of systems, such as structural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, acoustic, and communication systems. This course will focus on how interior architecture interfaces with existing buildings; the case studies will be of recent works that have altered existing building. Students will be required to use the shop and computers to execute their individual and group assignments.

Major Requirement | MDes Interior Studies Adaptive Reuse

This class introduces the student to different building materials, their properties and characteristics as they relate to the design of interior, sustainable structures. This will include interior finish materials as well as the understanding of wood, metal, masonry and concrete for projects of reuse. The student will visit sites of material production as part of this course. The course structure includes sketch assignments, a midterm, a final exam.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

While introducing students to the principal concepts of structural design and mechanical systems, the course will attempt to provide a direct link to the built environment with focus on the rehabilitation, preservation and adaptive reuse of existing structures, both historical and contemporary. The presentation of case studies, focus on the structural and mechanical aspects of students' individual studio projects and the excursion to a construction site will bridge the gap between class room and the world of building.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

The objective of this class is to employ digital techniques in spatial design. Students successfully completing this course should be able to develop sophisticated digital layouts with image processing software, create 2D architectural drawings and 3D models, and develop a 3D visualization of a design. In this course, we will also discuss the integration of 2D and 3D data, digital materials, as well as the basics of digital lighting and camera work.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

The objective of this class is to employ digital techniques in spatial design. Students successfully completing this course should be able to develop sophisticated digital layouts with image processing software, create 2D architectural drawings and 3D models, and develop a 3D visualization of a design. In this course, we will also discuss the integration of 2D and 3D data, digital materials, as well as the basics of digital lighting and camera work.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

The course deals with the role of architectural representation in creating speculative worlds that challenge the world we inhabit. Drawing on theories of speculative worldbuilding, counter-fiction, scenography, and more-than-human thinking, students will develop spatial fragments as representations that imagine alternate ecological futures. Hacking in this context means challenging the worlds we are handed: the systems, hierarchies, and assumptions that decide who and what counts. Through hacking, what kind of worlds can be rendered visible? 

Through a series of conceptual exploration and linked translations, students will develop narratives in the form of manifestos that will be translated into two- and three- dimensional worldbuilding fragments that will be displayed in the form of spatial artifacts, images, and drawings. 

The translations will provide an opportunity for the students to engage with fundamentals of digital and analog architectural representations, including perspectival and orthographic projections as well as the scenographic techniques of staging, framing and dioramic model-making. By the end of the term, students will have produced a portfolio of speculative environments that demonstrate both technical command of architectural drawing conventions and critical engagement with the imaginative possibilities of storytelling for ecological futures.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $30.00

Elective

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