Fall 2019 Arc 3 Course Offerings
New York City captured from 7500 feet in the air, photography by Vincent Laforet.
Night Rises 2
by Instructors Nelson Byun & Yufan Gao
The studio will explore landscape and architecture at the turn of night. The time between dusk to dawn where our perception of the natural and built environment transforms into an abstract entity - trees and hills into dark silhouettes, a building a lantern, a window a scene, a distant light a refuge. The darkness of night provides a blank canvas where landscape and architecture can be merged as a continuous stroke, an expansive field, and agglomeration of light. Furthermore, it alters material and sensorial hierarchy enlivening new spatial interpretations and acts of rearranging the order of reality that we experience at daytime.
The studio project will be situated in Central Park, New York City. About a century and a half ago, the Park, a naturalistic void at the heart of the congested city, was a radical response to the lack of open public space. Today, its status quo can no longer satisfy dwellers of a sleepless city. As a critique, what role could the “void” play at night? How could it become the opposite of the absence of happenings?
The course will begin with analysis and conceptual studies of Central Park. Students will research its history, geology, ecology, infrastructure, programs, etc. Furthermore, they will examine the park through the perspective of night, searching for new readings and potentials that will inform the design of a Nocturnal Building integrated within its intricate plan and diverse landscape. It will feature (5) public spaces (exterior or interior, for individual contemplation or gathering) that observes/frames the following: CITY; SKY; DARKNESS; FAUNA FLORA; and TIME.
Historic American Engineering Record, Creator. Mississippi River 9-Foot Channel, Lock & Dam No. 1, In Mississippi River at Mississippi Boulevard, below Ford Parkway Bridge, Saint Paul, Ramsey County, MN. Documentation Compiled After. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/mn0384/>.
Kinetic Architectures: Retrofitting the Landscape Along the Mississippi River
by Instructors Justin Kollar & Elaine Stokes
This course will consider architecture as a modifier of regional socio-economic and ecological processes in the context of hydrological infrastructure along the Mississippi River. Infrastructure like locks and dams modify and support fundamentally ‘kinetic’ processes: the flow of water, material, energy, and wildlife. Students will be challenged to approach multiple sites near Minneapolis, MN, engaging with the riparian infrastructure and manipulating or augmenting the existing flows of the site. Students will learn about the role of hydrological infrastructure in the context of a watershed and local habitat, as well as the importance of locks and dams in support of manufacturing, power generation, and material transportation. Whether viewing these sites primarily as a catalyst for ecological change or as key socio-economic infrastructure, students will propose an intervention to reframe the infrastructural character of the sites. Scale will also be an important aspect of study. Students will look at both the large-scale systems that the locks and dams support as well as the local context in terms of program, access, and adjacency. Students must also consider how existing kinetic flows might change and what future ones may look like; in other words, how their interventions might modulate and change the context (both large-scale and local) over time.
Image provided by Digital Commonwealth
Sinking Ships: Reclaiming East Boston’s Waterfront
by Instructors Jessy Yang & Christine Wilson
How much does the future owe to the past? Recent heated debates over the appropriate reconstruction of Notre Dame’s roof, for example, suggest the future must be tethered to the past. Often, designing the new is energized by remembering the old. While Boston is typically a city that remembers its past through the preservation of historic buildings and landscapes, East Boston’s former shipyards have instead been undergoing active and aggressive erasure. Today, new waterfront condos and apartments boast coveted views of downtown Boston yet represent a form of urban development largely disconnected from East Boston’s people and its past.
This studio will interrogate the relationship of architecture and landscape to memory, searching for new coastal urban models that recall the waterfront’s industrial past while simultaneously addressing contemporary issues, such as housing and flood resiliency. The selected coastal site is one of few remaining with existing historic buildings, viewed here not as annoyances but as assets. Experimenting on the concept of creative reuse, students will compose housing and cultural space in tandem with a public waterfront design that also completes another critical link in the Boston Harborwalk.
The studio begins with weekly exercises on the fundamentals of housing typologies, landscape architecture, urban design, and mapping. After which, students will work independently to propose their own projects across a range of scales. This studio schedules lectures, software tutorials, and a site visit throughout the semester to inform presented materials and expected deliverables.
Resiliency
by Instructors Arlen Stawasz & Tyler Hinckley
Resilience is defined as the ability of something to spring back into shape, or redefine its elasticity after a major transformation or event. So, how can the idea of resilience apply to the built environment? How can planning and design decisions impact the way a community responds to a natural disaster or sea level rise? How can buildings contribute to a more resilient society?
This studio will seek to address these questions at multiple scales (macro to micro) and from various points of view (social, economic, environmental). The studio will also be taught in parallel with the Academy of Architecture at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. The two studios will focus on a site in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, a region known for innovative flood protection and resilient design. After researching and analyzing the environmental and socio-economic conditions of the area, students will test the potential for resilient design by focusing on various building types.
The studio will include a week-long trip to Amsterdam for a site visit and workshops with the students from the Amsterdam Academy. The two studios will engage with members of the community in workshops and reviews to inform potential design solutions and will share progress throughout the semester.