Spring 2015

GSD1102: Introduction to Design and Visual Studies in Architecture

150124

SITUATE
Grace La (Coordinator); Joshua Feldman, Head TA
Jeffry Burchard; Paul Fiegenschue, TA
Luis Callejas; Aaron Menninga, TA
Victor Navarro; Ali Karimi, TA
Beth Whittaker; Iman Fayyad, TA
Introduction
SITUATE is the second required studio for students in the three and half year graduate program in architecture.
The studio continues the objectives introduced in the first semester, and encourages students to further develop
graphic technique, analytical thinking, and three-dimensional design ability. If the first semester introduced
specific instruments intended to motivate the production of architectural form, this semester expands the
pedagogical themes to emphasize parameters considered to be foundational to the discipline: site and program.
While seemingly pragmatic in orientation, SITUATE proposes the potency of site its physical, conceptual,
contextual, environmental, historical and morphological state-- as a generative and inspirational condition.
Equally, SITUATE proposes the critical engagement with programits investment in purpose, social
frameworks, relational capacities, and functionas a primary driver of form-making and organization. Both
factors, site and program, require meditation and speculation on performative and projective agendas that
provide rich opportunity to situate the project at numerous physical and metaphysical levels. By this effort, we
imply the architects desire to situate the human body in space; to ground and transform the physical realities of
the site; to position the project relative to historical and contextual understandings; to mine the cultural conditions
of place and time; to locate programmatic potential; to orient and re-orient spatial cognition. To situate, then, is
as much to unearth the hidden, imagined topologies as it is to articulate what is seemingly obvious, tangible, or
banal. In this way, the authorial tradition of design is thoroughly leveraged to embody and include the intellectual
construction of site and program.
The studio will investigate two design projects in depth, with several design exercises interwoven within the
larger project goals. The program of the first project will involve an athletic center, sited in an urban context.
The intention of the second project is to invert the tendencies of the first project and will involve a rare books
library on an ex-urban site. Students will explore design from broad conceptual thinking through the integration
of space, program, and context in greater synthesis. Students are expected to engage in an intensive iterative
design methodology. We will meet three times per week: M, W, F afternoons, 2-6pm. Discursions, or minitalks, delivered by 2nd semester faculty and guests will be scheduled intermittently (see studio calendar), as will
reading and section discussion groups. An outline of the studio projects is below.
PROJECT 1: Neighborhood Olympic Conditioning Center- NOCC (5 weeks total)
The NOCC offers the studio the opportunity to study multiple gradients: Public to Private; dry to wet; group to
individual spaces; pleasure to pain; light to dark; exterior to interior. The program will require an assembly of
heterogeneous spaces and scales (very big to very little) on a tight, urban site, presenting potential for
compaction, connection and release, as well as a choreography of movement.
Project 1a: Mapping Site / Mapping Program (1 week)
Students create maps of time, history, context, physical features, etc. articulating layers and 3
dimensional relationships of the site. Students also create maps of the program, articulating space
parameters (dimension, square footage, volume), critical adjacencies, public to private gradient.
These investigations are intended to draw forth an understanding of the site and program.

Project 1b: Groundwork (simultaneous timeframe with Project 1a, 1.5 weeks)
Students lay the groundwork for the project, producing a jointly-shared site model per studio section,
assembling site documentation (including site sections, existing building faade drawings, 3dimensional digital model, etc). This effort is an extension of site analysis.
Project 1c: Structural Pinup
Students produce drawings and structural models in preparation for review by structural engineers.
Project 1d: Inside OUT | Outside IN (1.5 weeks)
Students produce a plan, section, and model which articulate a public to private gradient + one or more
conditions of gradient, situated as a fragment within the context of their project. This is an exercise in
designing and describing gradient and threshold. It also provides the student with an opportunity to
design a moment at a larger scale (i.e. 1/4 = 1-0).
PROJECT 2: Rare Books Library and Reading Room (6 weeks total)
The Rare Books Library and Reading Room offers the studio the opportunity to study fundamental qualities of
light and landform, the integration of building and landscape, a close reading of topography and natural
conditions. The program presents spatial conditions of stasis, contemplation, and meditation and considers the
thermodynamic conditioning required for the preservation of rare books, sited in a looser, less dense situation
(i.e. Olmsteds Fenway/emerald necklace, site TBC).
Project 2a: Delineation: Lessons in observation and delay (1.5 weeks)
Students produce a careful precedent analysis of a library masterwork, many of which exemplify an
exemplary integration of building and site, and/or which offer programmatic critique. Drawings,
diagrams, model, and analytique of a precedent describing its particular virtue(s) or unique condition.
Project 2b: Groundwork (simultaneous timeframe with Project 2a)
Students lay the groundwork for the project, producing individual site analytique models, assembling
site documentation (including site sections, existing building faade drawings, 3-dimensional digital
model, etc). This effort is an extension of site analysis.
Project 2c: Aperture Analyzed
Fragment study of an aperture condition of the students own project--defined by plan, section, and
model. The aperture project presents an opportunity to design at larger scaleinvestigate how the
detail might inform the whole. The emphasis would be on the spatial effect of the aperture. (i.e. =
1-0).
Readings & Discussion
Throughout the semester, we will read the following articles and each studio will be responsible for discussing
the content, at the discretion of the studio critic. All students are expected to read the articles and participate in
these discussions as an important component of the subject matter. Student groups (of 2 and 3) may be
assigned as discussion leaders to lead the conversations on each article. The discussion leaders will be
prepared to summarize the article, to pose analytical and thought-provoking questions and to facilitate the overall
discussion with graphic material as necessary.
Discussion 1: Site and Program
Burns, Carol. On Site: Architectural Preoccupations. Building Drawing Text, New York: Princeton Architectural
Press, 1991. pp 147-167.
Corner, James. The Agency of Mapping, pp. 213-252.
McMorrough, J. Notes on the adaptive Use of Program
Wall, Alex. Programming the Urban Surface
Koolhaas, Definitive Instability: the Downtown Athletic Club Delirious New York, pp 152-9.
Dcosterd & Rahm, Physiological Architecture

Discussion 2: On Diagrams and the Reading of Buildings

Allen, Stan. Diagrams Matter
Ben Van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Diagrams: Interactive Instrument in Operation
TBD
Discussion 3: Internal and External Topographies
Allen, Stan. 7 Working Concepts Landform Buildings
(BTC Coordination: Ed Eigens lectures on 18th and 19th century landscapes)
TBD

Requirements
Your successful participation in this studio includes the following:
-Required readings and participation in class discussions.
-Rigorous preparation for desk crits, pin-ups, and reviews.
-Attendance: The studio officially meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons from 2:00 6:00 pm. All
students must work in studio and be present for the FULL class period. Students will also be required to attend
several lectures (TBD).
-Documentation of relevant components of your Project in electronic format (on CD, see calendar for due
date).
-Sketchbooks will be reviewed mid semester, and images from your sketchbooks may be required at the end of
the semester (to be turned in with Documentation above).

Recommended Readings
Foster, Hal (ed). The Anti-Aesthetic
Colomina, Beatrice. Privacy & Publicity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Venturi, Robert. Complexity & Contradiction in Architecture. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1977.
Robbins, Edward. Why Architects Draw. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997.
Sennet, Richard. The Fall of Public Man
Koolhaas, Rem. Delirious New York
Heshong, Lisa. Thermal Delight in Architecture