Studios
Undergraduate Studios
First Year
First year studio exercises develop excellence in craftsmanship and visual sensitivity as a foundation for a basic architectural language. Problems of various lengths deal with the technical skills of drawing and model-making materials in both two and three dimensions. Using problems of both an abstract and an architectural character, first year studio builds verbal communication skills and model shop ability.
View First Year Gallery
Second Year
Second year studio develops architectural principles through the study and analysis of building materials. Studio focuses on the development of the graphic language in architecture, and considers the appropriate use of materials, energy, and clear construction as the basis of architecture.
View Second Year Gallery
Third Year
Third year studio continues the development of architectural principles through the correlation of design process and building systems. The studio considers the interrelations of building, programming, site planning, structure, enclosure systems, energy consumption, and environmental control systems, and the cultural concepts supporting their organization.
View Third Year Gallery
Advanced Studios (4th and 5th Year)
For B.Arch. students in their 4th and 5th years of study, Advanced Studios include design projects focused on space problems, comprehensive building design, landscape design, building siting and master planning. They can encompass large programmed areas such as high-density housing and deal with such subjects as advanced digital practices, development of programmed spaces, cultural institutions, innovative building systems, and sustainability.
Enrolling an average of fourteen students, Advanced Studios challenge students to design complex projects in Chicago and other places in the United States and the world. Recent Advanced Studios have designed transportation buildings, high-rise buildings, campus projects, national design competition entries, design/build/develop projects in response to community needs, and landscape architecture projects.
Approximately twenty different studios are offered each semester. Each studio project is proposed and taught by a member of the College’s studio faculty, providing a wide range of expertise in specific building types, advanced building technologies, sustainability, digital applications in design, and contemporary materials. Each year some Advanced Studios travel to complete projects elsewhere in the United States or other countries.
View Advanced Studio Gallery
View Advanced Studio Booklet (Fall 2011, Spring 2011, Fall 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2009, Fall 2008, Fall 2007)
Graduate Studios
Methodology, Material, Technique
The Methodology, Material, Technique studio introduces students to design methods and fundamental architectural principles through exercises focusing on methodology, materiality and architectural language. Studio exercises become more complex in relation to the physical properties and qualities of spatial complexity, function and materiality.
View ARCH 541 Gallery
Materiality Projects
The Materiality studio explores the relationship between spatial definition and material properties, construction methods, and structural typologies through a series of sequential architectural projects. The studio introduces architecture as an integrated practice that unifies intention, material, construction, and spatial definitions. Emphasis is placed on materials and applications as fundamental components of architecture.
View ARCH 542 Gallery
Structurally Determinant Project
The Structurally Determinant studio introduces the premise that design, and the pursuit of architecture, is enhanced by the integration of and sensitivity to the essential determinates of the composition. Students develop sensitivity through a single architectural project and accompanying structural component that will focus on the way in which site, function and material choice coalesce into a structurally determinant form.
View ARCH 543 Gallery
For Fall 2011, the studio project was a 70,000 sq.ft. dance school and performance arts center for Columbia College. Studio focused on an in-depth study of structure and its role in the development of the design.
Read Fall 2011 Studio Brief
Comprehensive Building Project
The Comprehensive Building studio focuses on the design of a single building demonstrating the synthesis of ecological planning, programming, code and zoning analysis, structure, and building systems.
View ARCH 544 Gallery
Community Based Building Project
Master of Architecture students in their final year complete a Community Based Studio during the fall semester. These studios introduce students to the discipline and techniques of urban design. Beginning with joint case studies and analyses concerned with the four issues of temporality, density, infrastructure, and public space, the studio provides the students with a basic set of disciplinary frameworks and practical techniques for designing built environments that exceed the scale of singular buildings. These tools are intended to prepare students for fruitful engagement with subsequent design exercises as well as for their sixth semester Masters projects.
Individual studios will focus on design problems that involve direct interaction with public agencies, community groups, developers, or community development corporations, for example. The size of these projects will be in the neighborhood or district scale. Given the scale and complexity of the projects, collaborative work between students should be encouraged wherever possible. The public orientation of the studio should provide students with an understanding of urban design as a fundamentally future-oriented practice, with an expanded potential for engagement in the socio-political milieu. The projects should provide opportunities to explore how design can expand the urban imagination by projecting and articulating scenarios for the future.
View ARCH 545 Gallery
View Community Based Project Booklet
Masters Project
The Masters Project studio is the culmination of the Master of Architecture curriculum as the synthesis of architectural studio into independent project. The project is the design of a building or in-depth research about specific aspects of the built environment. Specialized research and design within a range of architectural problems include site selection, consideration of architectural context and environmental impacts, development of user function and space programs, and architectural planning and design. Aesthetic and visual aspects and the intellectual foundations of the problem are carefully considered, as well as the technical aspects in the selection and integration of structural and environmental systems.
View Masters Project Gallery
