Special Curricular Components

Catalyst

ARCH 5110: Architecture as Catalyst is an annual week-long event, bringing new ideas, conversations, and expertise to the school by inviting guests from around the world to run experimental workshops with graduate students and give public lectures on their work. Each year, the week before spring break, first and second year graduate architecture students engage with the guests and host faculty in intensive five-day workshops, each focused around a unique set of ideas and techniques.

The primary goal of Catalyst is to raise the level of discourse about design and to provoke leaps in perception of what design can be. The workshops serve as intense, rigorous, transformative and creative sparks within the spring semester, and participants then re-engage their peer groups able to share new ways of thinking, communicating and making. Catalyst guests have ranged from experienced educators to practitioners to artists, both within and outside the discipline of architecture. Workshops span a wide field of topics, such as parametric modeling, digital fabrication, smart materials, sensory objects, food science, filmmaking, sound recording, book arts, stereotomy and photogrammetry.

Because of the time and energy commitment of Catalyst, coursework in other classes is intentionally minimized. However, participating students may still have TA commitments in undergraduate classes or assignments in non-architectural classes. Students may also have outside work commitments, although they are encouraged to minimize or shift these if possible during Catalyst Week. Students should notify their Catalyst instructors of any anticipated conflicts at the beginning of the course.

Modules

Modules are half-semester courses offered in the spring semester. There are design studio modules as well as non-studio modules (design studio modules are only offered to GD1 and GD2 students). Modules are intended to shift the pacing of a graduate education, giving students an opportunity to study multiple topics intensively for shorter time periods. Students should note that the workload in a module, due to its abbreviated format, is equivalent to that of a semester-long course (e.g., a 3-credit module is equivalent to a 6-credit semester long course in terms of workload). Thus, students should be careful not to take too many modules during the same half-semester period.

Study Abroad

The School of Architecture provides study-abroad opportunities for graduate students in architecture and other disciplines. These programs immerse students in diverse cultural environments and provide opportunities to study/work and produce design proposals with local practitioners on projects that address current design issues. The typical offering is a May or January term, a three-week experience occurring just after or before spring semester, respectively. The School will occasionally offer longer experiences in the form of half-semester modules with potential extensions over Catalyst Week and Spring Break. For more information, please look for the School of Architecture study abroad course fair in early to mid-fall semester.