Spring 2024 Advanced Studio Lottery

Arch 21st-02: Trevor Herman Hilker

Syllabus | MIND YOUR MANNERS

Description:

Nestled in the fold between representation and design, this studio is concerned with practices of architectural image-making (historical, contemporary, and to come) and the ideas / ideals / mythologies that images, along with the acts of their production, perpetuate. With an interest in the ways by which emerging, complex image-making processes (GANs, Diffusion Models, etc.) offer opportunity, if not insistance, to adapt the way we make, read, and think Architectural Imagery, we will be invested in constructing collaborative, intentional, critical practices of design and drawing in co-authorship with AI models and with one another.

To set a foundation for this work, we will begin the semester by first entangling with architectural images of the past and present. Narrowing in on a curated canon of precedents (projects both built and drawn) we will take up an irreverent attitude toward legacies of architectural “mastery” by remixing representations, decoupling ideas of “style” and “manner” to produce a rogues’ gallery of case study projects. Like a manual analog to Midjourney, we will “/imagine ___ in the style/manner of ____” becoming experts in the simulation and/or emulation of canonical manners of making.

This exercise will lead us into the primary design assignment of the semester, in which students in pairs will intervene in the site of a case study project, arguing for a speculative alternative that will supplant the mythologies of the original with something Other. Developing our own new Manners of making that learn from and against those that make up our prevailing canon, we will act in one part revisionary history, one part alternate reality, and one part speculative future to make space for Other Stories to rise to the surface of architectural conversation.

About the instructor:

Trevor Herman Hilker RISD Bio

email: thilker@risd.edu

Arch 21st-03: Amelyn Ng

🚧 WASTE/WORKS 🚧

Link to Syllabus

🧱 Course Description
This studio investigates the material, environmental, and social intersections between waste, labor, and the built environment. With a focus on building and urban waste, salvage, reuse, recycling, and regeneration, we will think and work towards just industrial futures in New York City amid the climate crisis and cultures of consumption. As acts of design are reoriented from the notion of material resource (linear act of extraction) to resourcefulness (creative material management), WASTE/WORKS aims to revalue waste materials, infrastructures, and networks toward more circular and collective institutions, more social ‘supply chains,’ and more materially energetic architectures and landscapes. 

🥘 NOTE: We will engage with the RISD Nature Lab this semester for material ‘cooking’ experiments. Taking resourcefulness as an ethos, the studio expects students to get creative with sourcing, recipes, and low-footprint approaches to model making. Prepare to get your hands dirty!

🚆 NOTE II: NYC TRIP! Please note that the studio plans to travel to New York City from March 17th — 18th (full itinerary to be confirmed in the Spring, alternative dates are March 16th-17th or 18th-19th pending group availability). This is a required studio trip which allows students to visit a number of sites including the final project site. We will be moving quite a lot on foot and on public transport in New York / Brooklyn. The school will cover train tickets, 1 night’s accommodation, and a group meal or two.

About the instructor:

Amelyn Ng RISD Bio | www.amelynng.com
email: ang@risd.edu
_
www.depot.directory
www.planetaryhomeimprovement.store

Arch 21st-04: Evan Farley

Syllabus | This is Paper

About the instructor:

Evan Farley RISD Bio / Assembly Archive

email: efarley@risd.edu

Arch 21st-05: Dhruv Mehta

--ARCHAEOLOGIES--

LINK TO SYLLABUS

Description

Through making and drawing, we will explore ways that architecture can be imperfect, imprecise, incomplete, or unfinished. How does one deliberately generate situations of imperfection? How can we exploit the delta between the ideality of the complete and the potential of the incomplete? We will start with a referential archive, move to making proto-architectural models and drawings, find novel ways to hide the architecture, and finally dive deep into details and site to find moments of tension and opportunities. We will merge analog and digital methods of making to find novel representation techniques.

You will design a 10-50,000 sqft building with a particular program (chosen by you and evolved together in desk crits) within a site in Providence. The studio aims to combine personal preoccupations with conceptual and disciplinary issues of architecture. We will discuss topics such as archaeology, science, psychoanalysis, and mythology in relation to architecture.

About the instructor:

Dhruv Mehta RISD Bio

email: dmehta@risd.edu

Arch 21st-06: Penn Ruderman

Syllabus | Architecture, Surface, & Identity

About the instructor:

Penn Ruderman RISD Bio | OPRCH

email: jruderma@risd.edu

Arch 21st-07: Aaron Tobey

Syllabus | Taking Care of Business

About the instructor:

Aaron Tobey RISD Bio

email: atobey01@risd.edu

ID 24st-06: Justin Cook + Tim Maly*

Beyond Stigma: Care Spaces

Course Description 

This studio will develop compassionate configurations of products, services, environments, systems, material and visual cultures in collaboration with the Division of Addiction Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital. Working in close collaboration with the newly created Bridge Clinic — which aims to serve as a point of entry into care for people with addiction — students will explore questions like: 

• What does a clinical space look/work like which cares for staff and patients? 

• Are there better ways of conceiving of the roles of everyone involved? 

• How should institutions incorporate insights from community practice without dampening the vitality? 

• Can we design stigma out of systems of care? 

In studio, students will gain experience in rapidly researching an evolving and complex social phenomena, developing frameworks for understanding and responding to the phenomena, and building and testing strategic interventions. This strategic design skill set will empower students to tackle the many complex challenges they may face in leading design practices or organizations that are increasingly looking to designers as providing a critical core competency. 

Learning Objectives

The topic of the studio is challenging, deeply human, and often uncomfortable. As a studio, we will need to be generous to one another and to the people we will encounter, learn from, and work with. Our aim is to contribute to the creation of a healing and humane system of care for everyone who needs it. We intend to create common cause with other leaders in this issue space in order to realize meaningful social impact. 

Domains

objects | artifacts, services | experiences, systems | platforms, strategy | storytelling 

About the instructors:

Justin W. Cook is the Founding Director of the Center for Complexity. He is a strategic designer working on the world’s most challenging problem sets, such as healthcare, sustainability and education. His passion is to tackle these systems challenges by designing innovative organizational architectures.

Tim Maly is a Senior Lead at the Center for Complexity. Tim is working on designing institutions suitable for managing existential threats and providing care beyond stigma. A writer and critical designer, Tim has taught in the Masters of Industrial Design program at RISD, helping students understand the role that communication plays in explaining and exploring ideas. Tim has a background in game design and journalism.

email: jcook@risd.edu, tmaly@risd.edu