Mark J. Clayton, PhD
In this studio, students in their senior year of the Bachelor of Environmental Design degree will collaborate with students in the Bachelor of Construction Science and the Master of Land and Property Development programs to design a mixed use urban development. Our project in spring of 2016 is Phase 2 of Century Square in College Station, TX. This mixed use development has been conceived by Midway Development. Phase 1 is already under construction adjacent to the Texas A&M University campus.
Architecture has long been a collaborative profession that involves clients, designers, consultants, contractors, and facility operators. Caudill Rowlett Scott was a pioneering firm that recognized very early the necessity and power of the team. This studio course is an activity of the CRS Center that will advance the legacy of the firm by challenging students to work in a collaborative setting with students from land development, and construction science, as well as practitioners from various disciplines. Students will use advanced technology of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and simulation in an experimental design method of Studio 21 to design high performance buildings rapidly.
Resources
Stage 1: Preparation and pre-design
Studio 21 is a new way of architectural practice that can achieve higher performance design in less time by leveraging computer power to be evidence-based.
The notion of Studio 21 is that the attitude and method presented in this course are attuned to the needs, technologies, and methods of the 21st century. The computer has changed dramatically the methods and practice of building. Furthermore, global drivers of dwindling resources, climate change, exploding populations, precarious health services, and metamorphosing political forms present society with unprecedented challenges to an urban and architectural form. How we taught architecture in the 20th century is inadequate for the 21st century.
The Studio 21 process involves several activities in a loose sequence:
1. Prepare. In this step, the designers collect resources and convert them into digital tools. A base case design is produced to serve as a benchmark for the design phase and a set of assessment tools are established.
2. Design iteratively. The designers create schemes rapidly by employing the extensive digital resources and modifying existing scheme. Each scheme is assessed and the assessment is recorded. Ultimately the best scheme is selected.
3. Incorporate. The resources produced during earlier stages of the project are polished and generalized so that they can be used as resources on future projects.
Copyright © 2016 Mark J. Clayton