Elective course offerings vary depending on curricular needs, faculty availability, and topical issues that arise through contemporary and historical contexts that shape new course proposal. With that said, there are a series of electives that are typically offered in fall and spring. While history (ARCH 54XX) electives change based on faculty expertise, there are other representation and technology electives that are offered more consistently because they fill requirements for the Master of Science tracks. Below is a list of electives offered in the past year.
This course explains and explores contemporary facade design by introducing students to key technical principles that will empower them to be more thoughtful and informed facade designers. We will take an in-depth look at four fundamental facade materials — stone, clay, metal, and glass —followed by exploration and development in a 3D environment of the students' choice.
In this interdisciplinary and project based seminar, we will explore how research methods and content of landscape histories are being fundamentally reshaped in order to remap the future of the profession. Our class will contribute to these efforts. We will ask, “What histories will enable designers and historians working in a time of rapid and unpredictable change to further environmental justice?” We will focus on the idea of the “park” in the United States at three different scales: neighborhood, city, and nation. Every park is the site and subject of ongoing ethical debates. Parks are imagined, constructed, promoted, programmed, used, maintained, and redesigned in ways that reveal conflicting values about what is “good” and “right”. By creating “long histories” of parks that tie together past and present concerns, we can better frame opportunities for future action.
The Cold War is over. Yet as historian Rashid Khalidi contends, “its tragic sequels, its toxic debris, and its unexploded mines [continue] to cause great harm, in ways largely unrecognized in American public discourse.”1 Notwithstanding that filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s recent intervention, Oppenheimer (2023) offers a popular recap of the breaking point that inaugurated a series of not-so-cold wars, the question remains: What counts as the architecture of the global Cold War? To answer this question, our seminar will explore the changing paradigms of “space” during the Cold War era. We will draw on a wide variety of media to conduct a historical study of the complex relations between images, artifacts, landscapes, technologies, territories, and infrastructures—that all together contributed to the design process of what we will term “Cold War space.” Our cases include but are not limited to mushroom clouds, do-it-yourself shelters, space capsules, atomic cities, protest graphics, and examples of Cold War Cinema.
This course focuses on the developments, theories, movements, and trends in architecture and urban design, from World War II to present.
The trans-scalar topics of this cons are Forests and Fiber. Our research and making will focus on the performative feedback loops embodied in tree|timber|wood that necessarily connect forested landscapes to wood-fiber buildings across space and time. What are the performative variables attached to Minnesota’s forested landscapes and how can their design positively impact the buildings whose materials are sourced from them? How can material specification and construction impact the management of forested landscapes and the design of rural economies and communities that live in them?
This course bridges the gaps among architectural research, design, practice. Forum for students to independently develop research topics/implement research methods related to architectural scholarship/practice, aided by classmates, instructor, guest lecturers.
This course advances architectural practice topics not normally covered in curricula are examined/evaluated as foundation for licensure/ARE 4.0 testing processes.
Philosophy and theory of historic preservation and its origins. Historic building research, descriptive analysis of historic buildings, historic archaeology, historic building documentation, the government role in historic preservation, preservation standards and guidelines, preservation and building codes, neighborhood preservation, preservation advocacy, and future directions for historic preservation. Research on architectural and historical aspects of a historic site using primary and secondary resources and on controversial aspects of preservation.
Sustainable Design Theory and Practice provides a foundational understanding of the history, theory, and ethics of sustainable design processes and practices. The course will be grounded in the current context of regional and global ecological issues, and bridge theory to design practice. The course will emphasize approaches to sustainable, resilient and regenerative practice for the re-integration of built and natural systems.
Underlying the course is the proposition that designers and leaders need to understand the philosophy and rigorous trajectory of restorative and regenerative design which aspires to make positive impacts on the socio-ecological health of places with every act of design, planning and construction. The course will be a platform for collective and individual exploration of alternative approaches to meet global ecological challenges and develop an individual trajectory for future practice.
This course provides students with the concepts and tools to understand contemporary urban ecology and the flow of water within and between the city, district, site, and building scales. Throughout the course we study and test different ways of understanding (representing) the flow of water in natural systems and compare those to the systems of our contemporary urban and rural environments. It is essential to think about designing site and building’s water systems in concert with one another and think in terms of balances and cycles. We use short group and individual exercises, case study examples, focused readings, in-class workshops, and application of digital and analog tools to provide students hands-on opportunities to investigate design issues and determine outcomes. 3 field trips that travel out into the city to learn about urban water and ecological systems are a critical part of the class.