Department of Architecture student reference material

September 11 to October 9, 2024

ARCH 7020 (Research topics: history & theory 1)

CONTEMPORARY

Wednesday mornings | Room: TBA
Carlos Rueda

This course explores relevant architectural theories, ideas and works, and different perspectives that make part of the rich and complex contemporary context of our discipline and practice. It seeks to theoretically introduce and situate the architecture student to the notion of contemporaneity offering singular and alternative approaches based, not so much on what abounds today, but on what is missing: a notion of the contemporary significantly indebted to thinkers such as Agamben, Eco, or Benjamin. As point of departure, “Contemporary” establishes substantive distinctions between what is commonly understood as ‘modern’ (modernity and modernism) in architecture, vis à vis the kind of contemporaneity that is specific to our global condition, generally understood as a condition of ‘postmodernity’—a term which differs from formalist or ‘stylistic’ postmodernism.

At graduate level, in depth, the course selectively discusses current critical approaches to architectural thinking and practice in seminar format (with readings and presentations), and, in parallel, explores forms of creative research such as analogical translations via models and visual representation. Conceptually “Contemporary” offers original interpretations of today’s world and alternative architectural micro-theories on questions of creative method built upon the original concept of syndesis developed by its instructor.  We will benefit as well from guest speakers offering diverse perspectives on the state of the art of their respective orientations in today’s disciplinary spawning global context.      

September 4 to December 4, 2024 3 Credit Hours

ARCH 7120 (history/theory topics credits)
ARCG 7070 (elective credits)
EVDS 3710 (undergraduate credits)

BERLIN: The Life of a City

Wednesday 5:30 to 8:15 PM | Room: 224 Education
Prof. Dipl.-Ing Ralph Stern RA, MAA
Office Hours: Zoom or in-person by appointment

Berlin: The Life of a City focuses on the complex history of one city. Through this, however, the course serves to unveil a multitude of approaches to understanding the built environment in other contexts, serving to provide students with a greater understanding of deep urban history and challenging urban futures contending with climate change, immigration, and opportunity. 

Berlin’s architectural heritage is not just simply placed ‘somewhere’ within an urban ensemble, but is part of an equally rich ‘Experimentierfeld’ of urban morphologies reaching from a fortified Baroque City through the democratizing ‘Athens on the Spree’; from speculative perimeter block morphologies through ‘aufgelockerte’ garden cities; from Weimar’s ‘City of Light’ through the dark National Socialist dreams of world domination and a Berlin reframed as ‘Germania’; from a postwar ‘city of ruins’ through to a socialist utopia and monumental undertakings such as the Stalin Allee, from occupied houses through the repair of the ‘urban fabric’; from the division of the ‘Wall’ to reunification of East and West; from the ‘poor but sexy’ of a Techno-club city through the production of Elon Musk’s Teslas; from the locus of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees to testing a carless city geared towards meeting the 2050 European Union targets of a carbon-neutral metropolis.
 

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October 16 to November 27, 2024

Introduction to Biomimetic Design 

Mercedes Garcia Holguera

This is an introductory-level course in which students will explore the principles of biomimetic design and their application to architectural products. They will learn about biologically inspired projects and materials and study current methods and tools used in academic and professional venues. Participants in this course will have the opportunity to apply the lessons learned in a self-directed biomimetic project.

Tech Topic

Markus Hudert

In the light of an imminent climate crisis, the reduction of CO2 emissions is one of the biggest challenges facing our society today. According to the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Environment Programme (2018), about one-third of the global emissions originate in the building construction industry. It is the shared responsibility of policymakers, clients, architects, engineers, and contractors, to find answers to this challenge. Using more timber in buildings, respectively using timber buildings as carbon sinks, as well as promoting reuse and circularity by means of prefabricated modular construction, are promising steps in that direction. 

Whereas the focus of this course is on modular timber structures and construction systems, it also aims to demonstrate that modular construction is not limited to working with box-shaped units. It investigates the potential of working with elements based on a hyperbolic paraboloid (hypar) geometry. Hypars are a special type of ruled surfaces. The capacity of ruled-surface structures for merging load-bearing functionalities with architectural qualities becomes evident in numerous built examples, both historical and contemporary. The fact that they often consist of discrete, similar, and sometimes even identical elements, contributes to the reusability of their basic components. The materials used in hypars have a large impact on their tectonic qualities. The choice of materials is also relevant with regard to the part of a building, e.g. wall or roof, in which a ruled surface is used, and which structural role it plays. 

In summary, the task is to develop a modular construction system – based on hypar components – that could be applied to various sites and different contexts. As a proof of concept, this construction system will be used to design a small-scale timber structure in Winnipeg. Possible functions are shading structures for public squares, bus and train stops, bicycle shelters, community houses, climbing walls, façade screens, roof additions, and others. We will work with physical and digital models, and we will use Rhinoceros 3D together with the WASP plugin. 

October 16 to November 27, 2024

ARCH 7000

Rodney LaTourelle

A consideration of both colour and concrete as structural elements with critical sustainable and aesthetic dimensions.  

Concrete is the most widely used building material. And, after water, it is the most used material on the planet. Yet, due to its massive carbon footprint, the nature of concrete production must absolutely change. The course presents a brief historic overview of concrete architecture, from the visionary to the everyday, looking at the massive use, advantages, aesthetics, and current ecological limitations of concrete, towards its material, ecological and poetic transformation in a sustainable context. There is a focus on an earth-friendly approach to concrete design, focusing on geopolymer cement and recycled aggregates.  

While colour is usually considered a secondary quality in design, if we consider the primacy of perception - and how space is felt and navigated, colour has an obvious, and yet mysterious, primacy. Examples from history and today provide a context to discuss colour as a relational and situated phenomenon, developing an embodied understanding of the conditions for spatialized and 'structural' colour. Class discussion will be combined with time for students to design their own concrete forms, experiment with pigment, and for the hands-on production of concrete works themselves.

Course itinerary includes: 

1. Concrete: architectural history and contemporary use
2. Colour: overview of architectural approaches  
3. Design of modular form / Moldmaking
4. Mixing, pouring and use of pigments: geopolymer concrete / recycled aggregate
5. Assemblage of cured forms into larger structure/exhibition
    

January 8 to February 5, 2025 

Tech topics 

Jessica Piper 

This topics course will facilitate a brief overview of Passive House design principles and certification processes. Students will learn and apply the core concepts of Passive House Design in pursuit of highly efficient, comfortable, and resilient buildings. The course will include content on: the history of the Passive House movement; basic principles of Passive House Design and PHPP modelling; high performance building systems and components; common challenges with Passive House design and construction in Canada; and the potential impact of Passive House Design in the context of the ongoing climate emergency.

January 8 to February 5, 2025

History/Theory 

Sotirios Kotoulas

This course will explore how meaning in architecture, art, and urbanism informs new architectural action. Mining a place, city, art, or body of architecture for meaning and intention is part of our daily existence. The latent myths, texts, and memories of a place often surface and recede with various triggers. The various “psychic substances or creatures” of the past and future remain present and active in the depths of space and architecture. Students will act as detectives, carefully probing cities and architectural space to uncover the ideas, concepts and theories that drive it. Various methods of extracting meaning and ideas will be studied: poetry, analysis, reading, mythological geography, linguistic structure, Renaissance white magic, Baroque cosmology, and more.

January 8 to March 26, 2025

ARCG7070 Interdisciplinary Design | 3 credit hours
M1 and M2 Architecture students

Professor Neil Minuk, M.Arch, MAA

In this interdisciplinary design course, architecture and engineering students will be able to participate in a simulated building development process based on a real site and potential actual project. The course is framed around a practical non-idealized real life situation. Since every building design is unique and renovation projects are especially unique and complex the course will demand solutions that don’t rely on default solutions from textbooks and websites. Additionally, the course will focus on working cooperatively and in a manner integrated with other related professionals. Integrated design processes and integrated project delivery are increasingly become very common methods by which buildings are designed, constructed and commissioned. Real life practical opportunities are rare in the university context. 
 

February 26 to March 26, 2025

ARCH 7000 - Advanced Tech Topics

Lancelot Coar

This course offers a unique exploration into the evolving field of Bending Active structures, where the expressive potential of materials is harnessed rather than subdued. For over a century, industrial traditions have shaped our built environment using single-axis machines to cut, fold, and press materials into rigid prismatic forms. This approach has given rise to a universal tectonic language of "sticks" and "sheets," but it has often neglected the intrinsic dynamism of materials—their natural ability to form elegant, efficient structures when allowed to move freely.

In contrast, ancient building systems that embrace the expressive qualities of materials are witnessing a renaissance. Thanks to the advent of advanced digital tools, these age-old techniques are being revitalized, enabling the design of highly efficient and uniquely intricate structures.

In this course, you will delve into the art and science of Bending Active structures—assemblies of axial elements that interact in a reciprocal and dynamic process between the builder's intent and the elastic nature of the materials. While these systems have traditionally relied on physical and empirical experimentation, the integration of digital and parametric design tools now offers unprecedented precision and creative freedom.

Through a combination of digital modeling and hands-on experimentation, students will design and construct their own Bending Active structures at various scales. We will collaborate closely with the FABLab, utilizing custom digital tools developed with Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, and 3D-printed connection details to bring these speculative designs to life.

No prior experience with Rhinoceros or Grasshopper is required to enroll in this course. 

February 26 to March 26, 2025

History and Theory

Rebecca Loewen

In a world marked by post-colonialist movement, artificial intelligence integration and climate change, architects are coming into new roles as caretakers — realists, restorers, menders, sustainers, comforters and challengers. Architectural practices, too, are changing out of necessity: new forms of ‘creative practice research’ are privileging attention and care as they question and provoke the surrounding world in sensitive and implicit ways. In this course, we will learn to practice writing, conversation and performance as modes of critical spatial research with which to explore material, social and affective spaces of care in architecture.