Architecture Design Studio: Praxis Studio II

This studio introduces integrated architectural design as the synthesis of disparate elements, demands and desires. It situates architecture as a technological, cultural and environmental process that is inherently contingent and entangled yet tethered to a historical project of autonomy. It is within the contested space between these two notions of architecture that the studio operates. The studio sets out alternatives to extractive practices and introduces students to bio-based material practices and computationally facilitated methods of manufacturing and construction. While the studio directs attention to concerns of building, such as context, building systems, program and regulatory constraints, it challenges students to situate design as a project that engages contemporary discourse and ecological imperatives to explore emerging aesthetics, spatial organizations and materializations.