Required Courses

LinOldhamOffice / 8 Container Farmhouse / Dorado / 2005

Required Courses

ARCH1000: College: An Introduction

Intended for freshmen in the College of Arts and Sciences. Introduces students to liberal arts; familiarizes them with their major; develops the academic skills necessary to succeed (analytical ability and critical thinking); provides grounding in the culture and values of the University community; and helps to develop interpersonal skills-in short, familiarizes students with all skills needed to become a successful university student.

ARCH1110: Fundamental Representation

Introduces architectural drawing techniques, tools, and materials. Included are lettering, dimensioning; orthographic, axonometric, and one- and two-point perspective. The purpose of this course is to create a level of literacy and connection to manual tools before introducing the more complicated world of digital representation.

ARCH1120: Fundamental Design

Introduces computer-aided design processes for two- and three-dimensional modeling for architectural design. Studies CAD techniques that support site and program analysis, concept and schematic design, and design development and construction drawing applications. Requires lab fee.

ARCH1310: World Architecture 1

Introduces selected examples of world architecture and urbanism. Emphasizes historic development of architecture, building types, stylistic characteristics, and relations between architectural works and the cultures that produce them.

ARCH1320: World Architecture 2

Continues ARC U111. Introduces selected examples of world architecture and urbanism. Emphasizes historical development of architecture, building types, stylistic characteristics, and the relations between architectural works and the cultures that produce them.

ARCH2130: Site, Type & Composition

This first course is structured around a series of design projects (assignments) intended to teach the fundamentals of architectural design. Topics include: Composition (The arrangement of elements - of building and/or landscape - to shape space and perceptual experience based on a clear narrative); Context (The use of edges of adjacent buildings, landscape features, and elements of urban infrastructure as critical elements in making architecture.); Narrative (The development of an idea or concept that defines the movement through a project and guides design decision making.); Diagram (The use of graphic and/or visual depictions that isolate and articulate aspects of a composition or space.); Analysis (The diagramming of existing buildings and sites to understand their spaces and the narratives that determine their form.); and Technique (the refinement drawing and modeling skills - making a sophisticated and legible plan, section, etc. - to represent form and to communicate ideas.)

ARCH2140: Pattern, Urban Design, and the City

The second design studio seeks to develop basic skills at relating individual spatial elements; a room, or a small building, to a larger organizational system, like a landscape or an urban pattern. Projects include the design of a single small building in the landscape, and then a series of project related to the design of a small urban school. Students first design a classroom, then do an urban study of the neighborhood, and finally they assemble the classrooms into a school, and the fit of the school into the neighborhood. This negotiation of design from the �inside/out� with design from the outside/in� is a basic architectural skill.

ARCH2140: 19th Century Architecture & Urbanism

Surveys the development of modern architecture in the United States and Europe from the mid-eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Discusses architecture and urban design in the context of their cultural responses to society's changing conditions. Includes field trips.

ARCH2230: Structures 1: Statics

Introduces the theory of materials and structures. Examines basic structural elements in masonry and wood construction. Uses historical and current building types to explore the relationship between structure, materials, construction process, and architectural space. Includes lectures, discussions, field trips, and student presentation of structural models and diagrams.

ARCH2240: Structures 2: Tectonics

ARCH2340: 20th Century Architecture& Urbanism

Examines the forms and principles of European and American architecture of the twentieth century, emphasizing the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, LeCorbusier, and Louis Kahn; and such influential movements as the Dutch de Stijl, Russian constructivism, and American postmodernism and deconstruction. Includes field trips.

ARCH3160: 1960s Urbanism

This studio acknowledges the enormous impact� some good, some less so� of the large-scale urban transformations of the 1960s. The course begins by juxtaposing traditional �figure-ground� urbanism with the more object-focused heroic space-making of the post-war era. Projects included analysis of Boston�s Government Center district; a new urban design proposal for that area grounded in contemporary building types and deferring to market-forces as well as good urbanism. Finally, students design a small public institution to fit into this larger real estate-driven landscape. The studio explicitly addresses new ways to design for public benefits within a private structure. (A variant of this same subject matter it taught in The School of Architecture�s foreign study program at the American institute for Roman Culture.)

ARCH3350: American Housing

Examines the architecture of American houses from first settlements of European colonists in the sixteenth century to issues in the twentieth century. Aims to uncover the ways that architecture, seen through the lens of a particular building type, responds to the demands of materials, climate and geography, ethnic traditions, artistic expression, and changing societal forms.

ARCH3450: Advanced Digital Communication

Builds on CAD (computer-aided design) skills to develop ability to model in three dimensions and develop surfaces and lighting. Also addresses strategies in design communication for effective presentation of digital material.

ARCH5110: Housing and Aggregation

Provides an understanding of multiunit housing in the United States and Europe. Students work in teams to develop new patterns of housing for Boston-area sites, and develop those sites with their own individual interventions.

ARCH5120: Comprehensive Design Studio

Focuses on the materials and making of architecture. Considers architectural connections at all scales, from the nut and bolt to the scale of a door or window to the scale of the whole building and the city. Unlike traditional design studios that produce a schematic design before considering constructional ideas, this studio grounds design proposals upon a tectonic strategy.

ARCH5210: Environmental Systems

Explores the ways in which architectural form can create particular conditions of light and shadow; provide shelter from heat, cold, and rain; and incorporate systems that provide for water, electricity, and sanitation. Provides a series of small-scale design projects. The program for the design projects is simple and straightforward.

ARCH5220: Integrated Building Systems

Studies how to integrate into students' building designs all the environmental and tectonic systems that they have learned in previous architecture courses.

ARCH5310: Architecture Seminar

Encourages students to develop the connections between critical attitudes and techniques in design, through important historical texts. Offers a kind of "great books" approach to the integration of design and history, introducing the writings and seminal designs of Alberti, Palladio, Wright, Le Corbusier, Semper, Sitte, Rowe, Colquhoun, Moneo, Koolhaas, Rossi, Frampton, Venturi and Scott-Brown, Scarpa, and Lynch.

EXED2000: Professional Development for Co-op

Introduces students to the Cooperative Education Program and provides them with an opportunity to develop job-search and career-management skills. Students perform assessments of their workplace skills, interests, and values, and discuss how they impact personal career choices. Students prepare a professional- style r�sum� and learn proper interviewing techniques. Students gain an understanding of the opportunities available to them for co-op. Introduces career paths, choices, professional behaviors, work culture, and career decision making. Students are also introduced to workplace issues relative to their field of study. Students learn to use myNEU in the job-search and referral process. Co-op policies, procedures, and expectations of the Department of Cooperative Education and co-op employers are introduced