Art & Architecture

Assignment 1 – Trying Out Design
1. Create your own original idea for an object, product, building, tool, or anything designable. It can not be a copy of someone else’s design. If the design exists in the world generally (for example a car, a pen, a dress) there must be some new development in the design idea.
2. With a pencil or pen on an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper, make some drawings of your design, attempting to show your design idea. You can add labels and/or a short description to help present the idea.

Assignment 2 – Building Blocks
1. Identify three basic architectural elements. These elements can be any of the basic forms that assembled together make a building.
2. Provide an image of each element, either a diagram or an image in context.
3. Provide a description for each chosen element, its function in the building, and its impact on the architecture of the building.
5. Any references, quotations, or referenced images must have in text citations and a bibliography. It is good practice to include refences consulted but not cited in the bibliography as well.

Assignment 3 – Style Trends
1. Identify a location where over a period of time the architectural style changed.
2. craft a short thesis that explores how and why the style changed over that time.
3. Write 550 (+-50) words (thesis included) expanding on and reinforcing the ideas of changing style trends in your thesis.
4. Craft a conclusion that reassesses the thesis in light of the developments of your ideas.
5. Any references, quotations, or referenced images must have in text citations and a bibliography. It is good practice to include refences consulted but not cited in the bibliography as well.

Assignment 4 – City Square Project
1. Select any city square, study its buildings and features in google street view or google images or any other available online media.
2. With drawings, images, and text, describe in detail the urban context of the square. Where do people stop and how do people travel through? Catalogue and describe the anchoring buildings and features on the square. Find other anchoring buildings or features in the urban fabric that relate to the square through references of axis or route or proximity and describe the relationship.
3. Make an image or series of images that describe an aspect of the square. Make the image(s) describe architectural or urban design details or concepts. It can be a hand drawn artistic detail like that of a statue or façade. It can be a plans, sections, or other diagrams of the square itself. It can be arrows and lines drawn over a series of maps to show a broader context, as in the slides of Lecture 4.
4. Write 1000 words reinforcing and expanding on the ideas that your image or images convey. Whether discussing a small haptic or large urban scale, be sure to relate to architectural and urban design concepts or histories in your discussion to demonstrate your understanding of the course learning outcomes.
5. Any references, quotations, or referenced images must have in text citations and a bibliography. It is good practice to include refences consulted but not cited in the bibliography as well.

Assignment 5 – Pavilion Design
1. Design a Pavilion. A pavilion can be a number of different things: a decorative building in a park or garden, a room for exhibition at a trade show or industrial exposition, a wing of a palace is sometimes called a pavilion. For this project consider a pavilion to be any detached one room building with a purpose, public or private.
2. Draw a site plan. What would the ideal site look like? Is it in a forest or empty field? Is it a lot in the city? Draw an imaginary site or pick one in the real world. You can invent elements in that imaginary space like rivers, hills, forests, roads, property lines or you may decide to choose and document a real-world location. The site plan will have the shape of your building on a drawing of the site, with the features you’ve invented or real ones if you’ve decided on a specific place. Include an arrow pointing north and consider the movement of the sun through the day while designing. Try to indicate rough dimensions and scale using real world entities like cars, people, trees, and measurements.  Sketch your designs out with just a pencil on paper or use whatever other available tools you like.
3. Draw a plan AND a section. Draw a plan and a section of your pavilion, showing its shape, the thickness of the walls, the doors and windows. Show the areas for seating or activity and any elements or appliances the space has, like fireplaces, stoves, tables, couches. Try to be clear about how the roof is structurally held up in your section and plan.
4. Draw a 3D drawing OR a detail drawing. Draw the entire pavilion in a 3D view like perspective, isometric, or oblique OR pick a central and close-up detail of the assembly, materiality, or style of the building and draw that.
5. Support your drawings. You may feel that your images don’t provide enough descriptive power on their own. Feel free to supplement them with a short descriptive paragraph and perhaps some images of materials and of general concepts that you had in mind.