(Required of second-year M.Arch. I students who waive ARCH 2021.) This course is geared toward graduate students in Architecture who already have an advanced background in bioclimatic analysis and design and who wish to pursue an area of design research in conjunction with their studio projects. The core content of the course is a hybrid lecture/seminar format that focuses on an overview of emerging critical theory and technology in the areas of environmental and energy systems. The deliverable is a design research project that runs in parallel to design studio and considers an aspect of the studio project that gets pushed in a highly developed and experimental direction toward new methods of metabolizing energy, water, air, or living systems through the building envelope. We reconsider fundamentally novel ways of redirecting energy and water flows toward the fulfillment of various social mandates to transform the relationship between the built environment and extended ecosystems.
