From simple cartoons to the intricacies of kitbashing, architectural form is in flux between extremes of simplicity and complexity. These extreme states leave significant room to uncover new in-between territories for architecture, as its formal options have never been so great, or so widely accepted. This course investigates contemporary strategies and techniques through physical experimentation, for developing innovative new languages that capitalize on these extremes. Precedents that similarly exhibit a curious and strange take on their historic architectural context are tracked throughout history and mined for the architectural qualities they produce. Associations that are derived from qualities of scale, posture, color, silhouette, and material are analyzed and cataloged in order to develop a lexicon of what might define an emerging formal direction in architecture. The course combines lectures, discussions, and demonstrations of key modeling techniques and strategies necessary for exploring the topic. The readings and lectures provide the key theoretical and cultural arguments around experimental work of the past two decades. To understand the current moment, lineages of work are established charting strangeness within architecture’s long history as well as its recent past. Software knowledge is not a prerequisite, as the tools and programs are taught extensively throughout the course, along with the conceptual and historic content. Students explore particularly innovative modeling techniques in Rhino, Maya, NCloth, and ZBrush, which facilitate a number of strategies for the explorations of the course. Software and fabrication are used as generative tools to explore concepts rather than merely output representation. The final deliverable is a small-scale fabrication project that exhibits the new architectural qualities discovered in the course. Limited enrollment.
