Through physical experimentation, this seminar investigates contemporary strategies and techniques for developing innovative new languages that capitalize on the extremes between simplicity and complexity of architectural form. Interference between the familiar and the foreign is explored by misusing geometric, textural, chromatic, and figural conventions in order to reveal and enhance architectural form through the strangeness of forms, materials, and organizations. 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.

All Semesters

2233b
Spring 2017
Strange Forms in Strange Relationships
Nathan Hume