Explorations in Architecture and Design Courses

Instructor: Hannah Kenyon

Course Offered: June 30 - July 11, July 14 - 25

At the root of the architecture discipline is the study of design. In this two-week course, students will focus on analog techniques of design utilizing hand drawing, mixed media exploration, shadow studies, and physical model making. The course will embolden students to embrace the tactile facets of the creative process as a foundation of Architecture and its allied fields. Students will explore the built environment from a haptic perspective, experiencing the universal spatial, environmental, and social elements of architecture while creating beautiful work that will be digitally archived for their professional portfolio.

Instructor: Nicolas LiCausi

Course Offered: July 14 - 25

Jump into the digital realm exploring the intersection of digital design, representation, and documentation using the Adobe Creative Suite, as well as Rhino (a 3d modeling software). In this two-week course, students will focus on visual and spatial communication through digital media and express their design ideas in the digital laboratory using laser cutters and 3d printers. They will work with innovative digital tools to compile a portfolio of work that is lively, relevant and professional reflecting a strong understanding of translating architectural design through orthographics and three-dimensional space.

Instructor: Ira Concepcion

Course Offered: June 9 - 20

Explore architecture through a futuristic lens in this two-week design studio. Students will discover how AI can become an active partner in an iterative design process, guiding decisions from concept to proposal with opportunities for deeper analysis. Through hands-on assignments and collaborative projects, the course emphasizes developing human-centered narratives and sustainable solutions that harmonize with their surroundings. By the end, students will understand how AI-assisted design enhances creativity, supports informed decision-making, and deepens exploration in architecture.

Instructor: Ben Derlan

Course Offered: June 9 - 20

What would it mean to design a park for a deer? Or to consider the local songbirds when building the eaves of a house? In this course, we will explore all the different life forms— plants, trees, animals, fungi, bacteria…and humans— which interact with the built environment. Students will conduct field research of New Orleans’ urban ecologies using the techniques of naturalists, architects, and artists. This sketchbook-based research will culminate in the design of a small architectural project that serves both human and nonhuman users.

Instructor: Adam Newman

Course Offered: June 9 - 20

Graphic design is about mixing creativity + strategy to communicate visually. Images, fonts, and colors combine to tell a story, catch attention, or solve a problem. From logos to posters to app layouts, it’s art with a purpose! Typography is a big part of graphic design. The style of letters changes how we understand a message—bold letters can be powerful, curvy ones can be playful. It’s not just about reading—it’s about feeling what the words say! Also: Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop—AND THE ART OF SEEING!

Instructor: Jason Blankenship

Course Offered: July 14 - 25

Cities have become the indispensable crucible toward synthesis of collected human experience; an architectural constructed response to great challenges facing humanity. We seek to better understand spatial conditioners of the urban experience. Urban spatial character will be visited through curated imagery; from which to identify constraining forms. We will synthesize forms, craft models, and evaluate human interactive potentiality in varied experimental modeled configurations.

Instructor: Austin Lightle

Course Offered: June 30 - July 11

Architecture sits at the intersection of economic, social, and environmental injustices, often using speculative mediums to explore and communicate these realities. From sketches to animations, architectural practices engage with evolving tools to reach broader audiences beyond architects. Historically, speculative projects by groups like Superstudio and Archigram critiqued societal issues through utopian visions, effectively holding a mirror up to society so it could look at itself. This course introduces video games as a new medium for architectural thinking, offering an immersive platform for imagining alternative futures. Using Unreal Engine, students will create interactive worlds that allow others to explore these speculative scenarios through a first-person experience.

Instructor: Sean Fowler

Course Offered: June 9 - 20

Introduction to Site Forces on Architecture and the Built Environment introduces how natural, physical and social systems impact the design of buildings and the built environment. Students will learn about these systems and how they can be addressed through the design of a building through a survey of these forces, of historic movements addressing similar challenges, and current methods to address the same. Architecture is only one part of the built environment and must be considered in this larger context to effectively engage with nature and with the community, and to design for an uncertain future in the face of climate change.

Instructor: Andrew Liles

Course Offered: June 30 - July 11

Do you have something to say? Want to celebrate something you see? Should you drop it into the vast morass of hyperspace, or rather craft it into a compelling tangible narrative, a pocket treatise? Zines [fanzines] have propagated from science fiction fervor to exquisite canons, fluctuating from cultural mania [fanzini] to socio-political protest [riot grrrl]. Learn how movements took root from tangible and immediate self-publication and straightaway manifest a conspicuous richness to your own voice.

Instructor: Andrew Liles

Course Offered: June 9 - 20

What do the director of Hellboy II and the French Romantic Delacroix have in common? Fantastic sketchbooks! Just like you did from the age of two to ten years old [and perhaps further], these creative powerhouses documented their places and their thoughts in sketchbooks, extensions of their limbs, and in words, lines and washes. For these two weeks, you will be doing the same, demystifying mark and stroke, and you will leave with the capacity to articulate space and place through a two-dimensional device.