Explorations in Architecture and Design Courses

Instructor: Talia Pomp & Madison Cook

Course Offered: July 1 - 12

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, and physical model making. The course will allow students to embrace the tactile facets of the creative process as a foundation of Architecture and its allied fields. Students will explore the city of New Orleans with their sketchbook, experiencing the spatial, environmental, and cultural context of New Orleans, while creating beautiful work that will be digitally archived for their professional portfolio.

The studio will be a safe space to explore creativity, critical thinking, and camaraderie - students will not only learn from lectures and exercises but also from each other through pin-ups and reviews. Participation and discussion are highly encouraged and expected.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Draw freehand contour line drawings.
• Utilize hatch patterns to convey light, shadow and depth.
• Produce legible drawings and emphasize form and surface quality.
• Draw orthographic projected drawings.
• Translate 2D drawing to 3D form.

Instructor: Nicholas Licausi & Jesse Toohey

Course Offered: July 15 - 26

Explore the realms of digital design, representation, and production using the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) 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. They will work with innovative digital tools to compile a portfolio of work that is lively, relevant, and professional.

The studio will be a safe space to explore creativity, critical thinking, and camaraderie - students will not only learn from lectures and exercises but also from each other through pin-ups and reviews. Participation and discussion are highly encouraged and expected.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Draft two-dimensional drawings using Rhino 3D.
• Model three-dimensional volumes and forms using Rhino 3D.
• Render geometry using texture mapping software.
• Produce digital collages and visualizations.
• Prepare 3D digital models for fabrication.

Instructor: Marion Forbes

Course Offered: July 1 - 12

The goal of this course is to introduce students to a new visual language and the fundamentals of architecture and design education through media, film, and cinema.

This course will look at basic, fundamental design principles through the lens of film and cinema. Film is a uniquely modern art form showcasing design at every level on screen. Through watching films, lectures, discussions, diagrams, and design projects, students will explore design and storytelling from the point of view of the audience and the creative, engaging in media and consumption in a new way. Students will also gain an understanding of basic architecture and design principles such as composition, scale, color theory, light, movement, shadow, rhythm, mass, emotion, pattern, context, perspective, and sound. Over the course of two weeks, students will watch (8) films, all showcasing different design principles and concepts. A lecture will introduce and re-iterate concepts shown on screen and will accompany a discussion and sketchbook exercises. At the end of the two week period, students will be asked to select a film and diagram two scenes showcasing as many design principles as they can using hand drawing and storyboard technique for organization.

Note: students will be required to watch a variety of films in this course, including some films that are not rated and some that are rated R.

Students will be assessed on their ability to:

• Understand and discuss basic architecture and design concepts.
• Research, ingest, and present concepts, themes, and tone from professional work through case studies (or films) watched in class.
• Sketch or represent ideas visually, by hand.
• Diagram and distill architecture and design concepts visually, by hand.

Instructor: Andrew Liles

Course Offered: June 10 - 21

What do the director of Hellboy II and Leonardo Da Vinci 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 thoughts and their places in sketchbooks, extensions of their appendages. Not just notes and not just sketches, they recorded a collage of words, marks, lines, and washes. For these two weeks, you will be doing the same.

Upon completion of this course, you will be the Bob Ross of the Sketchbook. What does Bob Ross have to do with all of this? Bob Ross demystified oil painting, shepherding the medium into the mainstream. You will leave these two weeks with the capacity to articulate space and place through a two-dimensional device. Demystify mark and stroke, you will canonize the power and prowess of the sketch catalog.

This course articulates the power of observational [in-situ] sketching for recording both the logos [logic] and pathos [emotion] of place. More than observation, this pattern of documentation will be taught as a method of field work, or on-site data collection. Line and brush are introduced as well as the visual recognition of proportion and scale. Composition, catalog and collage will be employed to not only articulate tangibles but to perhaps also capture an ethos [spirit]. The media by which the explorations will occur will be largely graphite, ink and watercolor and at a scale commensurate with field work, the sketchbook.

In this course, you will:

• Hone your tools
  • Linework and brushstrokes
  • Compositional thirds and fore|mid|back
• Observe the urban condition at multiple scales.
  • Visual registration and recognition through freehand sketching
  • The asterisk: learn the simplicity of one point perspective
• Catalog the urban condition at multiple scales.
  • Interpret and justify instances of urban form
  • Capture the qualitative dimension of urban form

Instructor: Adam Newman

Course Offered: June 10 - 21

How can digital design help us communicate? In this course, students will be introduced to tools within both Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for illustration and text manipulation. We will explore the wide variety of ways in which digitally crafted work can effectively express a designer’s intent and evoke a desired effect from a target audience. Students will learn and apply the concepts of gestalt theory to craft graphic abstractions. Next, we’ll explore the expressive capacity of text and the technical ways we can edit typography for one-of-a-kind designs. Finally, students will combine their graphic abstraction illustrations with their custom typography for a single unified design application—practicing the juxtaposition of text and image.

Class time will include lectures and live software demonstrations as well as creative exercises to push students to think beyond their first idea. Assignment and project work will include regular pin ups for feedback, in support of an iterative process. If you’ve ever been curious about graphic design, this is your chance—discover new ways to express your creativity through visual communication!

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Navigate Adobe Illustrator and use the Bezier and Boolean tools and functions.
• Utilize graphic abstraction to simplify complex objects.
• Create custom typography for graphic design.
• Effectively combine text and image for visual communication.