Performance of Architecture: Paradigms of Enclosure and Shade

Design attitudes toward enclosure and its performance, especially methods for making shade, have radically shifted over the last twenty years because of social, cultural, and economic conditions. Sustainability issues have also recast building enclosure strategies. This seminar examines the history of enclosure systems design throughout the twentieth century and questions new modes of design, production, and performance as they are emerging in twenty-first-century practice. Each week is devoted to examining paradigms of shading, from vernacular forms to brise-soleils. Each week is devoted to a discussion of selected readings and a presentation of projects from Neutra, Wright, Le Corbusier, Drew and Fry, the Smithsons, and Kahn, as well as to contemporaries such as SANNA, Herzog & de Meuron, FOA, UN Studios, R&Sie(n), Ishigami, and Aravena. Students are expected to present two short visual presentations and develop a semester-long project that either assumes the form of an original design project or a dense research presentation. Limited enrollment.