An art piece comprised of wooden furniture combined with metal grids sits in a windowed room.

SAIC

Architecture, Interior Architecture, & Designed Objects

Graduate Curriculum & Courses

Master of Architecture

SAIC offers a National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) accredited Master of Architecture (MArch) degree: a full, 3-year MArch and a 2-year, accelerated MArch track for students with an undergraduate, pre-professional bachelor's in architecture or architectural technology.

  • Program Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of six years to complete the degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence.
    • Transfer credit: Generally transfer credits are not accepted. All requests for transfer credits are reviewed individually by the director of the department at the time of admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours
    TermCredit Hours
    First Year Fall15
    • AIA 5110 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 1 (6)
    • AIA 5113 Arch/Inarch: Construction Systems (3)
    • AIA 5123 Arch/Inarch: Structures 1 (3)
    • ARTHI 5102 Global History of Architecture, 1750–1900 (3)
    		 
    First Year Spring15
    • AIA 5120 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 2 (6)
    • AIA 6221 Arch/Inarch: Structures 2 (3)
    • ARTHI 5122 Critical Terms in Modern Architecture (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Fall15
    • ARCH 6110 Architecture: Grad Studio 3 (6)
    • AIA 6112 Arch/Inarch: Nodes/Networks (3)
    • Art History (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Spring15
    • ARCH 6120 Architecture: Grad Studio 4 (6)
    • AIA 6123 Codes, Specs, Joints (3)
    • Art History (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Third Year Fall15
    • ARCH 6210 Architecture: Grad Studio 5 (6)
    • AIA 6212 Arch/Inarch: Choreographed Systems (3)
    • AIA 6213 Arch/Inarch:Thesis Strategies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Third Year Spring15
    • AIA 6220 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 6 - Thesis (9)
    • AIA 6222 Arch/Inarch: Practice Economies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Participation in four Graduate Critiques—Participation in Critique Week is mandatory for the final four semesters of study at SAIC. 
    Participation in AIADO Graduate Exhibition 
    Total Credit Hours90

  • Program Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of four years to complete the degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence.
    • Transfer credit: Generally transfer credits are not accepted. All requests for transfer credits are reviewed individually by the director of the department at the time of admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours
    TermCredit Hours
    First Year Fall15
    • ARCH 6110 Architecture: Grad Studio 3 (6)
    • AIADO 6112 Arch/Inarch: Nodes/Networks (3)
    • Art History Elective (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    First Year Spring15
    • ARCH 6120 Architecture: Grad Studio 4 (6)
    • AIADO 6123 Codes, Specs, Joints (3)
    • AIADO 6221 Arch/Inarch: Structures 2 (3)
    • ARTHI 5122 Critical Terms in Modern Architecture (3)
    		 
    Second Year Fall15
    • ARCH 6210 Architecture: Grad Studio 5 (6)
    • AIADO 6212 Arch/Inarch: Choreographed Systems (3)
    • AIADO 6213 Arch/Inarch: Thesis Strategies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Spring15
    • AIADO 6220 Arch/Inarch: Graduate Studio 6 - Thesis  (9)
    • AIADO 6222 Arch/Inarch: Practice Economies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Participation in four Graduate Critiques 
    Participation in Graduate Design Exhibition 
    Total Credit Hours60

Master of Architecture with a Track in Interior Architecture

SAIC offers two Master of Architecture (MArch) with a Track in Interior Architecture degrees. Both are professional degrees accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). Unique among architecture graduate degrees, SAIC’s two MArch with a track in interior architecture options recognize and underscore the significance of architectural design where form, structure and enclosure are considered in proximity to materials, objects, human needs, and experience. Housed within an interdisciplinary educational community, the degrees provide a provocative and intellectually stimulating context for exploring the social, cultural, and technological implications architectural spaces designed from the inside out.

Interior Architecture is a growing professional field where architects have an increasing impact. In the MArch programs, we teach through hands-on inquiry, experimentation and exploration to develop the skills and critical knowledge necessary for the development of new spatial ideas and invention in the field of interior architecture.

The curriculum is centered on the series of project-based studios supported by courses in building structures, building technology, professional practice, and electives in architectural history and theory. MArch students are encouraged to develop and expand their practice by taking courses in other departments across SAIC, as well as by applying to AIADO’s External Partnership courses. In their final year, students complete a rigorous comprehensive design studio and pursue a self-directed design thesis under the supervision of faculty in the department.

  • The 3 year, 90-credit option is a carefully choreographed studio sequence, offering students the skills and sensibilities required of the contemporary interior architect, while grounding them in the histories and theories that are specific to the design of interior spaces. Each semester includes a conceptual cluster of classes with a 6-credit design studio, a 3-credit technical support studio, and 3-credit seminars.

    Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of six years to complete the degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence.
    • Transfer credits: Normally transfer credits are not accepted. All requests for transfer credits are reviewed individually by the director of the department at the time of admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours
    TermCredit Hours
    First Year Fall15
    • AIADO 5110 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 1 (6)
    • AIADO 5113 Arch/Inarch: Construction Systems (3)
    • AIADO 5123 Arch/Inarch: Structures 1 (3)
    • ARTHI 5102 Global History of Architecture, 1750–1900 (3)
    		 
    First Year Spring15
    • AIADO 5120 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 2 (6)
    • AIADO 6221 Arch/Inarch: Structures 2 (3)
    • ARTHI 5122 Critical Terms in Modern Architecture (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Fall15
    • INARC 6110 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 3 (6)
    • AIADO 6112 Arch/Inarch: Nodes/Networks (3)
    • Art History (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Spring15
    • INARC 6120 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 4 (6)
    • AIADO 6123 Codes, Specs, Joints (3)
    • Art History (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Third Year Fall15
    • INARC 6210 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 5 (6)
    • AIADO 6212 Arch/Inarch: Choreographed Systems (3)
    • AIADO 6213 Arch/Inarch: Thesis Strategies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Third Year Spring15
    • AIADO 6220 Arch/Inarch: Grad Studio 6 - Thesis (9)
    • AIADO 6222 Arch/Inarch: Practice Economies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Participation in four Graduate Critiques—Participation in Critique Week is mandatory for the final four semesters of study at SAIC. 
    Participation in Graduate Design Exhibition 
    Total Credit Hours90


     

  • Students with undergraduate pre-professional bachelor's degrees in architectural studies, architectural technology, or interior design may be accepted into the two-year, 60-credit accelerated program. Students admitted into the Option 2 program may also be lacking one or two specific topical architectural classes, and if so will be required to take those classes at SAIC.

    Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of four years to complete the degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence.
    • Transfer credits: Normally transfer credits are not accepted. All requests for transfer credits are reviewed individually by the director of the department at the time of admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours
    TermCredit Hours
    First Year Fall15
    • INARC 6110 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 3 (6)
    • AIADO 6112 Arch/Inarch: Nodes/Networks (3)
    • Art History Elective (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    First Year Spring15
    • INARC 6120 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 4 (6)
    • AIADO 6221 Arch/Inarch: Structures (3)
    • AIADO 6123 Codes, Specs, Joints (3)
    • ARTHI 5122 Critical Terms in Modern Architecture (3)
    		 
    Second Year Fall15
    • INARC 6210 Interior Arch: Grad Studio 5 (6)
    • AIADO 6212 Arch/Inarch: Choreographed Systems (3)
    • AIADO 6213 Arch/Inarch: Thesis Strategies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Spring15
    • AIADO 6220 Arch/Inarch: Graduate Studio 6: Thesis  (9)
    • AIADO 6222 Arch/Inarch: Practice Economies (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Participation in four Graduate Critiques 
    Participation in Graduate Design Exhibition 
    Total Credit Hours60

Master of Design in Designed Objects

The Master of Design in Designed Objects (MDDO) is a two-year, 66 credit hour program with a carefully sequenced course-based curriculum, built for students who seek immersion in the critical and technical skills specific to the extended practice of object design.

  • Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: Students have a maximum of four years to complete the degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence.
    • Transfer credit: Generally transfer credits are not accepted. All requests for transfer credits are reviewed individually by the chair of the department at the time of admission and are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credit will be permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours
    TermCredit Hours
    First Summer Intensive 6  
    • DESOB 5050 Refresh: Summer Intensive (6)
    		 
    First Year Fall15  
    • DESOB 5150 Studio 1: Reset (3)
    • DESOB 5152 Research Methods Lab (3)
    • DESOB 5164 Material Intelligence Studio Seminar (3)
    • ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Arch. and design (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    First Year Spring  15  
    • DESOB 5160 Studio 2: Discover (6)
    • DESOB 5162 Prototyping Methods Lab (3)
    • ARTHI 6120 Critical Issues in Designed Objects (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Second Year Fall 15  
    • DESOB 6150 Thesis Studio 1: Initiate (6)
    • DESOB 6152 Material Futures Studio Seminar (3)
    • Art History Elective (3)
    • Elective or Internship (3)
    		 
    Second Year Spring 15  
    • DESOB 6160 Thesis Studio 2: Manifest (6)
    • DESOB 6162 Positioning Methods Lab (3)
    • Elective (3)
    • Elective (3)
    		 
    Participation in four Graduate Critiques 
    Participation in Graduate Design Exhibition 
    Total Credit Hours66

MFA in Studio

The MFA in Studio Program offers an expansive educational model in which designers engage history, critical thinking, and work across disciplines.

  • The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program is designed to offer maximum flexibility in addressing the needs of each individual student. Following admission through a department, students design their two-year plan of study based on optimizing the offerings and opportunities available throughout SAIC. 

    Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: You have a maximum of four years to complete your MFA in Studio degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence. Students will have access to studios for four semesters only.
    • Transfer credits: You must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in residence at SAIC. You can request up to 15 transfer credits at the time of application for admission, which are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credits are permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Art History requirement: MFA students are required to take ARTHII 5002 Graduate Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art OR ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Design. Art History courses must be at the 4000-level and above.
    • Undergraduate studio courses: Graduate students are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000-level and above) per semester without permission of the Dean of Graduate Studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000-level are allowed only with permission.
    • Full-time status minimum requirement: 12 credit hours is required to maintain full-time status as a graduate student.
    AreaCredit Hours

    Studio

    • MFA 6009 Graduate Projects (21)
    • MFA 6009 Exhibition (3)

    24

     

    Seminar

    • Graduate Level Seminar
    		12

    Art History

    • ARTHI 5002 OR ARTHI 5120 (3)
    • Art History Courses, 4000-level or above (9)
    		12

    Electives—any course in any area at 3000-level or above 

    • Additional Graduate Projects sections used as electives must be approved by the Graduate Program Advisor
    • Students interested in writing a thesis must take a research methodologies course elective
    		12
    Participation in four graduate critiques 
    Participation in ONE of the following as appropriate to artistic practice: Graduate Exhibition, Graduate Performance Event, Graduate Screenings. Students who wish to use an alternative venue or presentation outside of these options must receive permission from the dean of graduate studies. 
    Total Credit Hours60

  • The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program is designed to offer maximum flexibility in addressing the needs of each individual student. Following admission through a department, students design their two-year plan of study based on optimizing the offerings and opportunities available throughout SAIC. 

    Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: You have a maximum of four years to complete your MFA in Studio degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence. Students will have access to studios for four semesters only.
    • Transfer credits: You must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in residence at SAIC. You can request up to 15 transfer credits at the time of application for admission, which are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credits are permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Art History requirement: MFA students are required to take ARTHII 5002 Graduate Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art OR ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Design. Art History courses must be at the 4000-level and above.
    • Undergraduate studio courses: Graduate students are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000-level and above) per semester without permission of the Dean of Graduate Studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000-level are allowed only with permission.
    • Full-time status minimum requirement: 12 credit hours is required to maintain full-time status as a graduate student.
    AreaCredit Hours

    Studio

    • MFA 6009 Graduate Projects (21)
    • MFA 6009 Exhibition (3)

    24

     

    Seminar

    • Graduate Level Seminar
    		12

    Art History

    • ARTHI 5002 OR ARTHI 5120 (3)
    • Art History Courses, 4000-level or above (9)
    		12

    Electives—any course in any area at 3000-level or above 

    • Additional Graduate Projects sections used as electives must be approved by the Graduate Program Advisor
    • Students interested in writing a thesis must take a research methodologies course elective
    		12
    Participation in four graduate critiques 
    Participation in ONE of the following as appropriate to artistic practice: Graduate Exhibition, Graduate Performance Event, Graduate Screenings. Students who wish to use an alternative venue or presentation outside of these options must receive permission from the dean of graduate studies. 
    Total Credit Hours60

  • The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program is designed to offer maximum flexibility in addressing the needs of each individual student. Following admission through a department, students design their two-year plan of study based on optimizing the offerings and opportunities available throughout SAIC. 

    Degree Requirements and Specifications

    • Completion schedule: You have a maximum of four years to complete your MFA in Studio degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence. Students will have access to studios for four semesters only.
    • Transfer credits: You must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in residence at SAIC. You can request up to 15 transfer credits at the time of application for admission, which are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credits are permitted after a student is admitted.
    • Art History requirement: MFA students are required to take ARTHII 5002 Graduate Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art OR ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Design. Art History courses must be at the 4000-level and above.
    • Undergraduate studio courses: Graduate students are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000-level and above) per semester without permission of the Dean of Graduate Studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000-level are allowed only with permission.
    • Full-time status minimum requirement: 12 credit hours is required to maintain full-time status as a graduate student.
    AreaCredit Hours

    Studio

    • MFA 6009 Graduate Projects (21)
    • MFA 6009 Exhibition (3)

    24

     

    Seminar

    • Graduate Level Seminar
    		12

    Art History

    • ARTHI 5002 OR ARTHI 5120 (3)
    • Art History Courses, 4000-level or above (9)
    		12

    Electives—any course in any area at 3000-level or above 

    • Additional Graduate Projects sections used as electives must be approved by the Graduate Program Advisor
    • Students interested in writing a thesis must take a research methodologies course elective
    		12
    Participation in four graduate critiques 
    Participation in ONE of the following as appropriate to artistic practice: Graduate Exhibition, Graduate Performance Event, Graduate Screenings. Students who wish to use an alternative venue or presentation outside of these options must receive permission from the dean of graduate studies. 
    Total Credit Hours60

  • The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program is designed to offer maximum flexibility in addressing the needs of each individual student. Following admission through a department, students design their two-year plan of study based on optimizing the offerings and opportunities available throughout SAIC. 

    MFA 6009 Graduate Projects

    MFA 6009 Graduate Projects advising, an ongoing individual dialogue with a wide range of faculty advisors, is at the heart of the MFA program at SAIC, encouraging interdisciplinary study across the curriculum. Standard enrollment consists of two MFA 6009 Graduate Projects advisors, one graduate-level seminar, and an art history course each semester. The remainder of credits required for the full-time 15-credit hour load may include academic or studio electives. All MFA students must register for a minimum of one and no more than two MFA 6009 sections each semester. Students may request permission from the Graduate Program Advisor to take a third MFA 6009 section after priority registration.

    In their final year, students must take one MFA 6009 Exhibitions section. The advising and grade for this course will be tied to the final exhibition. When taking undergraduate studio coursework, the student is responsible for understanding the faculty member’s expectations about completion of assignments, attendance, and any other criteria for earning credit. MFA students interested in completing a written thesis must take a research course and MFA 6009 Research section and obtain approval from the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies.

    Graduate Critiques

    As one of the principle means of assessment each semester, you will be required to participate in Critique Week, a week-long schedule of critiques during which classes are suspended.

    Fall semester critiques are organized by department with panels representing the discipline. This provides you with an opportunity to understand the department’s expectations, have your work reviewed from a disciplinary point of view, and to reiterate the expectations for graduate study.

    Spring semester critiques are interdisciplinary, with panel members and students from across SAIC disciplines. Interdisciplinary critiques allow for a broad range of responses to your work, and are intended to assess the success of your work for a more general, albeit highly informed audience. Critique panels include faculty, visiting artists, and fellow graduate students.

    Graduate Exhibition or Equivalent

    At the conclusion of your studies, you will present work in the SAIC Graduate Thesis Exhibition, other end-of-year events at SAIC, or the Gene Siskel Film Center—or arrange with the graduate dean or division chair for an alternative thesis of equal professional quality. Each year more than 200 graduate students exhibit work, screen videos and films, and present time-based works, writings, and performance to a collective audience of 30,000 people.

    Students wishing to install work around prevalent themes, strategies or stylistic affinities can participate in a juried and curated section of the SAIC Graduate Thesis Exhibition. A faculty and staff committee conducts extensive studio visits and as a collaborative project with student participants, organizes and installs the show in designated space at the exhibition.

    Undergraduate Courses

    MFA students are advised to understand the expectations of their faculty when enrolled in undergraduate studio classes. Although graduate students are an asset to the group dynamic, faculty requirements for graduate students in undergraduate classes are variable. The student is responsible for understanding the faculty member's expectations about completion of assignments, attendance, and any other criteria for earning credit. To assure that graduate students are working at degree level, they are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000 level and above) per semester without permission of the dean of graduate studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 level are allowed only with permission.

Course Listing

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

Introduces the meaning and making of architecture and interior architecture through individual and group design projects. Students learn design processes by experimenting with materials and exploring architectural and interior architecture representation, and measure the implications of their work on broader cultural contexts. Students work on design projects using the latest software and digital tools, and develop techniques for integrating analog and digital design and fabrication processes. Students research historic precedents and contemporary culture and design to inform their work. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1009

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1241

Description

This course introduces students to the creative scope of the Designed Objects program, and the ideas, skills, and methods used in the process of designing objects. Students will learn about the design of objects by studying their form, function, assembly, materiality, use, value and significance (both subjective and objective). Emphasizing thinking through making; students students build their visual vocabulary and develop an understanding of the design process. The goal of this class is to help students imagine the possibilities of the object design field and identify their aptitude for becoming an object designer.

The course will explore the intentionality of object design, exploring the works of a ranging from James Dyson to Ron Arad to Zaha Hadid. Readings and screenings will vary but typically include Mu-Ming Tsai's Design Thinking and Gary Hustwit's Objectified.

Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of several minor exploratory projects and two fully fleshed out finished Objects (mid-term and final).

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1257

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1256

Description

Introduces the meaning and making of architecture and interior architecture through individual and group design projects. Students learn design processes by experimenting with materials and exploring architectural and interior architecture representation, and measure the implications of their work on broader cultural contexts. Students work on design projects using the latest software and digital tools, and develop techniques for integrating analog and digital design and fabrication processes. Students research historic precedents and contemporary culture and design to inform their work. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1019

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

This course introduces students to the creative scope of the Designed Objects program, and the ideas, skills, and methods used in the process of designing objects. Students will learn about the design of objects by studying their form, function, assembly, materiality, use, value and significance (both subjective and objective). Emphasizing thinking through making; students students build their visual vocabulary and develop an understanding of the design process. The goal of this class is to help students imagine the possibilities of the object design field and identify their aptitude for becoming an object designer.

The course will explore the intentionality of object design, exploring the works of a ranging from James Dyson to Ron Arad to Zaha Hadid. Readings and screenings will vary but typically include Mu-Ming Tsai's Design Thinking and Gary Hustwit's Objectified.

Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of several minor exploratory projects and two fully fleshed out finished Objects (mid-term and final).

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1258

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1256

Description

This course introduces students to the creative scope of the Designed Objects program, and the ideas, skills, and methods used in the process of designing objects. Students will learn about the design of objects by studying their form, function, assembly, materiality, use, value and significance (both subjective and objective). Emphasizing thinking through making; students students build their visual vocabulary and develop an understanding of the design process. The goal of this class is to help students imagine the possibilities of the object design field and identify their aptitude for becoming an object designer.

The course will explore the intentionality of object design, exploring the works of a ranging from James Dyson to Ron Arad to Zaha Hadid. Readings and screenings will vary but typically include Mu-Ming Tsai's Design Thinking and Gary Hustwit's Objectified.

Students should expect to produce a body of work consisting of several minor exploratory projects and two fully fleshed out finished Objects (mid-term and final).

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

2230

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

This course is a comprehensive introduction to two-dimensional architectural and interior architectural representation. Students learn hand-drawing and digital techniques to produce orthographic, axonometric, isometric, and perspectival projections in individual and group projects. Students move between two- and three-dimensional representation, developing robust skills for design drawing.

Typically the course will review the work of architects and designers throughout the history of architecture representation. Readings will vary and focus will be concentrated on understanding and putting into practice the mechanisms of drawing.

Course work consists of building techniques and practice of drawing. Classes will develop incremental skills through assignments and projects that culminate into complex drawings and representations. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1010

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

This course is a comprehensive introduction to two-dimensional architectural and interior architectural representation. Students learn hand-drawing and digital techniques to produce orthographic, axonometric, isometric, and perspectival projections in individual and group projects. Students move between two- and three-dimensional representation, developing robust skills for design drawing.

Typically the course will review the work of architects and designers throughout the history of architecture representation. Readings will vary and focus will be concentrated on understanding and putting into practice the mechanisms of drawing.

Course work consists of building techniques and practice of drawing. Classes will develop incremental skills through assignments and projects that culminate into complex drawings and representations. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1011

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

Comprehensive introduction to three-dimensional architectural and interior architectural representation and fabrication. Through individual and group projects, students learn hand-modeling and digital fabrication techniques, and become super-users of the School?s shops and Advanced Output Center. Students work on design projects using the latest software and digital tools, and develop techniques for integrating analog and digital design and fabrication processes. Students move between two- and three-dimensional representation in the development of robust skills for design communication. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1004

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication, Digital Imaging

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

ARCH/INARC Studio 2 is a two-day core design studio that expands the architecture and interior architecture design skills and research capabilities explored in Studio 1. Design projects of increasing complexity and scale are generated, critiqued and refined.

Research includes contemporary architecture, site research, urban context, and critical design issues of theory and construction.

Students utilize hand sketching, digital visualization, photography, and physical modeling to present design project work with expanding sophistication. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO software template.

Prerequisites

Pre:ARCH/INARC 2001

Class Number

1012

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1406B

Description

ARCH/INARC Studio 2 is a two-day core design studio that expands the architecture and interior architecture design skills and research capabilities explored in Studio 1. Design projects of increasing complexity and scale are generated, critiqued and refined.

Research includes contemporary architecture, site research, urban context, and critical design issues of theory and construction.

Students utilize hand sketching, digital visualization, photography, and physical modeling to present design project work with expanding sophistication. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO software template.

Prerequisites

Pre:ARCH/INARC 2001

Class Number

1013

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

Light is a miraculous condition both conceptually and physically in the fact that it is a medium which can not be touched or held, etc. Light in combination with space creates containers for the production of what can only be described as auras. The ephemeral conditions which light produces actually changes and alters the spaces we inhabit daily.

The course Light & Space is designed to develop and expand both artistic and architectural sensibilities for students in the exploration of natural and artificial light as a medium. This one day a week studio is structured around a series of lectures about the comparison between Architects and Artists through exercises involving both physical and digital models within the city of Chicago.

The exercises will introduce students on how to construct and assemble spaces in order to control light and the effects it has on inhabitants of architectural surroundings. The instructors of Light & Space present a series of case study comparisons between architects and artists as a means to open the possibilities for extreme experimentation within the studio setting. Students final project of the semester is the curation of the collection of imagery designed and rendered via all exercises, but open ended for each individual student?s interpretation and personal expression of social, political, and gender issues, etc.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1014

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1255

Description

This course will provide the student with the skills to create design concept sketches (ideation/thinking) that will communicate with the viewer and visualize the design concept as a design object using sketch renderings to define and communicate the object's form and function. Instructions will focus on freehand marker sketching for ideation/thumbnails, shading, form development and rendering, followed by orthographic projection (measured technical drawing) and two-point perspective. Each of these skills will be demonstrated in class and on a one to one basis during the semester

In each class I will share design drawings from my collection that show a history of sketching styles for presentations using Prismacolor Pencils and NuPastels to markers, along with marker drawings for clients that I and other designers have created in product, packaging and display projects. These presentations will also be used to lecture on the history of design drawing styles and techniques.

Students will be given three design projects in which they will go through the design process of starting with ideation sketches, followed by design selection, renderings and an orthographic drawing of the final design. The first project focuses on the development of forms, the next two projects have an emphasis on ideas and drawing skills.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1259

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1255

Description

This course will provide the student with the skills to create design concept sketches (ideation/thinking) that will communicate with the viewer and visualize the design concept as a design object using sketch renderings to define and communicate the object's form and function. Instructions will focus on freehand marker sketching for ideation/thumbnails, shading, form development and rendering, followed by orthographic projection (measured technical drawing) and two-point perspective. Each of these skills will be demonstrated in class and on a one to one basis during the semester

In each class I will share design drawings from my collection that show a history of sketching styles for presentations using Prismacolor Pencils and NuPastels to markers, along with marker drawings for clients that I and other designers have created in product, packaging and display projects. These presentations will also be used to lecture on the history of design drawing styles and techniques.

Students will be given three design projects in which they will go through the design process of starting with ideation sketches, followed by design selection, renderings and an orthographic drawing of the final design. The first project focuses on the development of forms, the next two projects have an emphasis on ideas and drawing skills.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1267

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

This core skills studio teaches how to generate impactful visual materials to effectively communicate interactions with objects, digital interfaces and within virtual spaces.

Students will learn professional communication tools for prototyping screen-based interfaces, vector illustration, typographic and visual composition, and data visualization.

As well as aiding design development, the tools covered will enable the successful communication of storyboarded scenarios, design research, and finished proposals for physical and screen-based presentation.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1273

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

Sullivan Center 1241

Description

As the beginning course in the Designed Objects department, students will have an opportunity to explore different methods of working in order to begin establishing a practice that works best for them. Students will be building a strong foundation of skills and techniques needed to navigate an informed design process and successfully complete a design brief. In this hands-on class, students will learn how to find inspiration for an idea, develop that idea into a concept, and use that concept to design and fabricate a high-level, final prototype. Basic research theories and methods are introduced which are then applied towards studio projects. Fabrication and prototyping techniques are also incorporated in order to test out ideas and discover new ones. Students advance through definition, research, ideation, sketching, and modeling phases toward two? and three?dimensional representations (digital and physical) of their work that are orally defended during group critique.

Readings and lecture content will vary and will focus on examples of historically relevant and contemporary designers, artists, studios, and design movements; as well as design practices that highlight different motivations of the designer.

In addition to the two main projects that focus on different methods of approaching design? where students will be producing high-level prototypes, this workshop-style class consists of one-day projects and exercises designed to introduce techniques and skills such as technical drawing and sketching, form-finding, prototyping, and inspiration research, among others.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1260

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

As the beginning course in the Designed Objects department, students will have an opportunity to explore different methods of working in order to begin establishing a practice that works best for them. Students will be building a strong foundation of skills and techniques needed to navigate an informed design process and successfully complete a design brief. In this hands-on class, students will learn how to find inspiration for an idea, develop that idea into a concept, and use that concept to design and fabricate a high-level, final prototype. Basic research theories and methods are introduced which are then applied towards studio projects. Fabrication and prototyping techniques are also incorporated in order to test out ideas and discover new ones. Students advance through definition, research, ideation, sketching, and modeling phases toward two? and three?dimensional representations (digital and physical) of their work that are orally defended during group critique.

Readings and lecture content will vary and will focus on examples of historically relevant and contemporary designers, artists, studios, and design movements; as well as design practices that highlight different motivations of the designer.

In addition to the two main projects that focus on different methods of approaching design? where students will be producing high-level prototypes, this workshop-style class consists of one-day projects and exercises designed to introduce techniques and skills such as technical drawing and sketching, form-finding, prototyping, and inspiration research, among others.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1271

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1255

Description

We will work with the processes by which product designers develop compelling objects that communicate ideas, values, functions and purpose. Projects are designed to study the language of form through an analysis of user interaction, the implications of material choice, finishes, and craftsmanship on the success of a product concept, and how these choices support and promote function, desirability and perceived value. There is also an emphasis on expanding student material exploration and making techniques for optimal results, and the value of iterative prototyping in a successful design process.

The course will address universal product design issues and methods, starting with defining and understanding the project, considering form and function, appropriate material selection, construction techniques, finishes, iteration, and well-crafted final products. We will cover concepts such as semiotics, ergonomics, families of objects, multi-functional products, and emphasize clear communication of finished design ideas through schematics, and graphic representation using descriptive photography.

Relevant contemporary design examples are provided as reference for each project, and students will spend additional time researching contemporary designers such as Front Design, Raw Edges, Nendo and Ron Arad. Students will be introduced to high-end professional design sources in a business setting through a field trip to the Merchandise Mart.

The course is built around 3 main projects, each with instructional presentations, Design research assignments, ideation and sketching, group discussions, and iterative prototyping, resulting in the creation of a final product and printed graphic document, all presented and discussed in a group critique.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Prerequisites

Pre: DES OB 1006 or 2020

Class Number

1261

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1230

Description

This course provides an introduction to sustainable design, covering topics such as raw materials, energy, food, water, global and local production, global supply chain, green chemistry, and circular economies. Students will learn about the three pillars of sustainability and the fundamental concepts and principles of sustainability. The course will cover the importance of renewable resources and closed-loop systems to reduce waste in sustainable design. Students will explore renewable energy sources and energy-efficient technologies. The importance of food and water in sustainable design, global and local production systems, the precautionary principle, and the ethical sourcing of materials will also be covered. The course will examine green chemistry as a means of reducing the environmental impact of chemical processes. Finally, students will learn about circular economies and the importance of designing products and processes that promote the reuse and recycling of materials. By the end of the course, students will be able to apply their knowledge of sustainable design principles and practices to their projects in and out of school.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1275

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design, Sustainable Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1241

Description

This furniture studio will critically engage the chair as an archetype. Chairs have long been a fascination of designers as they require a developed understanding of structure, material, and form. Importantly, chairs represent the cultural mores of the time in which they are produced and are inextricably linked to larger systems of power, technology, and economy. This course will explore the chair as a fluid, dynamic furniture category that is in a reciprocal relationship with culture, technology, and politics and will emphasize a hands-on approach to design and production.

Readings from art and design historians and critics including Galen Cranz, David Getsy, Richard Sennett, Glenn Adamson, and Alice Rawsthorn will be integral to an expansive conversation about the chair. Class readings and discussions will also help contextualize different approaches to construction and fabrication at different scales of production. A wide range of both contemporary and historical design precedents will be explored ranging from traditional Shaker Furniture to Wendell Castle, Faye Toogood, Max Lamb, Egg Collective, Jasper Morrison, and Scott Burton.

By the end of this course, students should expect to have completed technical drawings and a series of detailed scale models.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1266

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design, Furniture Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1242

Description

This course is designed to be a fast-paced first step into the field of 3D CAD modeling, an arena where designers give shape to our daily experience of the world. If this is your first exposure to virtual 3D form development, you will find a flexible interface that facilitates a rapid learning curve from simple to complex. For those with prior CAD experience desiring a more intuitive, less restrictive creative experience, this course will provide the means to turn what you see in your mind and your sketches into exciting visual and precise physically accurate representations of your vision. Throughout the semester we will discuss historical and current events in product, fashion and architectural design. Typically, these shared conversations lead to discoveries that participants dig into and apply to assignments. A list of influential artists, designers and architects is provided along with suggested books and online references that enrich and add diversity and range to our discourse. Initially, the class works through a series of exercises and tutorials designed to bring familiarity and confidence to their experience with Rhino. Students will investigate methods for surfacing, modifying, rendering, and presenting ideas and concepts they create. As each tool and process becomes more familiar, new methods and strategies are introduced, and students are taught how to apply them to create accurate representative models of objects they design. In addition to gaining hands-on skills, we will explore form creation and the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and cultural factors that play into the development of a successful new product.

Class Number

1262

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication, Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

This course introduces students to SolidWorks, a powerful parametric software package used by product designers to model, indicate specifications, and visualize their design intent. Students will learn the software in the context of design by using it as a tool to develop form and scale, convey design intent with 3D renders, create specification drawings for manufacturing, and interface with 3d printers, CNC machines, and laser cutters for quick iterative prototyping.

This course will focus on a series of tutorials followed by hands-on design projects that will provide intensive training in 3D modeling, 3D printing, and photo-realistic 3D rendering.This will allow the students to make judgements on which 3D tools to use at what stage to develop the most efficient models. The tools will be explained through examples and demonstrations, which will allow the students to practice the tools during class.

Students are expected to complete 4 projects. The projects will include learning 2D sketch tools and creating relations through existing logos, modeling existing products with multiple components, developing an original design based on an existing brand or artist, and collaborating within a group on a system of objects.

Class Number

1265

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

2071

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1255

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

2072

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

2073

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

What are the concerns that drive one's creative practice? How does one set the terms for its future development? Sophomore Seminar offers strategies for students to explore, reflect upon, and connect common themes and interests in the development of an emerging creative practice that will serve as the basis of their ongoing studies at SAIC and beyond. Students will examine historical and contemporary influences and contextualize their work in relation to the diverse art-worlds of the 21st Century. Readings, screenings, and field trips will vary each semester. Presentations by visiting artists and guest speakers will provide the opportunity for students to hear unique perspectives on sustaining a creative practice. One-on-one meetings with faculty will provide students with individualized mentorship throughout the semester. During interdisciplinary critiques, students will explore a variety of formats and tools to analyze work and provide peer feedback. The class mid-term project asks students to imagine a plan for their creative life and devise a self-directed course of study for their time at school. The course concludes with an assignment asking students to develop and document a project or body of work demonstrating how the interplay of ideas, technical skills, and formal concerns evolve through iteration, experimentation and revision.

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

2081

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

This course takes students on a journey through the changing landscape of ceramic art, design, and production. Recent advances in rapid prototyping technologies provide designers and artists with more direct means for transforming concepts into physical form. In this course, students explore various ways to apply advanced technologies to ceramic design and production. Students will acquire basic skills in clay modeling methods, plaster mold making, slip casting, 3D Scanning, digital modeling, and digital output methods including 3D Printing and Laser Cutting. Basic knowledge for Rhino and/or other 3D modeling software is required. The technologies and methods for ceramic production have been developing over the course of thousands of years, often linked to specific material/cultural histories. Digital tools afford makers the ability to create, manipulate, distort, and ideate without the constraints of the ceramic process. Through slide lecture, readings, group discussions, demonstrations, and self directed projects, we will consider ceramic production methods of the past and how they influence contemporary art and design practices. In this course we will ask the questions: What are the benefits and the challenges of using ceramic materials? How can we use digital tools to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and the production of ceramic objects? How can we use ceramic materials to assist in the ideation, prototyping, and production of digital objects? What is the interplay between the digital object and the ceramic object?

Class Number

2154

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design, Digital Imaging, Sustainable Design

Location

280 Building Rm M153

Description

What does it mean to design for other people? The third course in the Des Ob studio sequence considers how designers are able to understand others and then design for them. We will investigate the things that people do, the objects that they use, how they feel and what they might need, want or desire in order to understand and then design meaningful objects. Students have the opportunity to work with design research, advance their design skills and complete more involved projects. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

The class introduces relevant research and visualization tools used to gather research insights and generate design ideas. Sketches, mock-ups and models are used to test discuss, and refine research insights, design ideas and propose final concepts.

Students can expect to complete one to two projects over the semester and present their progress throughout the term.

Prerequisites

Pre-req: DES OB 2030 Designed Objects Studio Two

Class Number

1263

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

AlterFutures Studio is a studio course in which students question received expectations about `the future¿ and use design, writing and visualization methods to propose compelling alternatives. The course will allow students to think through, articulate, and bring to life, critical and provocative narratives for alternative futures.

By studying the tools and approaches of speculative and critical design, and design fiction, alongside literary and cinematic forms of futuring, the course builds awareness in, and enables practice of, contemporary techniques used to communicate alternative futures.

AlterFutures Studio will be made up of three projects to be presented in a culminating course critique with complimentary readings and discussions each focusing on a particular subject matter and approach relating to emerging technologies and potential impacts on society and culture.

The works of designers and artists Dunne & Raby, Superflux, Atelier Van Lieshout, and Lucy Orta, Noam Toran, Extrapolation Factory, and Cohen Van Balen will act as primary points of reference for our explorations in this course.

Students will create physical prototypes and use VR tools to develop artifacts and worlds that express their ideas.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1272

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Art and Science

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

This interdisciplinary studio class investigates the intersection of printmedia, artists? multiples and packaging as an entry point into making and thinking about multiples as a format for studio production. The history of artists? multiples (loosely defined as small-scale editioned or multiply produced three-dimensional works) includes many examples that use, or appropriate, printed elements and packaging in some way. This history, along with our daily experience of packaging (the many boxes, folders, labels, pamphlets, flyers and cartons found in nearly every aspect of contemporary life) offers a wealth of connections to consider and work from.

Students will be introduced to a range of printing and paper construction techniques within the Printmedia studio. These include plate-based lithography (with hand-drawn, digital and photo options) and pattern layout for packaging along with other selected tools and techniques. In addition, students will have the opportunity to use SAIC labs such as the Service Bureau and digital fabrication centers. Examples, short readings, and a visit to the Joan Flasch or other related collections will support project development and discussion.

Students can expect to complete three to five projects and participate in two critiques.

Class Number

2080

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

280 Building Rm 221

Description

Light is a material that can be shaped to express ideas, create experiences and increase the communicative potential of objects and spaces. Through a combination of lectures, demos, fields trips and most of all, hands-on lab work, students develop a degree of self sufficiency in the design, construction and prototyping of illuminated objects, physical graphics and environmental lighting. Students learn basic electronic and electrical circuit design, lamp specification and experiment with illumination technologies including incandescent, LED and cold cathode (neon).

Class Number

1278

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Art and Science, Public Space, Site, Landscape

Location

MacLean B1-16

Description

Digital output has revolutionized the way we conceive of making. This course explores ways of integrating the CNC (Computer Numeric Control) milling machine into art/design fabrication processes. Enabled by 3D modeling the class explores how and when to utilize the CNC machine in addition to more traditional approaches to making. This class consists of demonstration, discussion, and open shop time to develop CNC based projects. We discuss CNC technology and tooling, materials, as well as the aesthetic of CNC output. This project-based course develops CNC proficiency, and will enable students' ability to design for digital output. Due to the learning curve necessary to effectively utilize the CNC, this course (or AIADO 5004 ) will serve as a prerequisite to access the CNC. Rhino is our primary interface for CNC output and RhinoCam is utilized for tool-path generation. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Current industrial applications of CNC production will be discussed as well as other resources that can be utilized in conjunction with the CNC mill.

The beginning exercises introduce students to the various milling types. Later projects allow the exploration of form development through prototyping. A final project incorporates the CNC mill into student's working practice.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: DES OB 2124 or DES OB 2126 or AIA 3917

Class Number

1264

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1242

Description

This digital-analog studio affords modeling and prototyping for furniture and other objects at environmental scale. Students construct prototype objects for living while learning a diverse range of technical and process options for making at scale in materials including wood, metals, plastics, fabrics and foams. Focus on fluid improvisation in prototyping designs both by hand and using CNC and other integrated fabrications technologies.

The course explores the systems work of Enzo Mari and Gerrit Rietveld to understand simple construction and scaffold mechanisms for creating quick prototypes. We watch an array of craft and wood engineering videos to understand manufacturing and fabrication techniques, and how prototyping takes place in furniture businesses.

There are three major assignments, each yielding a unique piece of furniture. Naturally, the scope and scale of the projects increase as the semester moves forward. Additionally the course includes two day-long charettes to deliver specific skills and two field trips, to a furniture manufacturer and to a furniture show room.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1276

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Furniture Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1242

Description

What happens when science fiction literature encounters architecture? Worlds Collide! Whether as setting, character, or plot element, the architecture of cities, buildings, and spaces carry forward key themes of the genre including ecology and climate change; technology, bodies, and artificial intelligence; and migration and encounters with the Other. Considering the architecture of science fiction informs understanding of the complex cultural contexts in which both buildings and literature get made. Course readings will focus on selections from major works by authors Stanislaw Lem, Larissa Lai, and Charlie Jane Anders. Secondary material may include short stories, critical essays, art, architecture, film, and other contemporaneous cultural production. Course work will comprise close readings of major texts focusing on both literary and architectural analysis; in-class writing and student-led class discussion; and site-based installation projects.

Prerequisites

Studio Symposia - Students must enroll in both AIA 3498 and HUMANITY 3498

Class Number

2236

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

MacLean 301

Description

What happens when science fiction literature encounters architecture? Worlds Collide! Whether as setting, character, or plot element, the architecture of cities, buildings, and spaces carry forward key themes of the genre including ecology and climate change; technology, bodies, and artificial intelligence; and migration and encounters with the Other. Considering the architecture of science fiction informs understanding of the complex cultural contexts in which both buildings and literature get made. Course readings will focus on selections from major works by authors Stanislaw Lem, Larissa Lai, and Charlie Jane Anders. Secondary material may include short stories, critical essays, art, architecture, film, and other contemporaneous cultural production. Course work will comprise close readings of major texts focusing on both literary and architectural analysis; in-class writing and student-led class discussion; and site-based installation projects.

Prerequisites

Studio Symposia - Students must enroll in both AIA 3498 and HUMANITY 3498

Class Number

2236

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

MacLean 301

Description

This two-day core undergraduate design studio focuses on the role of the designer in public life, and the role architecture plays in shaping public life. Students address the legal, ethical, cultural, and political concerns that shape architecture practice through the development of a design project. Students use rigorous representation techniques, achieving a professional level of presentation. Students are expected to complete a professional portfolio and resume, along with their design work.

This studio examines issues of program, structure, and building skin to identify how public architecture represents itself as a cultural and political artifact. Rather than understanding architecture as autonomous from its social, cultural, and political environment, the studio posits that architecture must be integrated into the world, be informed by and transforming the social and technical systems that enable our built environments.

Students will review and study design approaches to expand their understanding of possibilities about new spatial dynamics informed by emerging social relationships, hybrid conditions and the social shaping of technology.

Readings, textual and visual case studies and site visits will vary, but always provide the background and theoretical grounding for the site and project analysis and final project development and portfolio presentation.

Project work is a cumulative archive of the process of problem analysis and design exploration that are translations of observations, facts and ideas ? all being made visible through diagrams, drawings and models. Parts of the semesters work will be conducted in groups, in group discussions and workshops and/or site visits; and which will all contribute to individual project work and portfolio development to be presented in a final critique.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1015

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1256

Description

Runway Meets Runway is an excursion into the intersection of fashion and object design via the accessories and technologies that we wear, carry on and carry with. Working equally in the Fashion Department and AIADO, the students use investigation, iteration and innovation to design and fabricate a collection of accessory designs using analog and digital tools from worlds of both fashion and of product design. This Junior Seminar course includes visits to studios of professional designers to supplement individual developments of objects, lines and looks. Students will develop a web presence appropriate to their emerging practice.
Sample Class Activities: Built around the idea that culture is something we carry, carry on, carry with, and carry out, the students will conceive a 'galactic proposal', design and produce the objects, then integrate them into a social media campaign that introduces them as young independent designers to the outside world. Emphasis is placed on developing a professional mindset and mission to all aspects of their work. Students are introduced to this though guest professionals in design, fashion, materials experts, and social media gurus. The class is built around making a signature collection through studio work. The class will also explore- Strategies for developing a collection, Basics of a signature brand Understanding market categories, Positioning and differentiation through presentation, Material/ technique demonstrations (both analog and digital), Vendor field trips, Roles of Intellectual Property, Transforming a personal social media identity into a professional presence, Branding objects, How to meet impossible deadlines, Studio photography on a shoestring budget -through demos, field trips, invited guests, intense studio nights, and the knowledge and expertise of faculty with deep experience developing individual design practices.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1575

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

In this class you will engage in a wide variety of professional practice activities to help prepare you for life after SAIC. In this course, each student will focus on advancing the design (layout, graphics, narratives, flow) of their portfolio so that it best conveys their individual design skills, experience and interests. Students will produce materials appropriate for delivery of their work across multiple formats (print, digital, web, etc), will learn how to edit/ arrange their materials to suit the specific context of application, and will create consistent design elements that can be shared across the full range of professional materials from portfolio, website, business cards, and other promotional materials. The course emphasizes hands-on, real- world professional activities and opportunities for emerging designers.

More information about Professional Practice and the Academic Spine curriculum can be found on the SAIC website: http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/academicspine/

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1584

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

In this class you will engage in a wide variety of professional practice activities to help prepare you for life after SAIC. In this course, each student will focus on advancing the design (layout, graphics, narratives, flow) of their portfolio so that it best conveys their individual design skills, experience and interests. Students will produce materials appropriate for delivery of their work across multiple formats (print, digital, web, etc), will learn how to edit/ arrange their materials to suit the specific context of application, and will create consistent design elements that can be shared across the full range of professional materials from portfolio, website, business cards, and other promotional materials. The course emphasizes hands-on, real- world professional activities and opportunities for emerging designers.

More information about Professional Practice and the Academic Spine curriculum can be found on the SAIC website: http://www.saic.edu/academics/departments/academicspine/

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 2900 course

Class Number

1584

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

In this course, students will be introduced to techniques by which they can design environments (spaces, performances, exhibits, architecture, interiors, landscapes) with strong potential 101 narrative, storytelling, memories Borrowing from the theater, to animation, puppetry, stop motion or urban spectacle, the course will teach ways in which lighting, movements, interactivity, space hierarchy can make nonfigurative concepts accessible to wide audiences, A digital approach will be merged with analog fabrication and scaled prototyping of props and physical environments.

Chicago will serve as text book, Field trips to performances , outdoor spectacles, screenings , exhibition will be the teaching tools to understand light, scale, interaction between participants Readings and videos by Peter Brook, Jeremy Till, Olafur Eliason, Patrick Bouchain will set the stage for conversations about minimalism, technology, and the importance of details when telling a story through space.

Four short design assignments. inspired by the readings and field trips, will teach students the basics of orthographic projection, scale, additive and subtractive color mixing, materials, computer assisted design, and encourage them to apply their own making and designing skills to creating environments that resonate wilh a strong voice.

Class Number

1005

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Art and Science, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

Design for Nonhuman Kinds is a course series that asks students to think outside the human experience by decentering human perception and subjectivity. As we begin to recognize the limitations of anthropocentric making, this interdisciplinary series encourages design inclusivity and speculative thinking. Students will be required to expand their consideration of the `user¿ to include nonhuman subjects such as plants and animals. Design for Nonhuman Kinds: Tools for Empathy challenges students to consider the differing perspectives of nonhuman beings and how to build an understanding of the world outside of their human senses. The natural world¿s sensorium is much wider than our limited human capacities. We often need to build tools throughout our process to help us translate experiences that we simply cannot receive. Students will research nonhuman users and build tools and methods in the effort to gain a closer sensory understanding of a nonhuman subject. The goal is to understand user values, needs, desires, and motivations. How can we see, smell, feel, hear, like...? Understanding leads to empathy. User empathy is at the core of good design.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1279

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design, Art/Design and Politics, Sustainable Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

Within a structured studio environment, advanced-level students develop, refine, and execute an individual furniture concept. Students progress from the conceptual design stage, through design development to the actualization of a work that can be `tested? for public review. Students are challenged to develop concise and persuasive arguments regarding the motivation, development, execution, and dissemination of their design project. Through the articulation and advocacy of their design work, students define their role as a dynamic catalyst operating within real-world social-, political-, monetary-, and cultural-economies. Students are admitted via a portfolio application reviewed by the faculty.

Prerequisites

DESOB 4025

Class Number

1277

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1242

Description

The goal of this class is to design services, tools, and objects that will shape a new reality of human experience. The class will explore how long-term trends in urban migration, automation, AI, big data, climate change, food, and mixed experience will transform our day-to-day lives. Through research and experimentation, students will investigate the realities and possibilities of these conditions and consider how they will change what we eat, how we work and relax, what we wear, how we gather, and how we travel. As a living laboratory, students will use a variety of media, including digital fabrication, virtual reality, and physical storytelling, to create new design tools, scenarios, worlds, services, objects, and experiences. To accomplish this, students will research the historical, political, technological, ecological, and cultural trends of a particular topic.

Prerequisites

Any 4 Designed Objects classes, grad student or department consent

Class Number

1270

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design, Collaboration

Location

Sullivan Center 1230

Description

This seminar will explore definitions and characteristics of interiority, historically and theoretically. It is not a survey of interiors but an exploration of the condition of interiority, physically, experientially and culturally. Physically, interiority is the product of boundaries and the tension of boundaries defined; experientially we spend the majority of our lives 'inside'. Culturally and psychologically, it implies habitation, the way we exist within inhabited space, how we negotiate boundedness and openness and the relationship between ourselves and spaces. The seminar will examine these conditions, looking particularly at the challenges to the notion of the interior offered by new technologies. The course will be conducted as an open seminar with presentations by faculty and students, and will form a basis for the self-development of critical and analytical skills in terms of exploring interior spaces, both literally and metaphorically.

Class Number

1016

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

Industrial robots and digital fabrication processes are more accessible to artists and designers than ever before. Students will learn to create and simulate complex tool paths for programming a Kuka industrial robot using Rhino, Grasshopper, and Kuka PRC. In-class projects will include scaffolding exercises to develop skills with software and hardware with an eye towards learning skills appropriate for additive manufacturing processes. Readings will focus on the ?why? of using industrial robots in an art or design practice, featuring Joris Laarman, Madeline Gannon, Wendell Castle, Dirk Vander Kooij, and other contemporary creatives engaging in robotic fabrication. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

2153

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Furniture Design

Location

280 Building Rm 127A

Description

In this course we focus on a participatory placemaking project in North Lawndale where community members and student artists gain skills in natural building techniques with cob, straw-bale, willow, rammed earth, hemp, and brick. The studio works within the constraints of the local conditions to determine material specification, use, reuse, and recycling or upcycling options available for on-site construction. Co-creation activities are at the heart of the design and building process, which requires a detailed understanding of the unique capacities of the community with which the students collaborate.
The studio explores the work of artists, designers and thinkers such as the ones who received the ¿Global Award for Sustainable Architecture¿ or are part of the Design for the Common Good (DCG) coalition. Guest presenters also facilitate hands-on demonstration and workshops in alternative building materials and methods to which students and community members participate together. This includes, among others: cob construction materials and techniques, live hedges purpose and benefits, living walls and bug hotels, brick making and firing, material upcycling.
Students will work collaboratively on one to three design projects involving community members. At the end of the semester they will present their material research, building prototypes, design, construction strategies, timeline and budget proposal to a group of stakeholders who will give them feedback on the feasibility of their proposal.

Class Number

2362

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Public Space, Site, Landscape, Sustainable Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

SAIC Design @ Homan Square combines professional practice design experience with community activism. Operating out of SAIC's facility in the Nichols tower at Homan Square, the course engages students in a focused dialogue on social project implementation in Chicago and provides the tools and frameworks to realize those projects. Functioning as a pro bono 'design consultancy' where the residents, small businesses and community groups of North Lawndale act as 'clients', each job is treated as a discrete project involving research, knowledge-sharing and design action. The projects will cover a two-semester cycle, with each semester being offered as an independent class. This course, running in the Spring semester, will emphasize the last three stages of the design thinking process; ideation, prototyping, and testing. course class will focus on proposing and implementing solutions that address the contextual research carried out in the first semester. These solutions will be presented to, and critiqued by, the 'clients' who are the main stakeholders, North Lawndale community leaders, as well as SAIC faculty. Recognizing that making is a research process that reveals new problems, the reflexive activity of proposing, making, presenting and critiquing solutions generates new knowledge as well as physical outcomes. It is this collective 'new intelligence' that is the primary goal of the course.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Sophomore-level or above.

Class Number

1269

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Collaboration

Location

Sullivan Center 1258

Description

The Whatnot Studio is a progressive educational platform in the Designed Objects department at SAIC that is focused on creative inquiry and iteration. This year-long course enables students to hone their voice as individual designers while working as a team to execute a thematic collection of highly refined and relevant work for public exhibition. The Whatnot Studio has exhibited work at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy and at Wanted Design in New York City. Select mid- and upper level undergraduate and graduate students are admitted to this course via portfolio review.

Readings, recordings, screenings, and field trips vary annually depending on the course theme.

Students should expect to produce one exhibition quality object and should also expect to work as part of a team to develop exhibition design and promotional materials.

Please apply through slideroom: https://saicscholarships.slideroom.com/#/permalink/program/77943

Class Number

1268

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1230

Description

The Whatnot Studio is a progressive educational platform in the Designed Objects department at SAIC that is focused on creative inquiry and iteration. This year-long course enables students to hone their voice as individual designers while working as a team to execute a thematic collection of highly refined and relevant work for public exhibition. The Whatnot Studio has exhibited work at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy and at Wanted Design in New York City. Select mid- and upper level undergraduate and graduate students are admitted to this course via portfolio review.

Readings, recordings, screenings, and field trips vary annually depending on the course theme.

Students should expect to produce one exhibition quality object and should also expect to work as part of a team to develop exhibition design and promotional materials.

Please apply through slideroom: https://saicscholarships.slideroom.com/#/permalink/program/77943

Class Number

1268

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1230

Description

This one-day 3cr core design studio focuses on an architecture and interior architecture capstone project leading to the full-scale installation and exhibition designed and built by students. Students design, prototype and mount their own installation and exhibition piece, in collaboration with an organization or enterprise who gives them a prompt and space requirements. This course is open to any senior student and requires a portfolio review to assess minimum design skills.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: 3900 course

Class Number

1017

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1406B

Description

The seminar-studio allows for serious play, experimentation and for the deliberate entanglement of theory and practice. We are not looking for solutions, but rather for sophisticated tools in the translation and communication of concerns. We encourage a pluralistic research method where empirical knowledge, deep research, biopic investigations and speculative explorations are all equally valued. The coursework requires reading, writing, discussion and the creation of artifacts in any medium through rigorous thinking, making and sharing practices

The seminar-studio is a truly interdisciplinary venue for those students interested in a critical research-through-design exploration dealing with spatial concerns grounded in body-space and object-space relationships - including ideas of temporality, gesture, identity, ownership, the social shaping of technology and structure and agency.

Readings and case studies vary, but are typically grounded in the philosophical positions of Bruno Latour, Peter Sloterdijk and the writings of Jeremy Till. We attend the occasional lecture and/or exhibition.

Project work emphasize the translation of ideas from text to two-dimensional, three-dimensional and four-dimensional work. The final project outcome can be in any medium and often exists as three-dimensional artifact, an installation or in a new-media format. The studio's final work is exhibited and opened to critique from an external panel of critics.

Class Number

1020

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Narrative, Public Space, Site, Landscape

Location

Sullivan Center 1240

Description

Using the city as a laboratory, this class explores different approaches to 'reading and listening' to multiple forms of architecture and design. Through lectures, discussions, site visits and assignments students experience how to identify a design's intent and to take an active role in communicating the intent from a critical, value-based perspective.

Class Number

1006

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1406A

Description

Students will learn how to use Revit as a tool to investigate different stages of design development within Architecture. Topics will include BIM (Building Information Modeling), managing a fully parametric design, understanding categories, families and types and outputting drawings for presentations.

The semester will be broken up into four categories: Space Planning, Building, Landscape and Output. Each class will follow a tutorial and include a show & tell of student?s work in progress for a collective conversation of Revit and design strategies. Students will embark on their own projects while following a program and sqft script. This structure will allow for additional topics to be explored collectively as issues both within design and software arise.

Deliverables will be due at the beginning of each class and a Group Project will be introduced midway through the semester. A Final Project with a Competition style layout will be plotted and pinned up on the last day. This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

This course requires students to have a laptop that meets SAIC's minimum hardware specs and runs the AIADO template.

Class Number

1007

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

Sullivan Center 1241

Description

Topics in Design Seminar offers students an opportunity to work with visiting and other faculty on contemporary topics in design through sustained academic engagement in a seminar context. The course is structured to provide unique opportunities for sustained inquiry into contemporary topics through both structured and open assignments; class discussion, presentations, and critiques.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.

Class Number

1008

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1407

Description

This introductory design studio introduces a broad range of investigative techniques and applies the results to the design of a multi- level environment designed from the inside to the outside.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Integrate ideas about enclosure and envelope with scale, site, structure, program and form, experimenting with skin effects and affects as a generator of a design, adapting an existing building, and addressing the existing building envelope.
2) Investigate the design of building skins including design, technical, structural, environmental, and social performance, ranging from cultural questions to accessibility, through the conceptual design of a small public building.
3) Develop design and graphic skills by completing the conceptual design of a small public building with a complex program, producing architectural drawings and models at an accomplished level, demonstrating a command of drawing and modeling conventions and an ability to manipulate those conventions to convey ideas relevant to a particular design idea.
4) Demonstrate awareness of the role of accessibility and sustainability in the design process.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture with an Emphasis in Interior Architecture student to enroll in this course

Class Number

1843

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1233

Description

This introductory design studio introduces a broad range of investigative techniques and applies the results to the design of a multi- level environment designed from the inside to the outside.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Integrate ideas about enclosure and envelope with scale, site, structure, program and form, experimenting with skin effects and affects as a generator of a design, adapting an existing building, and addressing the existing building envelope.
2) Investigate the design of building skins including design, technical, structural, environmental, and social performance, ranging from cultural questions to accessibility, through the conceptual design of a small public building.
3) Develop design and graphic skills by completing the conceptual design of a small public building with a complex program, producing architectural drawings and models at an accomplished level, demonstrating a command of drawing and modeling conventions and an ability to manipulate those conventions to convey ideas relevant to a particular design idea.
4) Demonstrate awareness of the role of accessibility and sustainability in the design process.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture with an Emphasis in Interior Architecture student to enroll in this course

Class Number

1843

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1233

Description

As the second studio in the MDDO graduate sequence, this course gives students the opportunity to develop their skills in individual project development and form-giving while practicing the use of research and design tools. The primary purpose of this studio is to help students identify their individual motivations as designers by working on a self-defined design project within a structured iterative design process.

As a complement to this inquiry, in-class presentations, readings, and discussions will familiarize students with the landscape of contemporary design practice. Readings will include theoretical, historical and critical texts. Design as a process will also be discussed.

Students can expect to complete a multi-stage semester long project. You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1911

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

As the second studio in the MDDO graduate sequence, this course gives students the opportunity to develop their skills in individual project development and form-giving while practicing the use of research and design tools. The primary purpose of this studio is to help students identify their individual motivations as designers by working on a self-defined design project within a structured iterative design process.

As a complement to this inquiry, in-class presentations, readings, and discussions will familiarize students with the landscape of contemporary design practice. Readings will include theoretical, historical and critical texts. Design as a process will also be discussed.

Students can expect to complete a multi-stage semester long project. You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1911

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

Designed Objects Prototyping Methods Lab (DOPML) is a technical practice class that uses a very narrow definition of ?prototype?. The class will not seek to explore and categorize an expansive collection of prototyping approaches. Rather, DOPML will support the making of prototypes and the development of skill with sensing and actuation within student practices. The class will initiate and / or support micro controller based prototyping using the Arduino hardware and software environment with the goal of greatly increasing the set media, processes, actions, events, data and information that can be used as ?material? for object design.

The term ?object? can refer to a discrete physical thing in the world or some distinct component within an abstract system. In both scenarios it?s becoming increasingly common for an object to act as an interface between two states - commonly a control interface where input actions or data are connected to output actions or information. To experiment with this kind of interactivity, electronic prototyping offers a rich and ever-expanding collection of accessible tools and processes for designers to explore component systems (sensors and actuators) within creative practice. Throughout the semester, we will review and discuss the work of a number of artists, designers, and technologists that challenge traditional notions of 'making' in an age of significant and pervasive technological change.

The primary component of this course will be to learn to use the Arduino hardware / software environment and develop basic data manipulation facility to develop prototypes that define and collect input (of all sorts) and create and control output (of all sorts). Increasing in complexity, this effort will be informed by a series of small projects designed to learn fundamentals. At mid-semester, students will required to propose a project of significant merit that will be developed throughout the remainder of the term.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1912

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1227

Description

The Practicum provides structure for engaging in off-campus practicum work based on content and subject matter identified through thesis strategies and in support of thesis studio project development. In consultation with faculty This can include; internships and/or co-operative learning opportunities; experiential and/or focused observational research; service learning and community collaborations. Faculty develop and deliver methodological requirements for the class leading to functional documentary outcomes, that allow students to articulate professional contexts in relation to their thesis work.
Students work from self-identified materials related to their thesis studio work. Typically a student will identify a project accompanied by a bibliography as part of AIA6213 Thesis Strategies.
Students are required to develop a media rich documentary report from their working experience in this practicum. The report is developed in conversation with the faculty and enriched by professional encounters through their project work. The report is built through iterative drafts that are presented and critiqued in the class three times.

Class Number

2403

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1238

Description

The Practicum provides structure for engaging in off-campus practicum work based on content and subject matter identified through thesis strategies and in support of thesis studio project development. In consultation with faculty This can include; internships and/or co-operative learning opportunities; experiential and/or focused observational research; service learning and community collaborations. Faculty develop and deliver methodological requirements for the class leading to functional documentary outcomes, that allow students to articulate professional contexts in relation to their thesis work.
Students work from self-identified materials related to their thesis studio work. Typically a student will identify a project accompanied by a bibliography as part of AIA6213 Thesis Strategies.
Students are required to develop a media rich documentary report from their working experience in this practicum. The report is developed in conversation with the faculty and enriched by professional encounters through their project work. The report is built through iterative drafts that are presented and critiqued in the class three times.

Class Number

2403

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1238

Description

The Intermediate Design Studio in the accredited professional graduate degree emphasizes the capacity of buildings, interior space and urban interiors to engage and make tangible the opportunities inherent to diversity, change and the temporal occupation of space and time.

Course Goals and Objectives include developing an understanding of how diversity and temporal or contingent conditions inform architectural space making, form and program. These questions are explored through the design or adaptive re-use of a medium sized building accommodating 100 occupants, sited in a culturally diverse and historically complex context. The design exploration needs to provide evidence of a deep understanding of the ethical and social responsibilities of the architect, of human behavior in a context governed by diversity and change and translated into a design proposition of a contextually sensitive building ? while addressing site conditions, accessibility, building services and systems and user well-being.

Student performance criteria (SPC) that address the most recent National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) requirements will be highlighted and form part of the coursework outcomes.

Readings, textual and visual case studies and site visits will vary, but always provide the background and theoretical grounding for the site and project analysis and final project development and representation.

Project work is a cumulative archive of the process of problem analysis and design exploration that are translations of observations, facts and ideas ? all being made visible through diagrams, drawings and models. Parts of the semesters work will be conducted in groups and which will contribute to individual project work presented in a final critique.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture with an Emphasis in Interior Architecture student to enroll in this course

Class Number

1848

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1235

Description

The Intermediate Design Studio in the accredited professional graduate degree emphasizes the capacity of buildings, interior space and urban interiors to engage and make tangible the opportunities inherent to diversity, change and the temporal occupation of space and time.

Course Goals and Objectives include developing an understanding of how diversity and temporal or contingent conditions inform architectural space making, form and program. These questions are explored through the design or adaptive re-use of a medium sized building accommodating 100 occupants, sited in a culturally diverse and historically complex context. The design exploration needs to provide evidence of a deep understanding of the ethical and social responsibilities of the architect, of human behavior in a context governed by diversity and change and translated into a design proposition of a contextually sensitive building ? while addressing site conditions, accessibility, building services and systems and user well-being.

Student performance criteria (SPC) that address the most recent National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) requirements will be highlighted and form part of the coursework outcomes.

Readings, textual and visual case studies and site visits will vary, but always provide the background and theoretical grounding for the site and project analysis and final project development and representation.

Project work is a cumulative archive of the process of problem analysis and design exploration that are translations of observations, facts and ideas ? all being made visible through diagrams, drawings and models. Parts of the semesters work will be conducted in groups and which will contribute to individual project work presented in a final critique.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1849

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1236

Description

Codes are examined as explicit as well as tacit instances of social values, which reflect cultural boundaries between the built environment and human behavior. Students investigate the notion of confinement and explore the possibilities, as Michael Sorkin put it, where codes, through 'acknowledging the gravity of permanence and the oppressions of extent,'seek, in their limits, 'not to restrain associations, but to free them.' While codes are a means through which society speaks to the architect, their compliment, specifications, are investigated as a vital architectural component of architectural expression. In order for an architectural vision to be manifest in the world, it must be communicated in a common manner both comprehensible and commonly valued. In courts of law, the written always trumps the drawn, even in cases where the drawing is worth a thousand words. In addition to basic proficiency in specification writing and the surrounding professional and legal processes, students also gain crucial understanding of the role of specifications in allowing the practitioner to best control the material articulation of their architectural propositions.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1844

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1235

Description

In the final thesis studio, students confirm and materialize their position and voice as designers by completing their self-selected thesis project initiated in DES OB 6150 -- Thesis Studio 1.Through an intensive period of seminar and tutorial discussion, prototyping, presentation and critique, students produce highly developed designed objects, systems, and experiences that critically engage specific areas of design, technology, and culture. Emphasis is given to determining potent vehicles through which the instance of the thesis is tested, exhibited and engages public consciousness. The course culminates in a thesis defense and the presentation of a final thesis project at the SAIC Design Show.


You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects Student to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites

Prereq: DES OB 6150

Class Number

1914

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1227

Description

In the final thesis studio, students confirm and materialize their position and voice as designers by completing their self-selected thesis project initiated in DES OB 6150 -- Thesis Studio 1.Through an intensive period of seminar and tutorial discussion, prototyping, presentation and critique, students produce highly developed designed objects, systems, and experiences that critically engage specific areas of design, technology, and culture. Emphasis is given to determining potent vehicles through which the instance of the thesis is tested, exhibited and engages public consciousness. The course culminates in a thesis defense and the presentation of a final thesis project at the SAIC Design Show.


You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects Student to enroll in this course.

Prerequisites

Prereq: DES OB 6150

Class Number

1914

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1227

Description

Life after design school could reveal vast diversity beyond traditional employment opportunities, such as working for a design consultancy, as an in-house designer, or independently. Positioning Methods Lab is designed to help students shape their portfolio into various formats, focusing primarily on each students? specific future goals, and establishing a promotional strategy that feels authentic and attuned to their personal form of world-making.

Readings and screenings will vary but will include foundational and instructional readings such as:
Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst Grid Systems/Raster Systeme by Josef Muller-Brockmann
The Crystal Goblet by Beatrice Ward On Punctuation by Gertrude Stein My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be? by Laurel Schwulst

As well as an introduction to various tools and resources such as:
Are.na, Cargo Collective, the SAIC Service Bureau, the SAIC Writing Center, and various file formats and structure for print and web.

In addition to completing weekly assignments and readings, students should expect to finish the class with a resume, portfolio in either printed or PDF form, as well as a personal website of work.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Design in Designed Objects student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1913

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Product Design

Location

Sullivan Center 1256

Description

Thesis studio asks students to determine and research an original problem with pertinent issues, and design an innovative response to some aspect of architectural production.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Give individual students the opportunity to discover, define, and research a significant aspect of architectural production in depth.
2) Develop a personal approach to an important issue of contemporary significance to the field of architecture and communicate it concisely.
3) Work with originality, clarity, and high production values at the end of an architectural education.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture with an Emphasis in Interior Architecture, or an MSHP student, to enroll in this course

Class Number

1845

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1238

Description

Thesis studio asks students to determine and research an original problem with pertinent issues, and design an innovative response to some aspect of architectural production.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Give individual students the opportunity to discover, define, and research a significant aspect of architectural production in depth.
2) Develop a personal approach to an important issue of contemporary significance to the field of architecture and communicate it concisely.
3) Work with originality, clarity, and high production values at the end of an architectural education.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture with an Emphasis in Interior Architecture, or an MSHP student, to enroll in this course

Class Number

1845

Credits

6

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1238

Description

Covers integrated construction systems, the design of structural forms, truss analysis, long span structures, lateral systems, steel and concrete member design, and an ARE refresher.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Understanding of the role that structural considerations play in design decisions.
2) Guide a team through the design process, communicate critical design information to structural consultants and integrate structural drawings and specifications into project documentation.
3) Develop skills to evaluate the pros and cons of structural systems and materials during pre-design.
4) Explores the code-prescribed design methods applied by the professional community.
5) Introduce best practices for structural system layouts for multiple typographies with a focus on performance-based design.
6) Introduces reference materials from organizations responsible for sharing information about the latest structural technologies and tools for their implementation.
7) Refresh the understanding of structural principles required to study for the ARE exam.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1846

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

Covers integrated construction systems, the design of structural forms, truss analysis, long span structures, lateral systems, steel and concrete member design, and an ARE refresher.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Understanding of the role that structural considerations play in design decisions.
2) Guide a team through the design process, communicate critical design information to structural consultants and integrate structural drawings and specifications into project documentation.
3) Develop skills to evaluate the pros and cons of structural systems and materials during pre-design.
4) Explores the code-prescribed design methods applied by the professional community.
5) Introduce best practices for structural system layouts for multiple typographies with a focus on performance-based design.
6) Introduces reference materials from organizations responsible for sharing information about the latest structural technologies and tools for their implementation.
7) Refresh the understanding of structural principles required to study for the ARE exam.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1846

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Location

Sullivan Center 1226

Description

Studies the Architectural profession, addressing legal and ethical issues, public health and safety, leadership, architect's and client's role, office costs and organization, and building cost estimation.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Discover and examine contemporary models of architecture practice. Prepare students to anticipate and navigate the complexity of establishing a nimble and purposeful design practice.
2) Understand the logistics of practice, strategies and processes of operating a business, pursuing commissions, negotiating contracts and managing a project during design & construction.
3) Learn to use basic building cost estimation methods.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1847

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Economic Inequality & Class, Art/Design and Politics

Location

Sullivan Center 1238

Description

Studies the Architectural profession, addressing legal and ethical issues, public health and safety, leadership, architect's and client's role, office costs and organization, and building cost estimation.

Course Goals and Objectives
1) Discover and examine contemporary models of architecture practice. Prepare students to anticipate and navigate the complexity of establishing a nimble and purposeful design practice.
2) Understand the logistics of practice, strategies and processes of operating a business, pursuing commissions, negotiating contracts and managing a project during design & construction.
3) Learn to use basic building cost estimation methods.

Prerequisites

You must be a Master of Architecture student to enroll in this course.

Class Number

1847

Credits

3

Department

Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects

Area of Study

Economic Inequality & Class, Art/Design and Politics

Location

Sullivan Center 1238