This is a vertical studio combining undergraduate and graduate architecture students. The students may choose from a diverse range of options of study proposed by different faculty members. In general the studio options are grounded in a conceptual basis that invites theoretical and/or programmatic innovation. These studio options may vary from year to year.COURSE DESCRIPTIONThis advanced architecture studio will explore innovative material assemblies as a site for reconsidering contemporary domesticity in the context of ecological change and climate adaptation. The studio looks to principles of mutualism and cohabitation as a way to imbue architecture with a renewed ethos of care at multiple ecological scales. We will study models of both human and more-than-human habitation as precedents and inspiration for how architects might re-conceptualize and re-materialize domestic space. Central to this inquiry will be a focus on techniques of design computation and digital fabrication, and how such tools can be leveraged in concert with traditional modes of earthen construction to open up new material strategies for domestic habitation across scales and species. The intent is to consider how potential entanglements among beings and species may offer new possibilities for productive coexistence and ecological care. 
 
The material focus of this studio will be on earthen structures as a less carbon-intensive form of construction. We will explore and test ways to fabricate custom-molded earthen components at multiple scales, from monolithic walls to modular tectonic parts. Of particular interest will be how digital fabrication technologies can augment traditional rammed earth practices to open up new opportunities for tectonic expression and expanded modes of habitation. The studio will integrate a series of hands-on, full-scale fabrication experiments that will inform more speculative drawings and models.
 
The site for the studio’s research will be the dense suburban landscape of Fremont, California. Originally the alluvial plain of the naturally flooding Alameda Creek, this territory was populated by Ohlone people before it was colonized by Spanish missionaries and developed into a network of rural, agricultural settlements. In the mid-twentieth century, the creek was channelized to prevent flooding, and the land was developed according to the typical protocols of American suburban growth: freeways, cul-de-sacs, single-family homes, and strip malls. Today, Fremont is a dense, low-rise city of over 230,000 people and one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the Bay Area. However, it also faces severe vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change and a series of escalating and interdependent challenges: subsidence, saltwater intrusion, and loss of biodiversity. 
 
While this studio will not focus on the larger systemic problems of hydrology and sea level rise, the circumstances of this site are important because they mirror similar challenges faced by communities throughout the Bay and the globe at large.  The intent of the studio is not to formulate ecosystemic solutions, but rather to project forward and pose questions of adaptation. If humans are going to find ways to adapt to climate change, we need to figure out how to adapt in communities like this one. How might biodiversity be reintroduced in productive ways? How might humans continue to live in this increasingly volatile ecosystem? What opportunities might there be to rethink conventional models of domesticity premised on collectivity and care? How can architecture encourage interspecies mutualism and cohabitation such that the greater ecosystem benefits? What role can earthen material systems play in considering these futures? How can methods of design computation and digital fabrication expand architectural agency to engage these challenges?
 
Digital Craft:: This course is aligned with (but not limited to) the B.Arch Digital Craft  concentration.

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