The studio was conceived to explore an architectural design responsive to the exigencies of the 21st Century. The coming practice has at least two unprecedented requirements.The first is that of efficiency; what Sigfried Gideon called “the problem of large numbers” or as Rem Koolhaas brutally put it: “The typical Chinese architect is 200 times as efficient as the typical American architect.” The limits that are upon us--economic and environmental--require of the future architect a design process that is very, very quick and that dependably results in buildings that succeed in their construction and their use. To this end, the classical language is, indeed the only available open-shelf prefabrication system in the United States. It is the default setting of the building material depots and catalogs. There is an emerging movement which is conscious of the need to respond to this challenge of efficiency. It is called Lean Urbanism.
The second requirement of the coming practice is that the buildings have to be popular: There is today a “customer” for architecture--very few buildings are any longer commissioned by patrons. It is only recently that the middle class has the economic clout to substantially affect the built environment. This is quite different from a past where an impoverished laboring class led to building with the dignity of simplicity--while a ruling class concentrated wealth in coincidence with a high level of culture. These were the patrons who are today scarce indeed. The architecture of today has an enormous, culturally deficient middle class with a surplus wealth that leads to the production of kitsch. If authenticity is to be restored to the formal language of architecture it will be by communicating to the common culture in a transparent, non-academic language. Classicism of a certain kind has been able to achieve this connection like no other architectural proposal. This is part of another emerging movement; this one called Heterodoxia.
To both of these challenges: the efficiency forced upon architects by the limits; and the populism required of a market-empowered consumer of architecture, the language of Classicism offers potential solutions that will be studied in this course. The course was run by Professor Victor Deupi, periodically assisted by Andres Duany and personnel of DPZ, and with visits by Leon Krier.
MODULE I - CAD-Based Method for the Efficient Design of Typical Building Facades
REFERENCES
PRECEDENTS
DESIGN
MODULE II - The Classical Language of Architecture
Fine-tune the expression of the architecture by means of designing orders that would be applied to these buildings, according to location on the Transect and to the dialectic of private and civic buildings.
REFERENCES
DESIGN
MODULE III - Classical Composition
The interior design of the housing -- with identical residential programs, but assigned to the set of building facades prepared at the first two modules -- and modifying them as necessary.
PRECEDENTS
Palm Beach Town Hall
Ft. Pierce Courthouse - Merrill, Pastor, and Colgan Architects
DESIGN
MODULE IV - Progressive Classicism
Assemble the buildings designed by the class into a single urban fabric.
REFERENCES
DESIGN
