Architecture (ARCH)

Two-week summer Program for high school students interested in Architecture.A two-week summer program for high school students who have completed their sophomore or junior year, to discover the nature of architecture, and to experience university life firsthand. The studies include studio classes in architectural design and construction, freehand drawing, and lectures on the history, theory, and practice of architecture.

An advanced two-week summer Architecture program for high school students who have completed ARCH 01110: Career Discovery. The studies include studio classes in architectural design and construction, freehand drawing, and lectures on the history, theory, and practice of architecture, building upon what was learned in ARCH 01110: Career Discovery.

This course offers a broad overview of the history of architecture and urbanism from antiquity to the present day. Global in its perspective, the course proceeds chronologically through a series of important historical moments and monuments. Lectures examine works as experiential wholes and within their specific contexts. In this way, the emphasis of the course is not on a history of styles but on buildings as complex cultural artifacts. To link examples across time, place, and culture, the course emphasizes themes like ritual and belief, the patron-client relationship, architecture's relationship to power, materials and construction techniques, the authority of historical models, the architect as artist and professional, and the rise of modern cities. In addition to developing a broad knowledge of major monuments, theoretical ideas, and figures in architectural history, the class will also develop skills for engaging more critically with the built environment. Through readings, assignments, and discussions, students will learn how to analyze visual forms of evidence and to read, think, and communicate about architecture. Lectures will be offered twice a week, but students will also meet in smaller groups each week for a discussion section with a teaching assistant, where they may participate actively in conversation about course readings, and engage in workshop activities. This introductory course is designed with both architecture majors and non-majors in mind.

This course examines concepts of architecture within writings about architecture. It explores universal issues of function, strength, and beauty, along with the interactions between theory and practice and the tensions between tradition and innovation. The course work consists of readings and exams. It is open to all students. Required for those intending to enter the architecture program. Spring.

Instruction and practice in drawing as a means of exploring and communicating formal and theoretical concepts. Aspects of freehand drawing in pencil, charcoal, and watercolor are taught with subjects from buildings, nature, and the human figure. The course is open to all students. Studio format. Strongly recommended for those entering the architecture program. Fall.

Instruction and practice in the skills necessary to draw and think as an architect. The course emphasizes mechanical drawing with exercises that include descriptive geometry, perspective, and other means of representing three-dimensional architectural problems with two-dimensional techniques. The course is open to all students. Studio format. Required for those intending to enter the architecture program. Spring.

Discussion section for the Introduction to a Global History of Architecture course. Students may participate actively in conversation about course readings, and engage in workshop activities.

A one-credit supplementary course focused on strengthening math skills needed for first year math and physics courses as well as fortifying the math foundations needed for future required technical courses in the architecture curriculum. Particularly for, but not limited to, architecture intents.

Building on the broad context offered by the history survey during the first year, this course is a general introduction to some of the most enduring concepts in architecture and their applicability in design. The class is structured around seven principal themes and their derivatives: the idea of dwelling; the uses of architectural history; the uses of architectural theory; the essential concepts in architectural composition and theory; the essential components of the city; and an examination of recent architectural unfoldment: Modernism and Modern Traditional Architecture. The scope of the themes is meant to be cross cultural, illustrating many exemplary approaches to architecture and explaining the reasons for their exemplariness. These themes are presented in a basic form with the hope that future seminars will examine them in greater detail.

In this course, the development of Greek and Roman monumental architecture and the major problems that define them will be traced from the Mycenaean Period, through the formation and development of the classical Greek orders and building types (including the role of Egypt in their origins), through the various intersections of Greek and Roman culture and the role of both traditions in the architecture of Italy from the Etruscan occupation of Rome through the reign of the emperor Hadrian. Among themes to be treated are the relationship between landscape and religious architecture, between religious ritual and monumentality; the conception of divinity as expressed in the character of temple architecture; the architectural expression of religious tradition and even specific history; architectural procession and hieratic direction; the role of emblem and narrative in architectural sculpture; symbolism and allusion through architectural order, religious revival and archaism, and the breaking of architectural and religious canon.

This course continues the history survey, beginning with Renaissance and Baroque Europe and continuing to the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and the United States. It extends to the modern movement as it affected countries as far-reaching as Japan and Australia.

MATERIALS FEE. This course is an introduction to the watercolor medium and deals with a variety of methods, materials, and techniques with special emphasis on color and composition.

Exploration and application of qualitative principles and theory of building construction to the design process. Fall.

Principles of statics. force, and moment equilibrium; area properties; stress and strain; beam and column analysis. Spring.

Building on the graphic kills acquired during the freshman year, the overarching goal for this class is to assist students in developing their manual skills in the service of their intellectual skills. this class demonstrates some of the ways in which the architect's mind, eye, hand, and tools are cultivated and refined by experience. the class overs a rigorous application of drawing methods in order to judiciously imagine and design buildings in their urban and natural contexts. to this is added a set of analytical exercises of exemplary drawings as well as paintings in order to demonstrate the configuration of forms in relation to other forms, perspectival representation, the relation between line, color, and shadow, as well as the regulating geometries and numerical relations inherent in buildings, in human and animal bodies, and in plants.

This studio and lecture course introduces students to design beginning with the classical elements of architecture. It proceeds to the design of components of buildings. Fall.

Principles of planning, design, and construction are developed in urban contexts and in complex building programs. The concentration on classical paradigms as a basis for architecture and urban design is continued. Spring.

Give Me Shelter

Examines the essential elements of Roman urbanism, architectural composition, and tectonic considerations over time.

Freehand graphic communication with watercolor, painting a variety of forms, such as still life, exteriors and interiors of architecture and the human form.

Independent studies on a topic agreed upon by the student, instructor, and Assistant or Associate Dean.

Independent studies on a topic agreed by the student, instructor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

This course focuses on the interaction between people and the physical environment on human health, well-being, behavior, and sustainability. Social and physical factors across multiple scales - from specific environments (residential, educational, work, healthcare, and commercial), urban and natural settings, to the planet - are explored. Issues of public health, environmental justice, universal design, and culture are included throughout. Lecture and discussion class with hands-on assignments and quizzes. Upper level undergraduate and graduate students from across the University and especially in architecture, the sustainability minor, design, pre-professional studies, social sciences, and business are encouraged to enroll.

This course investigates the relationship between architecture and environmental systems. Lectures, readings, and exercises probe topics that include heating, ventilating, and air conditioning, passive energy design, plumbing systems, water conservation and usage, electrical systems, illumination, and acoustics.

A study of building construction methods and materials.

A broad survey of purpose-built spaces for Christian worship, from the beginnings to the present. The course will attend to questions of form and aesthetics and the functionality of these spaces for liturgy or other church activities. Finally, the course will consider the social, economic, and political dimensions of church building projects.

The study of wood and steel structures, including the design and analysis of beams, columns, and connections using building codes and national design standards. Additional topics address a review of structural analysis and the determination of structural loads, including gravity, wind, and seismic loads.

The study of concrete structures, including the design and analysis of beams, columns, slabs, and steel reinforcement using building codes and national design standards. Additional topics include concrete material properties, concrete mix design, and laboratories activities associated with testing concrete and steel reinforcement.

Housing in the United States has become increasingly unaffordable to many, whether as renters or home owners. New housing construction, particularly in the South Bend / Mishawaka area, is focused primarily on large-scale suburban developments and very high-end custom infill housing. Neither of these approaches meaningfully addresses the issues related to housing that is affordable in this region. Through this seminar, the Notre Dame School of Architecture hopes to take a leadership role in the design and development of better housing models for the South Bend / Mishawaka area. The seminar is intended to seek out both new and traditional design and construction ideas that promote sustainable, well-designed, well-built, and affordable housing solutions. This elective seminar is open to architecture majors and non-majors interested in affordable housing. The format of seminar has a two-part structure - classroom and jobsite. First, the class will focus on researching topics related to housing and construction: no drawing is required to take this course, only an interest in affordable housing. Second, students will participate in the construction of a house designed by students in the previous Spring semester. Participation in construction will be required and conducted in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, St. Joseph County (HFH). The goal of this partnership with HFH will be the construction of at least one new affordable housing unit each academic year.

Architectural glazing occupies a unique role in the design and construction of buildings. As both an exterior protection from the elements and an interior ornamentation, the production and application of stained glass within structures has both excited and fascinated people for centuries. This lecture class will introduce students to the history of leaded architectural glazing for the last 600 years. From its inception as the “poor man’s bible” to its modern “art glass” uses, students will learn to identify prominent techniques, styles, and artisans associated with the medium. In addition to its uses, students will also gain an understanding of the materials and techniques used to create these works of art. Documentation and restoration techniques will also be discussed, with students gaining practical experience with documenting and assessing existing windows through visits to local sites. It is anticipated at the conclusion of this course, students will have gained a greater understanding of the history of architectural glazing as a medium and comprehend the processes for designing and executing both new works and restoration campaigns for existing elements.

Study of basic skills necessary for the analysis and representation of architectural form through the medium of the computer. Students will study drafting as well as three-dimensional modeling.

Design V involves the design of buildings within urban settings, with a special emphasis on building types in relation to cultural, ethnic, and civic priorities.

Design VI presents students with the opportunity to select one among a number of studio options. Specific focus of studios varies from year to year and is designed to address needs and specific to each fourth-year class.

This course provides an opportunity for students to learn about the charrette process and urban design methodology by assisting in follow-up and preparatory work for the Dean's Charrettes as well as consulting on research case studies as part of the School of Architecture's Housing and Community Regeneration Initiative. This course works at both a macro and micro level. We will explore all steps of the charrette process to see how they work together. At the same we will dive into the details of how to communicate a compelling narrative verbally, graphically, and strategically. Through this work you will gain professional experience by utilizing lessons from the classroom in practice and engage with clients on real world projects that will make an immediate impact in our region.

Students gain an understanding of scale, proportion, and construction of furniture. Lectures and demonstrations expose students to the history of furniture, properties of wood, and the use of woodworking equipment. Fall.

Students construct furniture of original design. They learn to understand furniture's relationship to architectural context. Spring.

This course, envisioned as a series, investigates the work of great 20th century architects who demonstrated the vitality of classical and regional design traditions through their adaptation to modern building types, functions, unique contexts and evolving technologies. The course focuses on exploring the design approaches of these architects. The intention is that this guided journey will enrich your own design process, opening up access to a wealth of architectural solutions to reference when addressing similar problems of composition in contemporary design. We will develop and use analysis tools to become acquainted with their work to discover how interpretations of classical and regional architectural languages can be developed and adapted over a range of building types and from the scale of urban context/ site plan, to the scale of architectural detail and use of materials.

This course will follow the evolution of housing in the context of American Urbanism over the last hundred years and explore not only the methods employed to discriminate against minority communities, but also how these policies have ended up failing the suburban and rural communities they were intended to privilege. Consequently, the outcomes are not only ongoing racial injustice but also a nationwide affordable housing crisis and crumbling infrastructure. The course will be broken down into three parts. We will explore the history and evolution of housing segregation; the current results of decades of racist policies and actions; as well as potential ideas to reverse the inequities in housing to create a stronger future for all communities. No existing knowledge of architecture or urbanism is required.

This course provides a project based community engagement model focused on the preservation of historic buildings. The project will integrate preservation philosophies, programs, financial incentives, project research, documentation, and design through the lenses of private, non-profit and governmental roles. During the session, students will implement a process utilizing a threatened historic building in their community or as part of a team to develop skills and understanding needed to develop an advocacy, business and and architectural designs that could be utilized to save and rehabilitate/restore a historic building. Fourth, fifth and graduate level Architecture students, and students interested in historic preservation enrolled in Business, Law, Anthropology or Engineering are encouraged to participate. The course will involve three synchronous meetings each week supplemented with asynchronous learning modules and applied research and project development.

As you develop your own practice of architecture, you will need to be able to explain your position, to defend yourself against criticism, and to develop a well-informed understanding of how your work relates to broader cultural concerns. No matter where you stand with regards to classicism, being able to place your work in relation to broader ideas about what it means to be a modern architect will give your work intellectual heft. This course will introduce you to the various ideas about modernity that were developed during the twentieth century. Some of these ideas thrived and others faded out, but they all left a legacy for the way we build today. By reading a selection of excerpts you will gain exposure to the key texts of modern architectural theory. We will test them against the architectural production they inspired. You will learn to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these various arguments and to reason out your own opinions. This course is reading intensive. You should set aside time to read every week. I suggest reading in small bursts - these are heavy texts and you will probably digest them better if you read in segments rather than all in one go. The course is also writing intensive. A short one-page response every week will help you organize your thoughts: What is your immediate reaction to each author/idea? These are ungraded, but I will ask you to read them aloud at the beginning of each class. There will be a midterm paper and a final paper. (If you prefer, one of these can be presented as a visual analysis). The course is designed to be skills building. You will get better and faster as you go along. By the end of the course, you will know what's out there and where to go in the future when want more information on an idea. You will know how to dodge faulty logic and make a strong architectural argument. You will learn what good architectural writing looks like. You will begin to be able to script your own opinion and to stand your ground against architectural opponents.

The Roman architect Vitruvius Pollio dedicated his ten papyrus scrolls on architecture to the emperor Augustus in the late first century B.C.E., confident that his work furnished all the information an attentive reader needed to make competent decisions about building, from choosing a site to the fine points of interior decor. In addition, the form and structure of his treatise made a second, and no less ambitious, claim: that architecture should be considered a liberal art, requiring intellectual acuity above and beyond any technical skill. This course will investigate Vitruvius both as a man of ancient Rome and as one of the most influential writers of all time, showing how his aesthetic systems are rooted in ancient rhetoric - that is, in oratory and literature -, and how his pioneering treatise, thanks to its broad philosophical framework, innovative vocabulary, and systematic reasoning, became one of the most influential books of all time, including its role in shaping the curricula of the first universities. We will also investigate the ways in which readers from different centuries and different cultures have adapted (and often distorted) interpretation of the ancient text to fit different circumstances and views of the world, aiming to read him as clearly as possible, for his own time and for ours. We will be using the illustrated translation published by Cambridge University Press. Students who want to follow the text in Latin are encouraged to do so.

Conversations about environmental disaster, sustainability, and resilience that are everywhere in our news feeds today also shaped the buildings and cities from the Renaissance period in profound ways. How was nature conceptualized in the early modern world? And how did architects, engineers, and city-planners confront environmental forces like floods, earthquakes, and viral plagues? With a focus on Italy, this elective course explores how cities like Rome, Florence, Ferrara, and Venice historically dealt with its natural environments. We will begin by asking how "nature" was understood in the Renaissance period in relation to art and architectural history. Looking at primary sources like period texts, drawings, prints, buildings, and cities, we will trace themes like sustainability, environmental justice, and resource management. The goal for this course is to provide a framework for understanding how early modern societies faced environmental stresses, managed their natural resources, and addressed issues like sustainability.

A consideration of the possibilities for traditional urbanism within the context of contemporary culture; specifically, the way in which contemporary culture frustrates traditional urban ambitions, and the extent to which it may be possible for traditional urbanism to both critique and transform contemporary culture.

Catholicism and The City is an Architecture course intended primarily but not exclusively for undergraduate and graduate architecture students, and for undergraduate students from other disciplines. Viewed through the lenses of Catholic metaphysics and social teaching, the norms of historic classical humanist architectural and urban theory and practice, and related contemporary academic disciplines, the course is an introduction to cities generally, and more specifically a typological and historical introduction to the physical and spatial characteristics of the traditional urbanism of western Christendom, its global expansion, present devolution, and future prospects. The course addresses generally the nature and purpose/s of cities as cooperative human artifacts embodying particular cultural ideals and related forms of economic and political organization; and considers specifically cities as they relate to a Catholic understanding of human flourishing grounded in truths about God, creation, and human nature, including strategies for urbanism in a post-urban world in which human beings can flourish in towns and city neighborhoods that both anticipate and sacramentally participate in the City of God.

This seminar class in an introduction to the study of the architectural history of the United States, with particular emphasis placed on the construction techniques and building materials which have formed the basis for the progression of architectural styles in the United States, and with special attention paid to the impact of industrialization on the homogenization of styles throughout the country. While this course will follow a linear timeline model of architectural history, the course will deviate from a traditional architectural history course framework by focusing on the "unknown craftsmen" rather than the "great designer" model. During the semester, students will be required to demonstrate their understanding of course materials through written and visual assignments and presentations as well as in-class examinations. Upon completion of this course, students will have gained a greater understanding of the materials and construction methodologies which comprise the American building tradition.

This lecture class in an introduction to the processes and procedures of preforming a building assessment on a historic property. Often the first step in initiating a preservation project, the assessment of a structure identifies current areas of concerns in the building and offers remediation recommendations on the correct procedures for maintaining both historic fabric and economic feasibility of a proposed project. This class will introduce students to the techniques commonly used to assess a structure, as well as the correct format in which to present these findings to a client. The class will take a step by step approach to examining assessment techniques for all areas of a structure. Student will be introduced to common construction techniques found throughout the United States, common deterioration issues found in these components, as well as typical remediation techniques used to address these issues. Concepts pertaining to adaptive rehabilitation of buildings to meet modern code requirements as well as sustainability will also be addressed.

Knowledge about the relationship between built environment development and global and local challenges, such as climate change, resource depletion, environmental impact, justice and health, is of key importance to move towards a sustainable and resilient future. This course takes a trans-disciplinary approach to understanding how to decarbonize the built environment. Linkages between and perspectives from engineering, architectural design, and social sciences are emphasized throughout the course. This course provides students with real-world problems to work with such as urbanization-related pollution in China and urban revitalization needs for the aging building stock in Germany. This course is composed of two modules: (1) Carbon neutral development at the urban scale is examined through three real case studies to explore the different development principles, design strategies and patterns. (2) Net zero building design and related environmental impact are examined through research literature and real case projects.

This course introduces students to Cuba's cultural heritage and the magic and poetry of its Architecture and Urbanism, and its cross-cultural (European influence) and immediate regional background. The course explores the formation of a multiracial nation, and particularly the history and urban evolution of Havana, the country's capital city, and considers the key role of architecture in its ever-changing construction. Through a holistic approach, the students will learn and understand the distinct features—similarities, differences, and synchronicities— in the fields of art, architecture, and urbanism in Cuba, and examine how cultural identity has been a central organizing paradigm. A series of presentations will allow students to identify, recognize and discern the main features of Cuban architecture and urbanism and relate them to the universal culture. Critical thinking will allow the students to relate research and theoretical content with historic preservation themes, the concept of cultural landscapes, as well as practical design knowledge.

This seminar class consists of lectures, readings, and assigned design vignettes to delve into the complexities of ornamental theory - its meanings, patterns, and applications from individual motifs to whole buildings and grounds. Vignette projects assigned in class will give students the chance to apply various figurative design techniques. Class includes a trip to Cranbrook Academy and/or guest lectures by practitioners.

High-rise architectural design is the most complex and comprehensive single design task in undergraduate architecture courses. The design of this course expects students to master the basic characteristics of high-rise buildings, study the design strategies of contemporary high-rise buildings, understand relevant norms and knowledge of high-rise buildings, and improve the ability of comprehensive analysis and problem solving.

Internship credit in the School of Architecture for international students seeking full time employment for an agreed upon duration. Students must have a firm job offer before being given permission to enroll. In addition to the successful completion of employment, students must submit weekly reflections to the instructor on a series of questions relating the employment experience to the academic program.

Internship credit in the School of Architecture for international students seeking full time summer employment directly related to the discipline [or field] of architecture. Students must have a firm job offer before being granted permission to enroll. Students will submit weekly reflection essays to the instructor on a series of questions relating the employment experience to the academic program.

Independent studies on a design topic agreed upon by the student, instructor, and Assistant Deans.

Independent studies on a design topic agreed upon by the student, instructor, and Assistant Deans.