GRADUATE STUDIO

ARCH 552
(2G1/3G4)
INSTITUTIONS:
FALL 2021

PROFESSORS

JULIA MCMORROUGH, MATIAS DEL CAMPO, IAN DONALDSON, DAWN GILPIN, PETER HALQUIST, PERRY KULPER, ANN LUI, STEVEN MANKOUCHE, NEAL ROBINSON, JON RULE, CHRISTIAN UNVERZAGT, KATHY VELIKOV

LOCAL LIBRARY

The (local) library is a typology with specific spatial, organizational, and technical requirements and possibilities. Despite the potentially eradicating effects of issues such as financial strain, digitization, or social distancing, the local library persists - there is still, in most communities, a desire for there to be a there there, a location, a place, a symbol.

Within the Institutions studios, the local public library's cabability for deft and continual re-invention within its contexts served as inspiration and touchstone for the assessment and invention of the local library's future self.

The Institutions studio works to explore and communicate the opportunities for design for reality to be transcendent and visionary, and allows students to research, interrogate, and understand institutional frameworks and resulting architectural approaches. Students are introduced to the basic concepts of life safety and accessibility, and how to treat these as integral considerations in design work that is inclusive and asks productive questions about social justice, equity, and who and what is represented in our institutions. The studio prioritizes the relationship between civic structures and the city, as well as capacity-building in the core competencies of building design, (including organization, accessibility, and diagrammatic structural integration).