Architecture Education: The Latest Architecture and News

AA DLab experiments thoroughly on the possibilities of digital design tools and rapid prototyping techniques as highly integrated systems of design development. It is an intensive computation and fabrication oriented workshop that is structured around a general theme in each consecutive edition.

Starting from 2012, DLab will be launched as a series where one of the most potent vehicles for emphasis in architecture, color, will take a twist and exist beyond the field of visual compositions and sensations, becoming the common denominator for the generation of diverse computational proposals. In 2012, DLab takes on the color of Green as the shade of meaning and the design vessel for a number of rigorous experiments carried out using algorithmic design methodologies and digital fabrication techniques.  Associated with the concepts of regeneration, emergence, and growth through its broad existence in nature, Green will serve as the inspiration for observing natural and biological structures of differing scales, followed by their abstraction and interpretation into elaborated design proposals. In this setup, Green surpasses being a representational/graphic instrument and stimulates creative processes of meaning, interpretation, and realization.

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In this interview by Jan Schevers and Esther Schevers, Stephen Bates of Sergison Bates architects discusses how education is tied to exploration and research. As a professor at TU Munich, each semester offers an opportunity to take on new themes in architecture that allow him to break conventions that come up in practice and are oftentimes associated with the ways in which his students have been taught. More discussion after the break.

A recent study released by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce states that students who have recently graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in architecture have experience the highest rates of unemployment. The information was gathered using 2009 and 2010 data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Continue reading after the break for more detail information about the study.

In the Spring of 2011, the Design|Build studio at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) began researching the various influences impacting the design and construction of transitional shelters used in disaster relief. The research included a review of conditions in Haiti, where a portion of the class travelled to Port-Au-Prince over their Spring Break to check out some of the shelter types being constructed in response to the earthquake that devastated the area back in January of 2010.

Several case studies were investigated, including the Haiti Earthquake. The research was comprehensive. However, the impact of this survey on the outcome of transitional shelter was debatable – there were no “universal solutions”, and there was no panacea that could solve every scenario.

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Parsons The New School for Design has announced new graduate programs including a Master of Science in Design and Urban Ecologies and a Master of Arts in Theories of Urban Practice. What makes these programs unique is their focus on urban designers and planners as agents of social change: What kind of deep knowledge do urbanists need to be able to design cities in a much more effectively manner? And how do urbanists use their creative training and visionary skills to engage with the deeper structures of society?The programs represent a wider initiative at Parsons, one of the world’s leading schools of art and design, to offer graduate programs that define the next phase of global design. The programs will launch in Fall 2012. More information on the programs after the break.