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Instructor(s)
The ParaMat studio offers students the opportunity to become immersed in digital capabilities not as production tools but as design media. The studio offers an introductory exploration of computational design by instilling an awareness of structures, processes and opportunities necessary to develop a design practice inclusive of computational strategies and techniques.
Particular emphasis is placed on the relationships between parametric and material systems. Through the course project sequence, the studio will aim to nurture two distinct exploratory environments. The first, Parametric Space will focus on the exploration of the abstract structures and processes used to define and characterize parametric models and systems. The second, Material Systems, will place physical and tangible materials and their associated ways of making at the center of an exploration of form, material and performance.
The relationship between these two environments will evolve over the course of the term and be explicitly tested in a third phase of work focused on the design of an architectural space guided by the intersection of parametric and material systems. Through this collision, the studio will simultaneously deliver a foundation in computation and test what opportunities emerge from including it in an architectural project. On the one hand, introduction to and operation within an unfamiliar domain such as design computing requires a commitment to skills-based instruction where students can learn the conceptual and technical frameworks of the discipline. On the other hand, the traditions of the design studio will require that students engage in their projects in a critical, robust and rigorous manner.
