ARCH 510
Responsive Architecture: Exploring Architecture and Organicism
About
FALL 2022
Teaching Team:
Philip Beesley
Can architecture integrate living functions? To support exploration of this question, a range of readings and examples from contemporary physics, biology, and computational systems will be featured. Readings will include tangible explorations including natural growth, spatial and cybernetic organizations and study of paradigms and underlying principles. Contemporary architectural movements including cybernetics, biomimicry and soft architectures offer a wealth of practical examples that can inform contemporary architectural design. The examples offered by these studies can provide valuable references for designing with complex far-from equilibrium systems.
A primary activity will be discussions where we reflect on material together, exploring implications through discussion and workshop exercises. Student-led seminars will form one of the cores of the course. Drawing and diagramming exercises conducted within the class will build from primary geometry and explore relationships within complex systems. Each seminar will focus on a specialized topic, produced by students working individually and in small groups. Resources from Waterloo Architecture’s Living Architecture Systems Group will support the course.
Student Projects
