Architecture and Environmental Design at Hampshire College

Architecture & Environmental Design
The Architecture and Environmental Design program is a perfect example of Hampshire College's unique interdisciplinary curriculum. Our program embraces the complexity of architecture--the process, practice, and historical significance--by encouraging the exploration of the many aspects of design. Through a combination of practical and theoretical approaches, Hampshire's design students examine the social, political, historical, theoretical, scientific, and legal aspects of planning in the framework of studying architectural form.

The program encourages a rigorous studio regimen matched with a serious examination of architectural histories, texts, and contexts, opening up students to the ways in which architecture affects, and is affected by, the environment around it. Students explore, study, and analyze urban fabrics, social structures, environmental systems, and the economics of buildings in the design process, and pose questions about the impact of their actions on individuals, communities, and even nations. For example, the perceptual implications of architectural representation, the political repercussions of architecture and globalization, and serious explorations into environmental sustainability are encouraged in a rigorous and inventive manner—from studio, historical, and theoretical standpoints. Many students remain close to the core discipline, focusing on a role as a future architect, while others seek alternative routes within this program focusing on the relationship between architecture and other disciplines in art, science, or sociology. Many choose to fuse their design practices with architectural history, criticism and theory. While taking in a diverse cross-section of courses in various disciplines, students are encouraged to identify and develop their individual role as designers and thinkers, and are asked: "What is architecture?" “What else can it be?”

Because the field of architecture and environmental design incorporates so many different ways of viewing the world, it is a perfect example of Hampshire’s unique interdisciplinary curriculum. In architecture we find elements of engineering, design, and the studio arts, as well as urban planning, sociology, and political science.

Through a combination of practical and theoretical approaches, Hampshire’s design students examine the social, political, and legal aspects of planning in the context of studying architectural form.

They explore not only questions of “What makes a building stand up?” or “What makes a landscape beautiful?” but also: “Why do we design buildings?” and “In what ways do the shapes we create affect and reflect our society?”

Student Project Titles

 * An Architectural Vision Quest
 * Architectural Design and Three-Dimensional Representation
 * Building Spaces with Children
 * Architecture and the Pursuit of Truth
 * Rebuilding New Orleans: Studies in City Planning
 * Applications and Innovations in Retail

Featured Faculty Profiles
Robert Goodman Professor of Architecture

Karen Koehler Coordinator of the Five College Architectural Studies Project, Associate Professor of Art and Architectural History

Thom Long Five College Assistant Professor of Architectural Studies

Sample First-Year Course

 * Art and Exile

This course will explore the changing representations of exile in visual art, architecture, literature, and film. We will unpack the shifting meanings of exile, displacement, and diaspora as experience and metaphor in the context of modernity, as well as discuss relationships between imagined/remembered homelands and transnational identities, language loss, bi and multilingualism and translation, alienation, difference, and memory as they are expressed by diverse artists in exile. We will cover a range of periods, places, and genres; from Chagall and Duchamp to Dali and Gropius, from Gertrude Stein to Salman Rushdie to Marjane Satrapi. We will explore questions of national and ethnic identity, cultural and linguistic heritage, and community and personal memory, as we investigate both the actual and imagined positions of the exile. Expectations include a series of progressively more complex papers and presentations. This course will incorporate a series of public lectures and panels on the topic of art, exile, and memory.

Sample Courses at Hampshire

 * 1950s Art History, Architecture and Critical Theory
 * 3D Design & Model-Making
 * Architectural Concepts & Fundamentals
 * Architectural Design: Basic Approaches
 * Architectural Design for Diversity & Social Change
 * Art & Exile
 * Body, Movement & Architecture: An Investigation into Cinematic Theory & Spatial Experience
 * Concentration Seminar in Studio Architecture & Design
 * Designing the Post-suburban Community: The House
 * Math & the Other Arts
 * Mills to Lofts: Transforming Space & Community Through Design
 * Modernism & Modernity
 * Poetic Structures of Space
 * Topics in Architecture
 * Zero Impact House

Through the Consortium

 * Architectural Design Studio (AC)
 * Architecture & Design (UMass)
 * Architecture Since 1945 (SC)
 * Building Physics (UMass)
 * European Art & Architecture 1400-1800 (AC)
 * Modern Architecture (MHC)
 * Sculpting Space with Meaning (MHC)
 * Site & Space (SC)

Facilities and Resources
Through a relationship with the Studio Arts Center International (SACI), Hampshire students in architecture have the opportunity to spend a semester in Florence, Italy, studying architectural design. SACI was founded in 1975 to create a program for students seeking excellence in studio arts and liberal arts instruction. It combines the cultural resources of Italy with well-equipped facilities minutes away from Florence’s central market, and is well known as a leading resource for students interested in art, art history, or architectural design.

A newly formed affiliation with the New York Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies will allow current and future Hampshire architecture students to participate in summer programs or semester exchanges with this prestigious and innovative institute. The institute seeks to promote improvisational and interdisciplinary design solutions that address contemporary environmental and social issues.

Other Hampshire programs in China and Berlin offer the opportunity to study architecture in a global context.

Five College Architectural Studies

In order to capitalize on the resources, courses, events and design communities within the Five Colleges, students interested in exploring architecture can reach out to the Five College Architectural Studies program to expand their knowledge, skills and experience. The objective of the Five College Architectural Studies program is to cultivate concerned architectural designers and thinkers through a flexible yet rigorous interdisciplinary course of study. Our cross-disciplinary approach to architectural education introduces students to a multitude of ways to think about design in history, theory, and in the studio.

Please visit the Five College Architectural Studies website for more information on classes, programs, faculty, and events––or to just join the conversation.
 * http://www.fivecollegearch.com/

Information Quoted From http://www.hampshire.edu/admissions/architecture.htm and http://www.hampshire.edu/hacu/6824.htm