2009-2010 Design Studio Offerings

The second-year design faculty is looking forward to working with you and anticipates an exciting, creative, productive and successful year. The table provides an overview of the faculty members who will be teaching during the coming academic year. This is followed by information on the faculty members and the studios that they will be teaching. The information will be updated each quarter.

ARCH 251 Architectural Design 2.1
ARCH 241 Architectural Practice 2.1
ARCH 252 Architectural Design 2.2
ARCH 242 Architectural Practice 2.2
ARCH 253 Architectural Design 2.3
ARCH 207 Environmental Control Systems 1

The following teaching assignments are contingent on budget, student enrollment, and space availability.

Fall: ARCH 251 Winter: ARCH 252 Spring: ARCH 253
Donna Duerk Donna Duerk Chandrika Jaggia
Art Chapman Art Chapman Chuck Crotser
Howard Weisenthal Howard Weisenthal Howard Weisenthal
Robert Arens Robert Arens Don Choi
Greg Wynn Greg Wynn Greg Wynn
Troy Peters Troy Peters Richard Beller
Kent Macdonald Kent Macdonald Kent Macdonald
Richard Schmidt Richard Schmidt Richard Schmidt

Robert Arens

Email: rarens@calpoly.edu

Go to Arens' Architecture Faculty web page

Image containing examples of four second year design projects

Teaching Philosophy

Architecture occurs at the intersection of its dualities. It is both process and product. It is both material (praxis) and immaterial (theoria). It is both positive (enhancing human life) and negative (it consumes an inordinate level of resources and energy). It must respond to interior forces (program, function) and exterior forces (culture, climate, context). It is created using both digital and physical media. It is both space and place. My philosophy is that every level of design studio should address architecture in the full range of its dichotomies in a measure appropriate to whether it’s a second, third, fourth or fifth year class.

Course Activities

This course is framed around a tactics for approaching architecture as a process, a conceptual attitude, and as a material proposition. A series of short projects, called Form and Material Studies, are conducted parallel to lectures, presentations and readings meant to stimulate conversations about the conceptual, theoretical, aesthetic, philosophical, per formative and technical issues affecting architecture. The studies, related to a more complex final design project, are designed to promote a fundamental understanding of materiality, tactility and fabrication processes. The focus is placed on traditional materials and processes (joining and binding wood, folding paper, weaving reed, casting plaster, etc.) with the understanding that these studies will lead to greater speculation in subsequent projects or design courses. Two principles underpin this approach. First, although advanced materials and digital tools allow great freedom in architectural form, it is also necessary for designers to understand parameters that can and should delimit most architectural projects. Second, is crucial to make the relationships between material and fabrication, and between form and process apparent before students move to more complex digital studies and fabrication methods where these relationships become less visible.

Brief Bio

Robert Arens has a diverse background that blends architecture with landscape architecture, technology with design, and professional activity with teaching. This mix has resulted in a holistic and collaborative approach to design that balances both theoretical and practical considerations of each project. It has also left him with an interest in new materials and methods of fabrication and their impact on architecture.

Richard Beller

Email: rbeller@calpoly.edu

Go to Beller' Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Art Chapman

Email: achapman@calpoly.edu

Go to Chapman's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Architecture is about understanding the human condition and about an appropriate response to enhance human behavior. I value process, integrity, context, viability, respect, the sensory experience of space, and the articulation of design intent. I also value discovery in that it is more meaningful to explore and discover possible solutions to projects than to be given examples of what is expected. This results in my attitude that all points of view are valued and appreciated if supported by discovery and integrity.

Course Activities

Second year design is a three part series of classes intended to build a foundation in the theories, principles and skills for students studying to be responsible environmental design professionals. That responsibility includes sensitivity to issues of sustainability and cultural diversity. Projects involve the study and application of design principles to spatial problem solving at increasing levels of detail and complexity. It is expected that students become fully engaged in the task of becoming design professionals and follow their passions, their intuition, and their search for meaning.

Brief Bio

I have had a long history of teaching in many areas of our department. This includes teaching second year design I must say has been a very enjoyable part of my career. There is something amazingly exciting about investigating design principles, spatial concepts and the study of human behavior with students who are beginning their search for professional identity. My research areas have been in computer aided design and spatial organization.

Chuck Crotser

Email: ccrotser@calpoly.edu

Go to Crotser' Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Don Choi

Email: dchoi@calpoly.edu

Go to Choi' Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Donna Duerk

Email: dduerk@calpoly.edu

Go to Duerk's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

From my point of view, architecture is a subset of design. Design is a purposeful, intentional activity with the focus of making the quality of life better. Therefore, architecture is the design of objects, structures, and land forms that are for the purpose of enhancing our lives and the lives of those for whom we design - from the pandas in the zoo to the general public in the park. My personal concerns are centered on the connections between the environment and human behavior and how each influences and interacts with the other.

Design is fun and is an integral part of our lives — from dressing ourselves every morning to creating the environments in which we live and work. Problem solving should be a rewarding activity. Learning and discovery are the rewards for inquiry and for trying out a lot of different alternatives in the academic environment.

Increasing the quality of life calls for a level of excellence beyond the ordinary. It requires a systematic process of inquiry, a lot of teamwork, and powerful critical thinking. Excellence requires a commitment to stretch outside your comfort zone and to avoid settling for “good enough.” Working hard is insufficient — one must also work well and thoroughly. A high level of craft is the hallmark of careful design — from initial thinking to the execution of a presentation.

Course Activities

The course is focused on design as a process. In that process one develops multiple alternatives and comes to develop one’s own personal design process — from analysis to synthesis to evaluation. Principles of composition are the backbone of creating criteria for judging the quality of a design: order, harmony balance, unity, and contrast. Drawing is a vital part of seeing and communicating so that perspective sketches and their construction are integral to the studio. Various media are also explored in order to practice the skills of craft — from drawing to model making to creating a verbal and visual presentation. The visual language of architecture is explored through the study of various architect’s works and the interpretation of their language into a student project.

Brief Bio

Chandrika Jaggia

Email: cjaggia@calpoly.edu

Go to Jaggia's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

My inherent pedagogical style is to focus on the totality of design - to understand design through the natural and built world around us beyond the realm of buildings. Abstractions and designs thus developed for architecture must be imbued with considerations of local ethos, rural/urban fabric, economics, nature, climate, and construction technology. A thorough knowledge of architectonics is crucial to translating these ideas into credible built works and the built environment. Therefore, my pedagogy emphasizes equal importance and passion for each branch and stage of architecture. In essence, the philosophy of sustainability forms the basis of my pedagogy.

I begin each quarter with an overview of the first principles of design followed by small hands-on exercises involving collecting materials and artifacts, sketching, photographing, visiting and analyzing buildings and sites to hone in on the first principles studied. This is followed by intensive discussions and designs of one or two specific issues under consideration that quarter. Topics of practice and design are integrated in these mini projects. Physical model making is a crucial part of such preliminary design exercises. A lot of freedom is given to students to develop their own design vocabulary. The bulk of the quarter is then spent on one major design project that incorporates all the learning of the past few weeks. Technology issues learned during the practice class are continually integrated into the design. Site visits, programming, ideation through collages, graphics, and writings, music, dance, movies, potlucks, and intense designing through sketching, physical models and CADD drawings and details are many of the activities that characterize this studio time.

My interactions with students are infused with kindness, positive reinforcement, a rigorous work ethic, and instilling a desire to excel. Having discussions with young minds and discovering how much they learn in just a few weeks I find especially invigorating. To quote a few of my students "my architectural design abilities have grown more than I had anticipated at the beginning of the quarter," "finding fundamental concepts of design in nature and built items really helped me see them in action", "prioritizing is paramount; it is the choices I make that determine the quality", "architecture is excellence, and I’ve learned to observe it, design it, feel it, and love it." I look forward to having highly motivated and bright students in my class and working together to create beautiful architectural designs.

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Kent Macdonald

Email: kmacdona@calpoly.edu

Go to Macdonald's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

I studied architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. My mentors there were excellent teachers and practitioners. What came through most ardently in their teaching was their engagement with the world; they believed strongly in the power of architecture to shape the environment for the common good. Influenced by them, and one rather progressive parent, I regard Berkeley’s communitarian outlook as the basis of my philosophical stance to life.

My approach to teaching design is a bit more nuanced. The world of architecture today is wide; there is no dominant ideology or clear-cut consensus – either about architecture’s purpose or what constitutes a "good" building. Chacun a son gout, as the French say: to each his own. It would be disingenuous of me to say, then, that my views, instincts, or taste are either universal or unimpeachable. The emphasis in my classes is therefore on teaching a process of design that hinges on the idea of the designer as synthesizer, that is, someone making sense of intricate and competing elements of a problem: in other words, assessing various factors, making critical judgments about priorities, and seeking to reconcile the differences into an integrated whole.

Working in this way, I hope, you will discover your own priorities, your own strengths, and your own philosophical outlook, all the while improving your skill set and awareness of the world.

Course Activities

The activities in this course are geared towards increasing your knowledge of a range of design issues, introducing you to methods for solving design problems, and improving your drawing and three-dimensional visualization skills. Above all, the activities are meant to develop your abilities as "organizers of complexity."

Each studio presents a single design problem that seeks to engage your interest at multiple levels simultaneously. Grounded in real-life situations with real sites and realistic programs, the projects all tend to focus on three main factors – context, program, and materials – as prime determinants of form.

The overarching idea is to reproduce the synthesizing experience of an architect in practice. Moreover, by focusing on one problem over the course of a quarter, you are able to investigate it in more depth, and to move beyond its consideration solely as a mystical or mysterious abstraction.

Brief Bio

My career has been split between professional practice and teaching.

My background in practice includes work on my own and with firms in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, DC. The range of projects has been broad, but most have been in multi-family housing, community design, and large-scale planning, both here and abroad.

A number of these projects have been in low-income areas of American cities, and were part of a larger agenda in which renewal of the built environment went hand-in-hand with new social services for the residents. In such projects, architecture was but one tool in a struggle for social equality and economic justice, causes I remain committed to.

I began teaching here in the fall of 1994. During this time, I have taught in every year of the program, the bulk of it in design and practice studios.

Troy Peters

Email: tnpeters@calpoly.edu

Go to Peters' Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Richard Schmidt

Email: rschmidt@calpoly.edu

Go to Schmidt's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

Howard Weisenthal

Email: hweisent@calpoly.edu

Go to Weisenthal's Architecture Faculty web page

Brief Biographical Statement

In the late 1950’s, long before there was the South Beach Diet, the pastels of Miami Vice or the soothing flavors of SoBe Iced Tea the southern 15 blocks of Miami Beach were a collection of somewhat rundown Art Deco hotels and low rise apartments occupied by fixed income retirees. It was not the destination for hip international young trendsetters as it is today. South Beach was a forgotten casual tropical paradise, rich with varied flora, surrounded by water on 3 sides with miles of unspoiled beaches bathed with warm breezes, and it was my home.

The summer days of my youth were care free, spent exploring on my bike, beachcombing, fishing, sneaking into hotel pools to cool off, watching buildings under construction or visiting with relatives as they sat in the shaded courtyard of their apartment building or on the patio overlooking the beach and the ocean beyond. It was during those relaxed days I first learned to work with nature and observe my environment. I watched for the changing tides, understood the afternoon thunderstorms and I knew how to find the best banana, avocado and mango trees.

My interests in visual spatial areas and building activities developed early, possibly sparked by the unique structures and way of life of my hometown. Even as early as the age of 9 I sought out and secured a summer job in an architect’s office where I sharpened pencils, cleaned pens and helped organize the materials sample room. Later, as a high school student my summer apprenticeships either in architecture offices or on construction sites continued. The work was simple: "run these prints," "change this drawing" or "get up to the top floor and see how many yards of concrete got placed this morning." Even though my responsibilities were minimal, I was there watching, listening and working in the world I one day hoped to join.

In college at The University of Florida, I majored in Architecture. Now, as I look back, I understand that it was my youthful appreciation for the environment and experiences in the profession that were reflected in my undergraduate design projects. These influences still provide direction to my design and teaching. The important books of the era, On Walden Pond, Design With Nature, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance also reinforced my values related to the importance of craft and in making and designing simple things that work in a larger context. As a graduate student, I further explored the concepts of climatic responsiveness as I designed a planning model for future development in South Beach and individual buildings that would fit into that model.

In graduate school my thesis advisor suggested that I had the potential to develop a career in teaching. The idea interested me, but I had my heart set on being a licensed architect and after graduation I successfully pursued that goal. After several years of working in offices and designing buildings of various scales and functions, I gradually became convinced that my passion and expertise in design might be suited for an academic environment and the idea of teaching design at a university resurfaced and became my next goal. Since 1976, I have been fortunate to have worked in the Architecture Departments at LSU and, beginning in 1983, here at Cal Poly.

Brief histories such as this tend to simplify the sequence of life and imply personal goals were easily attained, but as in most life histories, many obstacles have been overcome and my past and current positions have been attained through perseverance and dedication. I know from first-hand experience that the profession of architecture and architectural education are challenging tasks, and that even for the truly talented or gifted, success requires more than a casual involvement. So, if you find yourself in my studio I will expect you to draw upon your singular history and experiences for inspiration and to be fully and continually engaged in your education.

Teaching Philosophy and Studio Activities

I believe that teaching any level of design is unique because there are no predetermined "correct" solutions to assigned problems. But, teaching in second year offers an additional challenge in that the projects are of a scale that allows students to bring most of the required lessons with them to studio when they walk in the door. They just don’t know it. They may not trust their instincts or value their own life experiences, and their true creativity is often buried in an attempt to be “successful” in class. They have not discovered that design is really a journey to find themselves and to understand how they see the world.

So my job, as I see it, is to provide an environment where the students in my studio are encouraged to develop the means to address design questions from their unique personal point of view using their own vocabulary and value system. Of course there are new skills, information and theories that are presented in studio or support courses containing critical information to be digested and incorporated into design solutions. The year-level and project objectives must also be met and I do ask that students follow a design method that derives a concept from an analysis of the project. But in the end, I fully support and promote the development of design concepts along highly individual and divergent approaches to each project. In that light, my two most common critiques are  "How does your concept reflect an understanding of the project?" and "How have you developed your design concept?"

In second year, I believe that students are just beginning to learn the complexities and nuances of design and as with the attainment of any other skill, practice and repetition are key elements. So, most quarters begin with short projects or design exercises which allow for exploration, the development of quick design alternatives and skill growth. Longer more inclusive projects are reserved for the last 5 or 6 weeks. I also believe that second year students should focus on what they are designing, with less focus on how they are presenting their solutions. Young design students often appear overly concerned about producing a complex graphic image or finely built model instead of focusing on solving design issues. So, I support the use of simple graphic tools and modeling materials. These permit a direct flow from head to hand and do not stand in the way of redesign because of expense or technical difficulty. From my perspective, in second year, models and drawings are tools of the designer and are best used to inform design decisions. They are not the final product of a design class. They, of course, must be communicative and reach an appropriate skill level, but I overlook craft issues in favor of design explorations.

In summary, as noted in my brief biography, my current position as a Professor in the Department of Architecture was attained through years of focused dedication both as a student and professional.  In turn, I expect students to also be 100% involved in their education and the pursuit of architecture as their profession. This does not necessarily translate to receiving high grades but rather involves assisting in developing a studio that is an enjoyable creative environment, working on a personal lifestyle that supports and fosters a commitment to design and maximizing individual talents and skills.

Greg Wynn

Email: gwynn@calpoly.edu

Go to Wynn's Architecture Faculty web page

Teaching Philosophy

Course Activities

Brief Bio

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