ARC 625: Architecture and the Information Environment

Instructor: Omar Khan
ARC 625 
Fall 2018

DESCRIPTION:

This seminar is the first in a two-semester sequence that introduces theoretical and historical topics relevant for research in the design of “Situated Technologies”. It introduces students to the significant ideas that define the information environment and how they concern architecture and urbanism. Taking a broad interdisciplinary approach the course draws texts from science, engineering, information theory, aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, media, art, architecture and urbanism. It includes primary texts as well as their interpretations, providing a critical examination of the ideas and their influence on technology and society.

The information environment refers to the ideas and artifacts produced by information and computing technologies (ICT) and their influence on social and cultural production. This critical reading seminar, roughly organized in historical progression, will explore a series of themes that intersect ICT development, architecture and urbanism. We will study some of the important concepts that have influenced the technological imagination
and how they continue to frame the debate on technological progress. We will also explore what it means to situate technologies and how the architectural imagination can provide us with the resources to address technological determinism.

ARC 605 – Fidelity and Tolerance

Instructor: Nicholas Bruscia | Type: Studio
This studio will research the potential advantages and pitfalls of integrating mixed reality (MR) into well-established methods of handwork in a variety of contexts (local craft, manufacturing workflow, material production, etc).

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ARC 625 – Fabricating the Real

Instructor: Mark Shepard | Type: Seminar
This course surveys the cultural history of VR, AR and MR, focusing on their ontological and epistemological implications regarding conceptions of “the real.”

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ARC 617 – Fusing Dimensions

Instructors: Randy Fernando and Shawn Chiki
Type: Seminar
This course utilizes experiential learning methods to address how designers can interface the
nuances of real and virtual environments during the creative process.

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