Teaching

Invited guest

University of California Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, California USA

Texas A&M, College of Architecture, College Station, Texas USA

The School of Architecture at Taliesin, Scottsdale, Arizona USA

The Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA), Mumbai, Maharashtra India

University of California Davis, Landscape Architecture + Environmental Design, California USA

University of Sonora, UNISON Mexico / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC USA / The university of Arizona, UA USA / ‘Navigating Education in Borderlands’

Universidad de La Serena, Escuela de Arquitectura, Chile

Undergraduate level

- Architecture design studio first year.

- Architecture design studio second year.

- Architecture design studio third year.

- Introduction to architecture.

- Latin American architecture.

- Low income housing.

- Urban design + Social housing - study abroad.

- Sustainable Urban Design.

- Camp architecture.

Graduate level

- Urban design studio - interdisciplinary / Bachelor in Architecture, Master in Landscape Architecture, Master in Planning.

- ULI Hines Student Urban Design and Development Competition - interdisciplinary / Graduate student competition.

- Low income housing - interdisciplinary Independent study / Bachelor in Architecture, Master in Landscape Architecture, Master in Planning, Real Estate Development, MBA.

-Thesis committee member.

-Invited juror: UC Berkeley, Taliesin, U Arizona, UC Davis.

Curriculum development

- Sustainable urban design - summer course.

- Camp architecture - summer course.

- Latin American architecture - seminar.

- Introduction to architecture - undergraduate

- MS.Arch Urban Design - Task force.

Architecture design studio, third year

The American Institute of Architects, Design Excellence Award 2019

This award is made by AIA southern Arizona by jury of professionals to the top project in each class based on an exhibit of best works selected by the faculty of each studio.

ARC 302 Interventions in Urban context.

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION, Syllabus

Design of diverse medium-scale typologies, within urban settlement contexts, integrating site and spatial ordering with component assemblies, including long/short structural spans, vertical circulation, and enclosure.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Urban Mixed-Use architecture studio builds upon the accomplishments of form making and site exploration developed in previous semesters through an integrated design process that utilizes elements of abstraction as catalyst. Beginning with speculations on context, site and program and leading to an architectural/building proposal, the studio promotes students’ capacities for investigative thinking and formulating problems through architectural design processes. The pedagogical objectives of the course include interactive and diversified learning processes towards the reasoned understanding of architectural complexity through design thinking. A framework for the architectural design is based on a conceptual design approach that incorporates an intuitive and researched understanding of the particularities of the program as well as the physical conditions of the site. A non -linear system of relationships between the context and the program individually incentivized by the components of the assignments will incorporate several layers of abstraction and complexity into the processes.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of this course, in relation with the listed aspects, students will be able to:

Design −Work and demonstrate an iterative manner from concept to precise resolution and back again. −Develop guidelines for a consistent organization of the design process.

−Work with accuracy of representation and rigorous exposition of ideas, processes and proposals.

Context response −Detect and represent the conditions of a place: urban, non-urban, rural, etc., and the implications in the process of architectural design. −Incorporate the conditions of a place into the design through multiple strategies. −Respond to specific climatic conditions with low-energy based design. −Respond to specific social requirements, with equity, fairness and diversity as design goals.

Skills −Technical drawings: Describe architectural elements and contextual qualities in two dimensions.Recognize of the capacity of multiple scales to express different aspects of the project. Use and recognition of line weights and line types. Present in printed or screen format, into scale understandable technical drawings

−Mapping. Describe the multiple layers of urban and landscape contexts. Understand the relation between land and building including regrading of site.

−Three-Dimensional representation. Use of physical models. Site, conceptual and spatial..Use of Collage, montage, perspective. Use of digital tridimensional tools for analytical and systemic explorations.

−Three dimensionality. Represent the experience of space through light / shadow, inside /outside, thresholds, edge, boundaries. Understand systems, order and sequences in the use and inhabitation of a space. Define, describe and represent the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of a space.

−Program. Function, identity, service. Domesticity, inhabitation, dwelling.

−Order & fields. Relationship between organization, structure and physical definition. Sequences and movement.

−Material & Tectonics. Introduction to relationship between matter, systems and forms.

−Measure & Scale. Dimension, proportions and ergonomics. Graphics & standards.

(E. Canovas, coordinator)

ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO, THIRD YEAR

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD 2020

This award is made by AIA southern Arizona by jury of professionals to the top project in each class based on an exhibit of best works selected by the faculty of each studio.

ARC 301 Integration of places.

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION, Syllabus

Design studio with a focus on the architectural potential of landforms and cultural landscape emphasizing environmentally responsive and resourceful resolutions.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is the fifth course in the ten course Design Studio sequence, with a focus on the integration of collective and domestic spaces relative to context. The course will expand upon the foundational principles introduced in the previous studio sequence - the two fundamental procedures of building craft: Stereotomic and Tectonic – which may also be characterized as “The Cave” and “The Hut”. This studio will pair each procedure with a different landscape condition suited to its correlating primary mode of construction. ARC 301 | Design Studio III page 2 The studio will emphasis the process of design by way of exploration through diagramming, drawing, and modelmaking. The course will encourage students to work iteratively, exploring the qualities of the spaces, relationship to context and landscape - both immediate and broad, passive environmental strategies, quality of light, structure, materiality, and sequences and relationships of spaces for human occupation and delight.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate their ability to graphically and orally convey their design ideas and strategies.

2. Employ diagramming, drawing, and modeling as a means to critically investigate ideas, question assumptions, and test hypotheses through a process of iteration.

3. Synthesize multiple requirements into a design resolution with a clear conceptual idea and evident ordering principles.

4. Research and analyze precedent as a means of adding practical and conceptual depth to the design process and identify how salient aspects of selected precedents inform their design proposals.

5. Demonstrate their understanding of and response to site factors, such as solar orientation, topography, climate, water flows and precipitation, and wind conditions through appropriate placement and integration of a structure on a site.

6. Implement appropriate design responses to building codes, life-safety requirements, and universal design relevant to a low-rise structure.

7. Demonstrate the appropriate selection and application of building materials and technologies in a lowrise structure – specifically compressive systems (concrete, masonry) and timber framing.

8. Analyze the ethical impacts of architectural decisions on the environment, site, users, and craftspeople, and articulate the professional judgement used in the decision-making process.

9. Employ passive and active environmental strategies consistent with the aspiration of a net-zero goal in a way that reinforces the project concept and organization.

(T. Rosano, coordinator)

ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO, second YEAR

ARC 202 Design Studio II : Dwelling

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION, Syllabus

Explorations in modes of dwelling as defined by specificity to place, typology, material sensibility, human behavior and accessibility.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course investigates characteristics of private and public dwelling with aim to understand the technical aspects of dwelling design, and illuminate questions of inhabitation and being. The course begins with an analysis of precedent work with intent to understand various architects’ resolutions / interpretations of contemporary physical and cultural forms of inhabitation. The course continues with a design problem that addresses the physical / technical requirements of habitation, while raising questions of urbanity and heterogeneity in light of individual or personal rejuvenation / seclusion; i.e. the private dwelling. The course culminates with a comprehensive design problem addressing the continuum that occurs between modes of dwelling; i.e. the public dwelling as an extension of the private dwelling. This design problem investigates historical, cultural, cognitive and physical diversity / accessibility within collective habitation, while focusing on the redefinition of preconceptions of inhabited space. This course will utilize the texts “The Concept of Dwelling” (Norberg-Schulz) and “The Poetics of Space” (Bachelard) to lay a theoretical platform, while maintaining focus on developing a sensitivity to place, and an understanding of design in response to the generative conditions of the desert.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After taking this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand the value of precedent as a potential source for design guidance; a guide to belief and action.

2. Understand the utility of diagramming, drawing and modeling as means to critically investigate ideas, question assumptions, test hypotheses and gain understanding / knowledge.

3. Cultivate an awareness of the conditions of dwelling, a sense of place and the interrelatedness of place, the making of space and the poetics of construction.

4. Understand the value of collaboration, in that the collective is put ahead of individual self interest, and each member contributes, not the same work as others, but according to one’s best attributes.

5. Ability to employ craft in the execution of the work, which requires patience, planning and the working with the limits and capabilities of tools and materials.

6. Understand the value and necessity of universal design as an inclusive act that acknowledges the right for dignified space, and opposes the notion of making accommodations.

(S. Trumble, coordinator)

ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO, first YEAR

Latin American Practice

Seminar Course author, ARC 497B 597B

This course presents professional practice in the context of Latin cultures. It allows students to translate what they learn in the School’s professional degrees, based on American standards, to the Latin context. From how architects think about design and professional services, to how those services are rendered, to contracting methods, to how buildings are permitted and built, this course illuminates the cultural differences that distinguish Anglo and Latin practices. It also offers a guide to professional nomenclature in Spanish as well as tips for job searching in Latin cultures. As part of this course, students will research case studies in design and professional practices in Central and South America.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

After taking this course, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism characteristic of Central and South America, thus expanding the students’ understanding of global architectural practices.

2. Demonstrate an ability to compare and contrast buildings and modes of professional practice in varying social, economic, and political contexts.

3. Work analytically through research and drawing.

4. Identify the key components of the built environment in Spanish, including exterior and interior spaces, structures, and finishes.