​Bachelor of Architecture Electives

Aesthetic expression as experience. Exercises in the study of form: proportion and rhythm, texture and color, mass and space. Exercises in visual perception and aesthetic judgment. Isolation and analysis; interdependence and integration of sensuous qualities. Aesthetic unity under restrictive conditions.

The application of energy conservation methods and renewable energy sources, such as wind power and passive solar systems, will be examined in the development of building energy budgets for a variety of building types.

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of computer-aided fabrication from concept development and modeling through digital file creation and cutting processes. Using CAD/CAM software, laser cutters, CNC mills, and 3D printers, students with a variety of interests can build the elements of detailed models, fabricate a range of finished objects, or even create landscapes incorporating highly articulated surfaces. The course stresses the integration of the complete thought process from concept development to pre-visualization to detailed modeling to fabrication setup and finishing. Students gain a solid understanding of the rapidly developing world of CAD/CAM techniques while acquiring specific long-term skills in software-based modeling and machine-assisted fabrication. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 427) OR (ARCH 508)]

This course is an in-depth exploration of how building information modeling tools are being utilized in the architectural profession with an emphasis on Autodesk Revit. Advanced BIM modeling tools and strategies will be investigated alongside explorations into interoperability between tools. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 427) OR (ARCH 508)]

This course will focus on 3D modeling of complex geometric components in architecture and design. Concepts explored will concentrate on the advancement of digital design as an iterative process. Various modeling types covered are (1) Explicit Modeling, (2) Nurbs Surface Modeling, (3) Parametric Modeling, and (4) Generative Components and Response Modeling. Output will utilize digital fabrication methods as support of the iterative design process. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 427) OR (ARCH 508)]

This course is an in-depth exploration of new visualization techniques to support and express architectural design through 3D rendering. Topics covered will include 3D modeling, cameras, lighting, material mapping, and rendering output. Presentation concepts covered include storytelling, rendering style, visual mood, and image composition. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 226) OR (ARCH 508)]

This significant Midwestern style of architectural and landscape design evolved from social reform and nationalist tendencies, but also from the beginnings of ecology and modern design. This course focuses on the work of Prairie School architects and landscape architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Burley Griffin, Jens Jensen and IIT's Alfred Caldwell. Field trips explore the evolution of 19th century Romantic Styles into Prairie School designs, ending with 20th century modernism and organic architecture. The collaboration between planners, architects, landscape architects and craftspeople will be explored throughout the course.

This course will introduce students to the use of traditional furniture building techniques including the use of hand and power tools. Students will investigate furniture built of solid wood, composite wood, plastics, and metals and learn to build furniture with a limited number of basic tools and on a budget. A series of exercises will train students to do the physical connection; a series of lectures and presentations will show production and finishing techniques.

Historical and critical study of a significant topic in architecture and urban design tied to important building types, architects, architectural movements, historical periods, or theoretical trends of lasting significance in the twentieth century. Conducted as a seminar, this course analyzes texts, writings, and buildings as students prepare research papers, presentations, and other projects. Recent courses have examined modernism in post-World War II Europe and the United States and the history of the skyscraper from the Chicago school to the present.

Utilizing site visits, lectures, presentations, and critiques, students will learn freehand sketching, perspective, and conceptual sketching to convey building spatial ideas. Conceptual and schematic analysis of site visits will teach students to represent existing spaces, environments, and buildings as well as various building materials. Students will rely on four media to quicken their drawing skills and visual analysis -- pencil, ink, pastel, and water color.

This seminar employs comparative studies of other arts, in particular cinema, to illuminate architectural esthetics and the creative process. It has a dual focus: it undertakes an introduction to film studies, through the analysis of films and readings in film theory and aesthetics; at the same time, it will consider architectural concepts and artifacts. The aim is not primarily to study cinema, nor to make a definitive conclusion about the congruence or divergence of architecture and cinema. The course intends to cultivate a way of seeing; you will learn to open your eyes to the relations between media, technology, geography, architecture, ideology, etc.

This course looks at models as operational and instrumental tools that assist an architect to control both the material and the meaningful. Acting as an advanced seminar and workshop, course sessions will juxtapose speculative model making with seminar discussion. Student work will be reviewed in direct relation to readings and short lectures on historical and theoretical precedents in art, architecture, and urban design. Field research will support speculative mapping and modeling systems. A project to support the studio will reconcile a conceptual interest with a technical one.

Topics vary each semester.

Aesthetic expression as experience. Exercises in the study of form: proportion and rhythm, texture and color, mass and space. Exercises in visual perception and aesthetic judgment. Isolation and analysis; interdependence and integration of sensuous qualities. Aesthetic unity under restrictive conditions. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 331)]

This course is an in-depth exploration of how building information modeling tools are being utilized in the architectural profession with an emphasis on Autodesk Revit. Advanced BIM modeling tools and strategies will be investigated alongside explorations into interoperability between tools. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 427) OR (ARCH 508)]

This course explores the design and fabrication of components in contemporary practice. The class will investigate through the design and prototyping of a custom component. Survey of CAD/CAM/GIS use in practice and component manufacturing including modeling, simulation, and scripting. Behavioral models of components using simulation and analysis tools (flow, system dynamics, etc.). Use of CAD tools to model components for production (modeling for CNC considering toolpaths and jigs). Use of CAD tools to analyze properties of components. Material properties and related fabrication constraints. Current fabrication processes. Use of IIT-owned CNC tools to fabricate components. Rapid prototyping. Prerequisite(s): [(ARCH 427) OR (ARCH 467)]

The concept of pure form resides in the abstract in their ideal state the forms are perfect. Material properties inherently defy perfection and force a set of priorities and decisions that render the proximity of an ideal while providing a sensual experience. The study of the relationship between ideas, form and physical making integral to the production process, through repetition and variation. Production of a cohesive body of investigative work of a single pure form.

Collage, the act of bringing together disparate materials and imagery, has the opportunity to explore unknowns, exploit the peculiar, and reveal the uncanny. Collage operates within a contemporary context of mass-production, mass media, and mass consumption. Mash ups, cut ups, power mixing, and sampling are artistic methods of re-purposing products made by others. Collage Making explores the iterative process of collection/selection/arrangement and execution. Collages produced will examine architecture in contemporary culture.

Survey of the history of landscape design throughout the world, including contemporary projects. The course emphasizes both analytical and holistic approaches to the study of historic designs, highlights the relationship between architecture and landscape, and stresses major concepts that directly influence present day designs. One field trip.

Contemporary architecture and urban design projects in Chicago present an invaluable opportunity to learn about some of the most advanced applications in practice today. By examining significant projects currently underway, this course will investigate project execution, design concepts and the various forces affecting projects' definition and results. Close scrutiny of all the components and personnel will give a better understanding of the complex synergies, advanced technologies, and adept project teams necessary for successful innovative architecture and urban planning.

Architecture has always been a complex interdisciplinary business, where the management of allied professions and industry affiliates is critical to the success of any endeavor of significant scale. The introduction of BIM (Building Information Modeling) is an advance in project delivery tools which should be viewed as a multi-dimensional expansion of the mechanisms of management and accommodation of an ever-broadening range of participants in the organization of a project, allowing the development of a new delivery protocol, IBPD (Integrated Building Project Delivery). BIM is currently recognized as consolidating the basis for a range of functions including drawing, modeling, document management, clash detection, interdisciplinary coordination, estimating, scheduling, constructability review, production modularization, fabrication protocols, and for the analysis of myriad physical and proscriptive demands such as energy consumption, daylighting, code compliance, egress, circulation, and operation scenarios. The breadth of information embedded in a BIM model will require the emergence of facilitating professionals to an extent previously unknown in the practice and the industry. This course explores the state of the profession and the anticipated ramifications. Undergraduate students must be in their fifth year of study. Restricted to 5th year Architecture majors.

The course teaches future architects the practical aspects of entrepreneurial small business management, to develop a comprehensive opportunity assessment, and to develop the skills necessary to improve the odds of success. The course will consider strategies to leverage limited resources for maximum effect. The course will also cover small organization and group behavior, performance, leadership, and motivation in small business settings and will focus on the owner/manager as the principal success factor in the context of a small organization. Emphasis is placed on the circumstances and opportunities of the professional practice of architecture: practice as profession, process, organization, business, and evolving models of practice are covered. The course also provides a series of concepts, frameworks, and heuristics that enable the entrepreneur to anticipate and deal with the challenges that accompany growth of an existing business. Cases, exercises, lectures, and speakers are used to focus on choosing opportunities, allocating resources, motivating employees, and maintaining control while not stifling innovation. A key component of the course is how to sustain entrepreneurial thinking in mid-sized ventures as they continue to grow. Undergraduate students must be in their fifth year of study.

Since the introduction of basic zoning laws to the numbers and complexity of ordinances attached to any land parcel have proliferated to include those addressing land use, development, density, environmental concerns both on and off site, aesthetic mandates, energy use, quality of life concerns, and infrastructure development, the growing understanding that comprehensive and integrated systems must be managed across property lines to effect sustainable planning and communities will accelerate the number of prescriptive and policy ordinances enforced at the development of a parcel. Many agencies have further created extra-legal linkages between approvals for land development and the provision of social and ideological benefits to the community. The impact on the profession of architecture of the panoply of planning options and governmental goals is the result that the navigation of the system of mandated design determinates is one of the initial and potentially most creative acts in the process of project delivery. Project designers must understand the ramifications and trade-offs inherent in the system, especially in any attempt to achieve the best use of any parcel of land and position the most appropriate built environment. Undergraduate students must be in their fifth year of study.

The organization of deliverables from the multiple participants in a project plan, including estimating, quality control, value engineering, scheduling of work, conflict resolution, pay schedules, and project close-out and commissioning are essential to managing a building project. Many of these areas of endeavor are those most directly impacted by the developments addressed in Integrated Building Delivery Practice. This course will solidify the underpinnings and will amplify, where needed, the requisite understanding in these areas of the practice. The development of managerial skills requisite to the practice of this coordination and the basis of developing inter-professional relationships will be stressed throughout the incorporation of the technical methodologies.

This course is designed to involve students with the architectural craft of materials that can be applied to model and prototype construction. Included will be a product project of the student's own choosing.

This seminar surveys the interaction between media and the city from the 19th century to the present. A history of the technological innovations of the last two hundred years turns out to be, in large part, a history of the development of the contemporary city, and no account of contemporary urban issues can be considered complete without taking into account the role played in our lives by the media. Accordingly, every space we encounter or create has to be considered mediated.

This course will examine the spatial story as it appears in diverse media: short fiction, films, everyday discourse, the media architecture, etc. The course work will consist of reading and writing assignments, as well as the viewing of films and other visual artifacts. The course has two goals: to offer students the opportunity to improve their study and communication skills and to examine the social, cultural and historical aspects of spatial practices such as architecture.

This course provides an overview of basic building materials and assemblies, how they are constructed, and the relationships between them. The objective is to introduce students to the range of material choices available to the designer, new materials and assemblies, and fundamental principles to guide design decisions. The course is organized according to the MasterFormat outline developed by the Construction Specifications Institute. Students will learn standards for writing specifications using a system of numbered categories to organize construction activities, products, and requirements into a standard order. Topics include pre-design issues, sites and foundations, concrete, masonry, metals, wood, plastics, thermal and moisture protection, glass, roofing systems, and conveying equipment. Open only to Architecture majors.

This course examines the topic of material culture in contemporary architecture, and explores the different approaches, ideas and philosophies associated with aspects of materiality in architecture through the investigation and discussion of case study projects by contemporary architects. Students are introduced to a variety of approaches to the topic since the dawn of the Modern Movement, and explore how different contemporary architects approach the idea of materiality in their work, through their words, thoughts and built work. Thematic topics related to materiality are also presented and discussed, including materiality and landscape, materiality and technology, and materiality and memory. The class format is a lecture presentation by the professor with student discussion. The course is an elective section of the History/Theory sequence. Open only to Architecture majors. Restricted to 5th year Undergraduate and Graduate Architecture majors.

Introduction of structural systems for long spans and special structures. The structural behavior will be discussed and the required strength and stiffness will be evaluated. Individual projects will be assigned to students to be presented at the end of the course.

Topics vary each semester.