Design Studio 411: Bricoleurs and Connoisseurs
Matt Lutz, Professor

The architect that fully identifies the constraints of a design objective is presented with the opportunity to accomplish something that often exceeds the initial design criteria.

Click to enlarge. For more images, see SLIDESHOWS.This studio course engages one in asking ‘what is possible, with what is available?’ In other words, one might say this studio focuses on ‘problem solving’. It challenges the designer to create an architecture beyond the parameters that unyielding design constraints often imply. Limited material resources, limited time, limited space, and limited programmatic scope present the designer with particular circumstances; this course will illuminate for the student how these circumstances can lead the designer into the situations (i.e. situ, or the site) that form architectures. Through the analysis of constraints, projects assigned in this course will focus on revealing the concealed dignity of a place.

Recognizing that analysis and interpretation are two essential things required for design to occur, this course involves students in a constant relay between investigative exercises, design charrettes, and reflective work that prompts new query. The major term project asks one to develop and manifest a design for a particular geographic region in the northeastern United States.

Assignment: make ten iterations of ten objects that handle light as a material.

Work by: Rudy Caron, Kayla Casperonis, Jason Olsen, Joe Britton, Robert Begin, Brian Tarbox, Christelle Joseph, Michael Bonk and Kerri Ingraham.