Biosphère Montréal designed by Buckminster Fuller, 1967
The Rice School of Architecture has put together a special course for the general public and its starts tonight. You can register here. The first meeting will be led by Dean Sarah Whiting. She will give a "brief history of futures envisioned by architects," setting the theme for the course. You will have a chance to learn from one of the world's leading architectural thinkers not just about the past, but about new "specific futures envisioned by Rice faculty architects."
Below is additional information on the course:
Eight Tuesdays, September 13-November 1, 2011, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Fee: $170.00 CEUs: 1.2
Architecture forms ideas, shapes cities, contours the land and structures our world. At Rice, it is the intersection of everything – the humanities, the sciences, the arts and the social sciences. Rice’s school of architecture builds knowledge about architecture and the city, about program, technology and form, and about what we know, what we knew and what we will soon know. Faculty members from the school will focus on what the future has historically meant for architecture, how the school has shaped Houston, specific futures envisioned by Rice faculty architects and the future of sustainability.
Course Schedule:
September 13. Designing the Future. Sarah Whiting, PhD, dean, will discuss the objectives of this course and offer a brief history of futures envisioned by architects.
September 20. Tempos of Time: Future Outcomes. Carlos Jimenez, professor of architecture and principal, Carlos Jimenez Studio, will discuss five of his built works as strategies to counter Houston’s predilection for demolition and disposability.
September 27. Architecture and Community. The Rice Building Workshop, in collaboration with Project Row Houses, has designed and built a series of small, affordable and sustainable houses in Houston’s Third Ward. Danny Samuels, FAIA, and Nonya Grenader, FAIA, who have directed students in this program for 15 years, will highlight these housing initiatives.
October 4. Your Figure Is Your Future. “Figure” refers to architecture’s appearance as well as to the organization of functions, the use of technology and the construction of collective life. Ron Witte, practicing architect and associate professor, will discuss the figure in architecture and the role of geometry as a binder for the threads that make up architecture.
October 11. Future Imperfect. Christopher Hight, PhD, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in architecture, will discuss architecture’s ambitions to project alternative futures. He will present a series of urban design and research projects in which climate change displaces technology as a source of both anxiety and hope.
October 18. Is Houston Leading the Way in Sustainable Design and Urbanism? In less than 10 years Houston has instituted a variety of initiatives that have gained wide respect and emulation, from individual buildings and landscapes to campus design and city planning. Rives Taylor, visiting professor with more than 25 years of experience in institutional and commercial architecture, will address the why and how of sustainable design.
October 25. Plausible Futures. Dawn Finley, associate professor, and Mark Wamble, professor in practice, will discuss recent projects completed through their practice, Interloop-Architecture. They will reflect on their work through two disciplinary viewpoints – the wide view, which is culturally broad and technically inclusive, and the long view, which seeks to anticipate new and useful ideas in architecture.
November 1. The School of Architecture’s Impact on Houston. Stephen Fox, adjunct lecturer, architectural historian and fellow of the Anchorage Foundation of Texas, will discuss Rice’s influence on the architecture and development of Houston, emphasizing the work of Rice’s architecture faculty and alumni over the last century.
