Fine-Grained Architecture Studio

ARCH 4/584 Intermediate Design Studio

Winter 2021 Eugene, Oregon

Philip Speranza, speranza@uoregon.edu – UO Associate Professor and

Principal, Speranza Architecture + Urban Design

What fine-grained data about a location, its environment and human use to visualize information and create new knowledge about a proposed architecture?

Information data and social identity are pervading the way journalism is understood today. Data shapes the way news is understood. Physiology and data science are specific areas of journalism that shaped by the way people are informed and the behaviors and choices they make. The collection of data via sensors, surveillance, point-of-sale and geo-located data is captured in ways we know and ways by which we are not aware. As students, researchers and educators study and share knowledge about journalism in this digital environment, it becomes critical question of a new physical building for that endeavor to ask how such a built environment may bring in or filter out the physical and atmospheric real-world environment around us. What role does design innovation about human scale data visualization play in physical space?

This architecture studio will focus on the development of a real-world feasibility study for additional space for the University of Oregon School of Journalism by confronting its bucolic refuge physical campus location with its role a presence in an increasing digital and remote processes of journalism today. The aim of the School is the be a world leader in UO global leadership in athletics and data science research. The role of the physical building with unprecedented remote working in the face of Covid 19 will be considered as an accelerated normal of workplace in the future.  

Objective: 1) teach data collection and visualization; 2) work through design options based on data; and 3) experience informed design-team collaboration with a real-world client, architect and consulting interactions. 

Architectural Design Description

Students will develop a project based on the issues mentioned above for a 20,000 square foot Allen Hall addition or new free-standing building at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. 

Highlights

Real-world project with UO School of Journalism Dean Juan-Carlos Molleda, Aaron Olsen of UO Campus Planning and outside architectural reviewers including Florian Idenburg of Solid Objectives. 

Data-Visualization and urban design computation Grasshopper definitions, methods and Arduino sensor prototypes from UO Grit Studio 2019, Barcelona Urban Design Studio 2018 and 2017 as well the Atmosphere + Design course. Associate Professor Speranza will leverage experience from his own design studio Speranza Architecture + Urban Design as well as work at the offices of Steven Holl in NY and Carlos Ferrater in Barcelona.