EX-CHANGE 2024

— CHANGE

Carnegie Mellon University

School of Architecture

2023–24

— CHANGE

OMAR KHAN Head, School of Architecture

I am very excited to share with you student work produced over the 2023-24 academic year at Carnegie Mellon Architecture. In EX-CHANGE 2024, we look to tie the past with the present. The school was founded in 1905 as the Department of Applied Arts under the leadership of Henry Hornbostel, who designed the College of Fine Arts and the campus of Carnegie Tech. Since that origin, many students have occupied these buildings and matriculated through its various educational programs. The school now boasts two undergraduate programs, seven graduate programs and four PhD programs. The breadth and depth of our teaching, scholarship, research and creative practice is second to none. In this publication, archival material and photos are included to stir up memories of our shared spaces, highlighting the importance of architecture and community in the learning process. This remains a foundation of our current pedagogies.

Another important part of our academic year is our public programs series. This year’s series, Revolutions/Resolutions, helped us reflect on architecture’s role in revolutionizing and repairing broken systems. Through it we explored radical pedagogies of inclusion that make space for marginalized communities. We engaged in workshops that made the case for hand drawing, bookmaking and collaborating with machines in design education. We also addressed the problems of design labor and how designers could gain greater agency in their work and its compensation. The series was prescient, as its themes and topics intersected with what was happening on college campuses worldwide. Students engaged in protests against the war in Gaza and challenged institutions to divest from weapons manufacturers and those profiting from the war. Issues of free speech, students’ right to protest and speak truth to power were being hotly contested on campuses and the media. At Carnegie Mellon Architecture we maintained an open conversation that respected our students’ abilities to express their discontent while maintaining civil dialogue across differing opinions. Our commitment to social justice remains paramount to our pedagogy and these difficult conversations contribute to us producing responsible and ethical design leaders.

In these pages you will see a variety of approaches to architectural design. The design studio remains a space for learning through making, focused on basic design teaching even as we experiment with new tools and materials. We also continue to innovate and speculate on the future of architecture and the built environment through our graduate and PhD programs. The breadth of explorations happening across the school and courses help make Carnegie Mellon Architecture unique amongst its peers. EX-CHANGE 2024 aims to capture these explorations and the life of the school over the last year. I hope it conveys the optimism, energy and creativity I witnessed here daily.

First Year

Second Year

Third Year

Fourth Year & Fifth Year

Advanced Synthesis Option Studio

M.Arch Studio

MUD Studio

Electives

Theses & Dissertations

Welcome to Studio Dojo! A foundational studio that introduces studio to first year students. The studio investigates the role and process of architectural design as different forms of practice. The studio practices drawing, making and building architectural narratives in iterations at various scales of time and space to establish productive habits and develop essential techniques and skills in design. In learning how architects see in both visible and invisible terms, the studio analyzes design precedents and problems that generate ideas about architectural material, form and systems. In understanding how architects empathize with whom or what they serve, the studio rigorously investigates methods of abstraction and critical dimensions relative to human form and experience. In practicing how architects deliver in the professional context, the studio develops mastery of spatial composition, representation and narrative as means for an architect to iteratively test, experiment with and communicate spatial ideas.

Instructor: Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland

1. Jessica Adenuga; 2. Russell Tsai; 3. Paul Doyle; 4. Miles Rainwater; 5. Ana Martinez; 6. Silvia Kim

7. Orlando Salinas; 8. Jing Liu; 9. Jimmy Kweon; 10. Youstina Riad; 11. Brenda Yu; 12. Ali Sadi

Radical

Empathy in Architecture: Storytelling as an Architectural Manifesto

As the second studio within the Poiesis sequence, this studio nurtures a way of making and thinking in design that aims to cultivate the practice of architecture as an act of creative citizenship. Building an affinity for an approach linking the crosscultural study of how people perceive and manipulate their environments can push a multimodal understanding of architecture and urban design. We use a multidisciplinary approach to become detectives, interrogating the contemporary and historical tissue of Pittsburgh through occupations and working lives, therefore elevating ordinary folks and trades that have and continue to foster the fabric of the city. Grasping the multi-faceted, changing environment, this studio uses architectural tools as a base of inquiry to speculate, allowing us to transform the way we view our world through multiscale multisystemic perspectives.

The structure of the studio follows one cohesive research-driven design project that explores narrative modalities by using critical cartography, archival research, storytelling, programming adjacencies and tectonic exploration as a method to produce a hybrid shophouse focused on acts of care in Pittsburgh. Students in the sequence are introduced to critical proficiencies, learn new techniques of representation and adapt rigorous illustration and animation tools in the production of a dwelling project that is rooted in its urban fabric. These practices in documentation, computer simulation, storytelling and communication help us narrate a nuanced perspective of our environment — spatializing the way our cities situate themselves, their ecological relationships and their social scenes in an accessible way for diverse audiences. Poiesis II advocates a multi-conception of moral knowledge built around notions of relationships, interdependence, lived embodiment and responsibilities.

Coordinator: Tommy CheeMou Yang

Instructors: Jared Abraham, Chelsea Jno Baptiste, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Elizabeth Saleh

Teaching Fellows: Ajay Chovatia, Trevor Orgill, Anshuka Suresh, Jerry Yonghao Zhang

1, 2, 3. Ryan Wang; 4. Yuetong Guo, James Lee & Brenda Yu; 5. Kailin Chen

6. Silvia Kim; 7, 8. Paul Doyle; 9, 10. Russel Tsai; 11. Ali Sadi; 12. Jimmy Kweon

By conceptually recognizing the built/natural environment as a complex web of interacting parts constantly exchanging energy and resources, the Poiesis III studio aims to develop architecture that enriches the context from which it arises. We explore how architectural and landscape design can respond to a local biome and climate through passive design strategies. We highlight the use of precedent and the relevance of our changing climatic context in recognizing how architecture takes shape — how it develops its morphology. Through an iterative process students develop formal and programmatic organizations as field conditions — aggregations that highlight the localized interconnectivity of buildings, bodies and environment. These building and landscape morphologies redefine boundary conditions to promote a connection to the local biome. Their envelopes become mediators between interior and exterior; public and private; the social and the ecological. Working from the scale of the territory to that of the building enclosure, our goal is to arrive at a sensorially rich, environmentally responsive and resilient architecture.

Coordinator: Laura Garófalo

Instructors: Priyanka Bista, Jongwan Kwon, Misri Patel, Manuel Rodríguez Ladrón de Guevara, Charlie Schmidt

1. Evan Chen & David Decker; 2. Eve Frackleton-Nelson, Jaehee Son & Hua Tong; 3. Tom Shen & Zara Song; 4. Simon Han & Ashley Jauregui; 5. Andrew Chan & Yansheng Lyu

6. Esha Shah & Kai Shaw; 7. Catalina John-Melendez & Bleona Velic; 8. Daniella Cisneros, Naza Monjur & Taylor Wang; 9. Sydney Mansavage & Yeajoo Cho

Seven Fires Prophecy: Conjuring Ground Embassies

Seven Fires Prophecy comprises seven Anishinaabe prophecies that mark phases, or epochs, in the life of the people on Turtle Island. The teachings of the prophesies predicted the arrival of colonial forces, and although this resulted in dramatic trajectory changes for the North American continent, the manifestations of the Fires are said to have remained undeterred. The final prophesy outlines that at the point when the world is in a state of befoulment, human beings will have but two options to choose from — materialism or spirituality — where the latter choice will lead to survival (and the lighting of Fire Eight) and the former will lead to our collective end.

The studio aims to understand the potential spatial futures that are unfolding through the Seven Fires Prophesy, toward the realization of Fire Seven’s redemptive arc. The studio asks how architecture can once more operate as a tool that not only maintains or reconfigures inherited spatial systems, but derives them anew. To accomplish this, students learn how space structures ideological and cosmological belief systems and how to identify and affect such systems and their trajectories through the program of an embassy, which they approached as a mediator between us and the ground.

Instructor: Tuliza Sindi

1. Eva Chen; 2. Zoe Botta; 3. Bleona Velic; 4. Lily Frank

Desert Lands, Dry Lands

If desertification is an increasingly likely future condition for cities and regions, how might we occupy an increasingly warm and drying planet? As a second year undergraduate studio, the pedagogy bridges fundamental architectural competencies while situating design in the climate emergency. Students study architectural thickness through three lenses — programmatic, climatic and operative. These lenses are explored extensively through abstract drawing and cast study models. The studio draws inspiration from a long history of architectural thickness. Thickness encompasses material and representational weight, solid-void relationships, and figure-ground concepts that shape architectural conception and development.

Instructor: Sarosh Anklesaria

1. Eve Frackelton-Nelson; 2. Kiki Kuang; 3. Simon Han; 4. Zara Song; 5. Ishika Dinesh

Technological advancements in the building industry and fabrication have led to an abundance of custom geometries and unprecedented precision of parts. In contrast, hundreds of craft traditions, which form the second largest workforce in developing countries after agriculture, struggle to compete against machine-made products. Contemporary studies largely concerned with reviving craft have focused on learning from craft on-site and reinterpreting creative processes in a state-of-the-art lab context. While this practice has enhanced knowledge of contemporary makers, one can argue that, comparatively, makers have benefitted marginally. The studio extends the provocation: How can we extend the pedagogical model to integrate craft-based communities as active contributors? How can one explore craft with the aid of cutting-edge research in advanced fabrication techniques?

Starting with this hypothesis of old and new techniques, the iterative nature of the studio builds on conversations with fifth-generation brickworks in Nashik, India, and explores making and material-based practices. Through a series of scaled prototypes, students interrogate the use of automated digital fabrication workflows, processes native to the manufacturing industry, to engage with adobe and rammed earth.

Instructor: Misri Patel

1. Jessie Son; 2. Mahika Singh; 3. Farah Daveau, Airla Fan & Sydney Mansavage; 4. Ysanni Core, Gaeun Jung & Jessie Son; 5. Andrew Chan & Sonny Tang

Our

The word “Revolution,” written in black ink, encircles fluorescent kisses imprinted on a newspaper. The rest of the text reads: “Our being is becoming, not stasis. Our science is utopia. Our reality is eros. Our desire is revolution.”

The artwork, archived at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, was created by Jerry Dreva — an artist, writer, performer and gay rights activist in the early 1970s — while conflict between national queer movements and state apparatuses were becoming ever more violent. Late at night, Dreva would scurry the streets of his small town near Milwaukee and write/spray paint slogans on public buildings. He would vandalize, so they say, landmarks of this town with politically sometimes intimate and sometimes confrontational — rallying cries. In the coming days and as a reporter for the local South Milwaukee weekly, the Voice-Journal, he would write rave reviews of the anonymous artist of these graffiti events. From the public domain of the city to that of the newspaper, he instrumentalized space and his body as a stage for gay liberation. The studio takes heed from Dreva’s urban practice and focuses on the relation between the city and queer liberation to investigate new protocols of making and frameworks of coexistence.

Instructor: Theodossis Issaias

1, 4. Catalina John-Melendez; 2. Kai Shaw; 3. Taylor Wang

Typically, we do site research and then design something for that site. However, this is a studio where the design research part of the semester becomes the project itself. We conduct site research and correlate it with the information we can find. We make unconventional models and experiment with how we construct a network of sites through sets of relationships, linguistic, computational and visual descriptions. In principle, we think critically about how we construct the identity of a place through its cultural, social and ecological systems and develop procedures for doing so.

We investigate Pittsburgh as a collective site. Over the course of the semester, we develop a “necklace” or circuit of sites that addresses event, housing and infrastructure. The Steel Necklace is a composite of these three different architectural/ urban interventions to address the cultural, social and ecological issues of Pittsburgh. As the urban condition is a network of shared expressions, lived experiences and relationships, our studio is a collaborative studio exchanging and intermixing projects. Students detail into the collective network, developing in high resolution a housing component relative to infrastructure and event spatial interventions.

Studio Coordinator: Heather Bizon

Section Instructors: Jared Abraham, Vicki Achnani, Tuliza Sindi, Ala Tannir

1, 2. Angela Yang & Minygang Zhu; 3. Ella Maxwell; 4. Elle Paul; 5. Khoi Do; 6. Angela Yang

7. Minyang Zhu; 8. Eric Yu; 9. Zoe Liu & Yanan Zhou; 10. Isabella Shi; 11. Darin Kim & Henry Youngren

This studio explores architecture through technological, cultural and environmental frames to introduce students to integrated architectural design as the synthesis of disparate elements, demands and desires. The studio addresses one of architecture’s richest yet increasingly contested typologies; the public library.

While the studio directs attention to concerns of building, such as urban context, construction systems, program and regulatory constraints, it challenges students to situate design as a project that engages contemporary architectural discourse, culture and ecological imperatives. By foregrounding bio-based materials, specifically timber, the studio explores the affordances of material systems to address climate change, contribute to the spatial logic of architecture and inform one’s experience of the built environment.

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

Instructors: Vicki Achnani, Erica Cochran Hameen, Jeff King, Jongwan Kwon

1. Hazel Froling; 2. Angela Yang; 3. Khoi Do; 4. Charlie Hymowitz

5. Isabella Shi; 6. Suzie Liu; 7. Delaney Rice; 8. Minyang Zhu; 9. Patrick Zheng; 10. Camila Martinez

Building

This studio makes speculations on how to expand the programs of the School of Architecture, as well as redefine its relationship to the other programs of the College of Fine Arts based on present and future needs.

Instructor: Gerard Damiani

Studio Consultants: James Dudt (Gilbane Building Company), Environmental Control and Life Safety Systems; Juney Lee, Structural; Brad Prestbo (Studio NY), Facade Teaching Assistant: Sharon Fung

1. Jacky Jai, Brody Ploeger, Henry von Rintelen & David Warfel; 2. Norman Situ, Ashley Su, I Lok U & Jackie Yu; 3, 4. Vanshika Bhalya, Neha Chopra, Grace Kolosek & Isabel Xu

Tobetrulyvisionarywehavetorootourimaginationinourconcreterealitywhile simultaneouslyimaginingpossibilitiesbeyondthatreality. —bell hooks

How can the built environment drive innovations in science, technology, engineering, architecture and mathematics (STEAM) while also fostering diversity and inclusion? This studio explores the critical role that K-12 schools play in society and the role architecture can play in enhancing STEAM education and providing equitable sustainability. K-12 school buildings house one of the most vulnerable demographics: children. In the U.S., students in elementary and high schools spend, on average, 1,400 hours in school buildings every year, learning, playing, eating and interacting with one another. This studio will focuses on architectural design strategies for elementary school buildings to serve as places for interactive and immersive learning. Students work in teams of three or four, focusing on STEAM learning, where the building serves as a teaching tool for K-5 grade students.

Instructor: Erica Cochran Hameen

1, 6. Zihan Dong, Ziyi Feng, Andrea Wan & Alexandra Wang; 2, 3. Violet Chu, Emily Franco, Eesha Nagpal & Akanksha Tayal; 4, 5. Michael Bi, Xuze Shao & Aiden Smith

Quoting Louis I. Kahn from World Architecture 1 (1964), “I do not like ducts, I do not like pipes. I hate them really thoroughly, but because I hate them so thoroughly, I feel that they have to be given their place. If I just hated them and took no care, I think that they would invade the building and completely destroy it. I want to correct any notion you may have that I am in love with that kind of thing.” The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy (PPC) has completed over 20 park restorations and is committed to expanding its educational programs directly into the neighborhoods with a network of Environmental Learning Centers in community park settings. We work with the PPC to explore concepts for the design of a next generation Neighborhood Environmental Learning Center (NELC) in Upper McKinley Park in Beltzhoover.

A fundamental objective of an NELC is to teach ecological literacy to people of all ages. The design considerations span the domains of urban design, public space making, neighborhood revitalization, social planning, technology and poetics. The work this semester develops an integrated architecture proposal in which all users must be provided the opportunity to actively engage in the operation of the building — from passive strategies, to active strategies to measuring and verification of performance.

Instructor: Steve Lee

Coordinator: Gerard Damiani

1, 3. Carleigh Cusik, Jeffrey Li & Alexia Tan; 2. Edward Lim, Adrienne Luk & Andrew Yoon

Using narrative forms of drawn, modeled and cinematic media, the design work in this studio disrupts contemporary expectations with a new set of paradigms. The aim of the work is to expand gender definitions, particularly in relation to workers engaged in construction and bring new insights to the production of the built environment. In this studio, site toilets and washing facilities are the design focus. This intimate space is considered as the political and environmental touchstone for profound changes in culture. Construction sites are constantly in flux, and so they challenge the assumptions of conventional services with their lack of connections to power, water and sewerage. This instability creates an opportunity for a novel design space that the studio considers and the work attempts to take the thinking beyond the default of the porta-john.

The studio uses readings to theorize issues around biopolitics of the body, particularly the tyranny of gender within segregated bathroom provision. Texts by Munoz, Sanders, Douglas, Butler, Verges and Hu are included in close reading. Expanded cinema provides reference for narrative building. Time-based media forms representation for the emerging ideas with references and screenings of the work of Farocki, Marker, Guerin, Akomfrah and Hopinka. The final films aim to challenge many layers of societal discrimination and expose the hypocrisy of the assumed status quo. Humor and satire are essential tools in the production, but a serous reckoning underlies the intent.

Instructor: Mary-Lou Arscott

1. Oscar Monarrez; 2. Amy Hu; 3. Natalie Waldram; 4. Clara Jiao; 5. Yvie Zhang

This studio examines a defining feature of the American landscape — the house — to explore alternative materializations, spatial configurations, and models of living in the face of climate change and a crisis of housing affordability. Students design prototypes for serially produced houses that prioritize circularity, bio-materialism and multigenerational living.

The studio addresses four primary questions through the detailed design for a prototypical American house: How might we leverage carbon-reducing, bio-based material strategies to imagine new possibilities for the house and its local ecosystems? How might incremental construction increase affordability and promote expanded models of habitation over more extended periods? How might prototypical designs scale in number and contribute to their local natural ecosystems to accommodate a range of spatial configurations? How might we represent the merits of these alternatives to a constituency of individuals external to the discipline?

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

1. Meghan Pisarcik; 2. Shray Tripathy; 3. Sanchit Agrawal; 4. Howie Li; 5. Priyanka Thakur

Sustainability issues in contemporary technology arise from an overt emphasis on the beginnings of use rather than end-of-life considerations. This drives unsustainable practices and has led to the huge proliferation of electronic waste (e-waste), embodying the many broken aspects of technology production: forced obsolescences, the annual cycle of new and “better” devices, disempowerments of repair and consumptive behaviors. Collateral effects are a legacy of exporting harms — exploiting non-Western contexts, pollution, health impacts, and resource extraction and depletion.

This studio unpacks the wasteful, material and resource intensive cycles of innovation found within modern technology, and we use research-through-design to examine and unmake e-waste. This unfolds in two main phases. First, we examine the situations, contexts, materiality and effects of e-waste through a book sprint, take apart workshops, design experiments, and zine making. Second, we creatively engage with e-waste, reconfiguring waste into artifacts that build conversation, debate and dialog about material ethics and how design should respond.

Instructor: Daragh Byrne

1. Steven Huo; 2. Parth Danait; 3, 4. Ann Mulgrew; 5. Rovina George; 6. Suzy Liu

7. Charlie Hsu; 8. Anthony Wu; 9. Jiahua Wu

This studio fosters knowledge built off of years of engagements in the city of Chiang Mai, Thailand, by using data-field-generative modeling processes through on-site fieldwork, film and visual storytelling to explore citizen empowered design through the medium of architecture. Fieldwork, storytelling, radical technical exposition, socio-ecologies and the agency of narrative are key stimuli for cultivating a complex strategic program — taking sometimes impossible architectural ideas to their conclusion. At three different scales — the city, the building and the constructiondetail — we posit an emergent status quo to establish a critical thinking position, generate a manifesto, and redefine the notion of the city and its architecture engaging the social, political and economic realities.

The studio introduces techniques in urban forensics, animation, detailed prototyping and typo-morphological approaches drawing inspirations from Lan Na vernacular and ingenious, ordinary building matrices. Processes will include sorting through historical archives, radical mapping, sampling data, visual storytelling and physical prototyping to construct realities, practice care, build agency and create a trans-scalar urban playbook. With a focus on locality, this studio believes that contemporary building practices can be recalibrated with the embodied knowledge of everyday stewards, ultimately transitioning object-based approaches to address the systemic issues that frame contemporary architectural practice. In the face of socio-ecological justice, how do we build knowledge around material economies, local sourcing, design detailing and the processes of design artifacts as activism? The semester-long journey curates a comprehensive project that includes animations, detailed architectural illustrations and scaled fabrications in the design of a multigenerational family compound. A pilot exhibit closes the design studio, holding a larger conversation around community empowered architectural design, storytelling and activism.

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang

1. Brian Hartman; 2. Yonghao Jerry Zhang; 3. Autumn Dsouza; 4. Trevor Orgill; 5. Ajay Chovatia

Model

Working from a collaged plan developed collaboratively among the studio, five teams of students develop proposals for a “model metropolis.” These fictional cities are populated with an international array of existing building models. The city designs address themes including climate change, cultural contextuality, community-shaping through urban design, utopias and heterotopias.

Instructor: Anne Chen

059 Fall 2023

1. Sejal Jain & Toris Ye; 2. Jai Bhatnagar & Sharon Feng; 3, 4. Jimmy Li, Robert Yang & Owen Zhang; 5. Emma Nilson & Esme Williams

Situated in a multispecies conflict zone of Koshi Tappu, Nepal, this studio delves into understanding, unpacking and documenting the human-nonhuman entangled, conflicted relationships symptomatic of a region fraught with increasing daily human-wildlife conflict as a result of over 80,000 people living directly adjacent to the 176 sqkm Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR). Located in a sensitive geopolitical context next to the border of India, macroeconomics, political tumult and ongoing ethnic con-flicts further heighten these daily pressures and spatial conflicts.

In “Pedagogies for a Broken World”, the editors of the Journal of Architectural Education write about how “breakdowns have world-disclosing properties” and an opportunity to reveal “the real limits and fragility of the world.” Adopting this lens, we can begin to unpack and disclose the larger macro-level structural pressures and historic inequities beneath the current buffer zone’s conflicted context. Furthermore, the editors also mention how “architecture is thus deeply entangled in both the brokenness of the world and the potential for its reframing.” The ultimate goal of the studio is to find ways to reframe and reorient toward a future that is, hopefully, pluralistic and inclusive for all marginalized human and non-human inhabitants of the Koshi.

Instructor: Priyanka Bista

1, 2. Clara Jiao & Ruoying Xie; 3. Gloria Lee & Anna Sorya; 4. Parth Danait & Franklin Xu

Past Futures: The Colorado River Basin

Projections into the future can often become mere fantasy escape. But an aesthetics of a speculative realism can produce scenarios that directly comment on our own moment in time through advancing a particular crisis into the near future.

We will investigate the Past Futures of the American Colorado River Basin. For over several decades, the Colorado River Basin has been drying up. How can we redesign common things, consensuses, priorities and hierarchies, the invisible connections between universal, national, and local rights? What is revolution and what is resolution in relation to the potential histories and futures of the Colorado River Basin: the people and culture, its ecology and the future conditions of the environment?

In principle, we’re going to think critically about how we construct the identity of a place through its cultural, social, political, and ecological systems and develop procedures for doing so. What are the effects and consequences upon our operational design thinking? Who are the constituencies and social traditions; how do these challenge new typologies; what are the tectonic, ecological and social details as a result?

Instructor: Heather Bizon

1. Amy Hu & Rima Sachdeva; 2. Eric Feng & Kevin Yao; 3. Alex Wang & Suzie Liu; 4. Jimmy Li & Jai Bhatnagar; 5. Alexia Tan & Carleigh Cusick; 6. Rachel Ruscigno & Jenish Thakkar

IMAGE DEEP:/

CONTESTED

MATTER:

Variations on Shelter and Biomatter in the Era of Climate Crisis

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) are reshaping the future of design disciplines, challenging traditional concepts of authorship and the use of architectural precedent. These technologies enable the near-instantaneous generation of comprehensive architectural proposals. Architectural images and sketches can be created without a conventional design process, prompted solely by natural language and referencing extensive digital archives. This studio aims to expand the design process using AI beyond mere visual inspiration. By bridging material research with natural and recyled materials, we construct analog material models. These models inform AI workflows, exploring alternative design pathways distinct from the predetermined aesthetics often provided by text-to-image models.

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

1. Athan Chang; 2. Steven Huo & Jiahua Wu; 3. Taehyun Lim & Adrienne Luk

Working at a super-size scale, the studio looks at infrastructure for a new climate future, applying the lessons learned through discussion, visitation and speculation. The works operate at the scale of the individual, the helicopter, the plane, and the satellite.

Direct air capture (DAC) technologies facilities are able to absorb CO2 directly from the atmosphere for CO2 storage or utilization, helping to reduce CO2 levels and achieve net zero energy, a scenario that shows a pathway for the global energy sector to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

The studio questions size, space, sound, perception and architectural representation. Final drawings are models and final models are drawings. Travel and on-site experience are an important part of this studio, as we witnessed first hand the vastness of the American Southwest and landforms both natural and unnatural, such as the U.S. energy reserves, while being well aware of the essential global need to reduce carbon.

Instructor: Gerard Damiani

1. Howie Li; 2. I Lok U; 3. Neha Chopra; 4. J. Brody Ploeger

In this studio we combine ecologically collaborative design thinking, digital fabrication and analog craft to design a geological science gallery. The organization of each building and the prototyping of its articulated skin is developed by crafting speculative assemblies informed by a geological precedent. These explorations of earthen material logic link the indexical and metamorphic aspects of the geological with tectonic and stereotomic constructs. Continuing this trajectory with an exploration of terra-cotta, a non-extractive, historically rich architectural cladding material, students concurrently develop the building design and its bioclimatic façade system.

In conversation with manufacturing experts and engineers, we take an in depth look at the material logics embedded in the artistry, tradition and technology of architectural terra-cotta systems. Working through the uncertainty inherent to geological systems encourages us to celebrate complexity, variability and new performative possibilities. Meanwhile, the dialogue with industry experts promotes responsiveness to the constraints of manufacturing and construction systems. Our assemblies are by their very nature ornamental, bringing focus to the building surface. This presents the opportunity to speculate upon the value of materiality and craft in architecture’s socio-cultural and environmental “performance.”

Instructor: Laura Garófalo

1. Anne Mulgrew & Andrew Yoon: Gem Geology Gallery; 2. Ajay Chovatia & Rovina George: Control and Release Assembly; 3. Sarah Kwok & Jeffry Li: Morph Cast tool/assembly; 4. Jason Shao & Sydney Sun: Studies in geologic pattern and process; 5. Sejal Jain & Hrushikesh Shah: Cleave Lattice; 6. Sharon Fung & Jacky Jia: Stalag-assembly

7. Sharon Fung & Jacky Jia: Gallery terra-cotta stalactite ceiling assembly; 8. Ajay Chovatia & Rovina George: Anthropocenic Geology Gallery ceramic rainscreen assembly; 9. Sarah Kwok & Jeffry Li: Ceramic assembly and unrolled Geomorphology Gallery elevation; 10. Sejal Jain & Hrushikesh Shah: Geo-Microscopy Gallery; 11. Jason Shao & Sydney Sun: Double curved ceramic facade assembly prototype

Humanizing Brutalism: London’s Southbank Centre in the 21st Century

In this studio, students explore the seminal integration of London’s cultural tradition of drama and its physical legacy of post-war Brutalist architecture at the Southbank Centre. Collaborating on design research programming and the technical requirements of the theater typology with students from the School of Drama, they study how the existing landmark structures may be adapted and reinterpreted to serve the needs of diverse users and capitalize on new technologies. Four teams of students create diverse master plan frameworks addressing the site development in different ways. Each student individually designs a new 500-seat flexible performance venue including site urban design, landscape and alterations and additions to the existing buildings, emphasizing flexibility, sustainability and inclusiveness. The studio includes a spring break trip to London to visit the site, study masterpieces of Brutalist architecture, meet professional architects and planners who have worked on the Southbank Centre, and have work sessions with architecture students from the University of Westminster.

Instructor: Hal Hayes

1. Dunn Quiyan Zhang; 2. Graham Murtha; 3. Mai Tian; 4. Robert Yang; 5. Michael Cunxion Bi

Design/Build Studio & Elective

The spring 2024 Design/Build Project was a continuation of the Peace Garden Project offered by the school in the spring 2023 semester. Participants included faculty/staff/ students, Campus Design & Facility Development, Facility Management & Campus Services and campus constituents with the goal of improving the student experience and quality of life on campus through design intervention(s).

During the spring 2023 semester, the Design/Build Studio & Elective created an ambitious proposal to re-envision the Peace Garden with components that included roof structures, decks, benches, a rain garden, a bioswale and concrete tables — far too ambitious for a one semester project. The students completed the decks, benches, rain garden, bioswale and concrete tables.

This semester the work from the spring 2023 proposal and installation was reviewed, three competition teams were formed, a two-week design charrette was conducted, and the project that was built was determined through filters of aesthetics, budget and workforce through a collaborative process. Due to the rigorous time constraints of both designing and building a project in just one semester, the design space that was explored was intentionally limited to a pergola structure(s).

Instructor: Steve Lee

Shop Staff: Jon Homes, Steven Sontag

1. The pergola nearing completion; 2. Final Review, Tuesday, May 7, 2024, Guests include Alex Bancone, Jen Beck, Doug Cooper, Ron Cunningham, Jeff Davis, Omar Khan & Juney Lee; 3. Kerfing the post: Cody Chen, Christian Duckworth, Max Hong, Aditya Shinn & Norman Situ; 4. East end of pergola; 5. Laying out the structure: Pritesh Anjikar, Hannah Haytko-Desalvo, Ken Huang, Eesha Nagpal & Norman Situ; 6. Trimming the galvanized mesh: Violet Chu & Eesha Nagpal

7. Setting the helical piles: Akanksha Tayal & Jackie Yu; 8. Erecting the entrance frame: Cody Chen, Christian Duckworth, Max Hong, Ken Huang, Eesha Nagpal, & Akanksha Tayal; 9. The entrance from Hunt Library; 10. Installing the polycarbonate roofing: Cody Chen & David Lyu; 11. Rounding the purlin edges: Esha Nagpal; 12. Dadoing the post shoulders: Hannah Haytko-Desalvo & Eesha Nagpal; 13. Drilling post for X-bracing: Christian Duckworth

Design for Transitions: Ecology, Form &

This studio unpacks architecture’s entanglement with extraction, exploitation and capital to explore emergent models for transformative socio-ecological praxis. It uses “just transitions” or “transition design” as a broad framework to locate the agency of architecture — its capacity to multiscalar, systems transitions. Focused on the industrial Pittsburgh neighborhood of Chateau, the studo’s work operates at two levels of design thinking: first an architectural scale engagement with the histories and extant sites of the neighoborhood, and second a systems scale exploration of transition scenarios and postcarbon futures. While projects are varied in their choice of sites and tools of worldmaking, three related themes emerge when considering the studio’s work collectively:

1. Transitioning means of production toward relocalized decarbonized economies and circularities — creating circular means of production and making visible post-carbon/ biomaterial cultures;

2. Transitioning infrastructure — healing toxic landscapes through practices of ecosocial restoration, enhancing urban/peri-urban carbon sinks and biodiversity through hybrid assemblages of buildings, structures, infrastructures and landscapes; and

3. Transitioning everyday life toward convivial futures and shared forms of living and working — promoting local economies of conviviality, care, repair, commoning and exchange through low carbon acts for everyday living.

Instructors: Sarosh Anklesaria, Jonathan Kline

Teaching Assistants: Megan Pisarcik, Rachel Ruscigno, Jenish Thakkar

Fall 2023

1. Connor Gates, Ben Hao & Sparsha Reddy; 2. Claire Laux & Clara Martucci; 3. Janessa Gaston, Madhav Joshi & Abirami Periakaruppan

Fall 2023

4. Claire Laux & Clara Martucci; 5. David Buck & Daria Svintsova; 6. Yuhao Huang & Bowen Zhao; 7. Elizabeth Laman & Mackenzie Sorton; 8. Riddhi Gugale & Laura Miles; 9. Parikshit Kalavadia & Siddhant Salvi

Architecture shapes societal relationships and environments. Praxis II explores the role of tectonic cultures in molding our world and investigates strategies to promote responsible wood usage in mass timber. Through a non-linear, multi-scalar design process, teams develop intricate architectural assemblies, considering construction methods, structural design, thermal and visual performance, aesthetics and ecological impacts. This extends to participation in carbon culture and integration with urban contexts. Students refine their design skills while addressing complex site, program, climate and aesthetic challenges. They utilize technologies like performance simulation and virtual reality to create spaces that synchronize with the environment and engage human perception.

Instructors: Azadeh Sawyer, Matthew Huber, Jeff Davis

1, 3, 4, 5. Connor Gates, Elizabeth Laman & Claire Laux; 2. Riddhi Gugale, Yuhao Huang, Madhav Joshi & Parikshit Kalavadia

6, 7. Sparsha Reddy Kotha, Abirami Periakaruppan & Daria Svintsova; 8. David Buck, Janessa Gaston, Laura Miles & Mackenzie Sorton; 9, 10. Riddhi Gugale, Yuhao Huang, Madhav Joshi & Parikshit Kalavadia; 11. Ben Hao, Clara Martucci & Siddhant Salvi

Urban mobility is defined by the scalar friction between large-scale urban gestures and the incremental nature of the local. The studio investigates the evolution of top-down, mid-century highway planning in Pittsburgh’s Manchester/Chateau neighborhood through localized interventions that deconstruct the meaning and substance of an urban arterial. Urban highways like Route 65 resulted from federal programs that channeled resources and people to ex-urban destinations. The highways enabled development in previously remote areas but severed the flows and vitality of urban neighborhoods; Route 65’s multi-lane wall divided the community, reduced the business district to rubble and disrupted spatial patterns. The loud, polluting highway rendered adjacent property undesirable, exacerbating the cultural loss with the economic loss that follows the community today.

In 2023, the city of Pittsburgh won a grant to explore the removal of Route 65 and reunite Manchester/Chateau with increased access and the possibility of new real estate in the heart of the neighborhood. The studio explores the spatial and cultural potential of highway removal at the macro-scale of regional networks, the meso scale of neighborhood systems, and the micro-scale of grass-roots, incremental projects.

Instructor: Christine Mondor

Fall 2023

1. Sagarika Kulkarni & Xuan Peng; 2. Sakshi Aparajit & Jiaxi Wu; 3. Nakshatra Menon & Sindhu Prabakar; 4. Valeria Duque-Villegas & Yuhan Wu

Many communities in the Pittsburgh region face the ongoing legacies of industrial production, extraction and segregative planning with impacts on health, ecology and community futures starkly differentiated along lines of race, class and gender. Thinking with and from the communities of Braddock and North Braddock, PA, the studio engages methods of community-centered design and research to examine the ecologies and impacts of toxic systems; their entanglement within infrastructures of racialized abandonment, dispossession and accumulation; as well as ongoing forms of local action against them.

Aligned with the SOM Foundation Research Prize project “Taking Back the Air,” the studio is anchored in ongoing and new relationships with community partners, including grassroots environmental justice organization North Braddock Residents For Our Future as well as General Sisters, a neighborhood project focused on food, healing and repair. In conversation with residents, students develop careful documentation of the built environment, regional air quality and community perspectives, activating the General Sisters storefront space as a community classroom and a collective learning space. These conversations form the basis of a four-part project, which includes the design and building of a multipurpose learning and presentation kiosk, the repair and adaptation of the General Sisters storefront space and garden, and a proposal for longer term neighborhood rebuilding and revitalization.

Instructors: Nida Rehman, Ginger Brooks Takahashi Teaching Assistant: Morgan Newman

Spring 2024

1. Sakshi Aparajit & Nakshatra Menon; 2. Valeria Duque Villegas & Sagarika Kulkarni

Sidewalk

3. Xuan Peng; 4. Valeria Duque Villegas & Sagarika Kulkarni; 5. Sindhu Prabakar, Jiaxi Wu & Yuhan Wu

Fabricating Customization: Prototype

Architects have long flirted with production and manufacturing. This has been pursued to yield greater affordability, customization and expression, and as of late, more carbon-aware material selection and manufacturing.

This course builds upon this rich history and foregrounds architectural component customization to explore prototyping and customization within the context of contemporary practice. It introduces students to a range of prototyping and design for manufacturing frameworks. Through case studies and lectures, the course offers students an overview of existing and emerging modes of collaboration between designer and manufacturer in service to the production of a customized building component. The course places great emphasis upon the reciprocity of design and prototyping, challenging students to leverage physical artifacts as tools for thinking and testing. Throughout the semester, students utilize additive and subtractive fabrication techniques to iterate the design of architectural components. Through this process, students build proficiency in prototyping to design, test and refine components of limited scope and scale.

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

Fall 2023

1. Jacky Jia & Alexandra Wang; 2. J. Brody Ploeger & Ashley Su; 3. Sonia Prashent & Patrick Zheng

Introduction to Ecological Design Thinking

Ecology operates across scales and boundaries imposed by social and political systems, producing invisible interactions and thus spatial and environmental effects not often considered in the design process. Historically, large-scale ecological patterns were often overlooked within architectural production due to representational forms of abstractions within the design process as well as the centralized nature of industrial manufacturing and its labor systems. Rooted in design-centric interdisciplinary thinking, this course explores the potential of architecture as an environmental steward. It provides a foundational overview of design processes engaging evolving natural systems and innovative sustainable strategies for designing the built environment across scales. The course centers on the agenda that ecologically conscious practices are crucial for creating socially equitable and environmentally resilient futures. Through case study research, the curriculum introduces state-of-the-art approaches to design processes that integrate multicultural and hyperlocal aspects of ecological thinking with computational design, environmental science, material research and advanced manufacturing, with a particular focus on the integration of largescale ecology into the design of constructed environments.

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

Teaching Associate: Louis Suarez

1. Surabhi Rajput; 2.Ankita Sinha; 3. Arunima Dubey

Waste streams constitute the only responsible material resource in our world. As of 2020, humanity officially became the maker of the planet. According to research published in Scientific American, all human-made synthetic objects now outweigh the combined biomass of all living organisms on Earth. This reality raises profound questions about the future of architecture and design disciplines. The accumulation of new matter is leaving an irreversible footprint, with the architecture and design industries contributing to the ossified state of the planet’s landscape. In the 19th century, people commonly mixed waste streams of food, blood, clay and sawdust into their material culture, recognizing the practicality of material reuse. Today, this practice has evolved into an absolute necessity. This design-research seminar explores alternative material formations beyond our current petrochemical reality. Situated at the intersection of matter, environment, form and advanced manufacturing, we explore new techno-ecological imaginaries by producing material prototypes. We search for new forms of material resilience where architectural forms can self-care while entangled in their local ecology.

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

1. Jil Berenblum, Nandan Bhusury & Rovina George: MycoFlame; 2. Arunima Dubey, Meghna Roy & Ankita Sinha: Campus Harvest; 3. Sanchit Agrawal, Trevor Orgill, Siddanth Salvi & Aayush Saxena: CoffeeCore; 4. Taehyun Lim, Adrienne Luk & Andrea Wan: Fungitecture

Prototyping Stories: Experimental Children’s Books and Vis Dev as

Architectural Detail

This design research course explores the current developments in hybrid, multi-platform design and communication media to prototype new ways of creative storytelling in architecture, visual development and concept design. Research methods around oral storytelling, ethno-ecology, radical mapping and the children’s books can allow for the exploration of subjects in ways not available to typical architectural and urban research conventions. Throughout the fall 2023 semester, designers use Pittsburgh, PA, as a laboratory to develop a research project, from initial concept to an extensive script, including design elements, character development and an urban critique of the city. Frameworks around composition, color, mapping, modeling, parallel projection and techniques in painting that are used in architecture, visual development and concept design ask how storylines translate and transform in the creation of a comprehensive project using industry techniques. To curate the explorations, we explore innovative ideas in visual storytelling using techniques of interactivity in children’s book design, experimenting with new forms of narrative strategies.

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang

1, 6. Yanan (Selina) Zhou; 2. Brody Ploeger; 3. Patrick Zheng; 4. Shreeja Harisrikanth; 5. Sarah Kwon

Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch)

Marking the transition between academic and professional practices, the thesis project is an exciting opportunity for each student to define their unique positionality and modes of practice relative to the discipline of architecture. Together, the studio creates a public exhibition and symposium to discuss the ideas and projects students propose.

Advisors: Jared Abraham, Heather Bizon, Daragh Byrne, Juney Lee, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Vernelle A. A. Noel, Tuliza Sindi, Steven Sontag, Tommy CheeMou Yang

Instructor: Mary-Lou Arscott

Shray Tripathi B.Arch 2024 Blind Spots

Blind Spots initiates a constructive dialogue between lands of the Global South which have been deemed suitable for the extraction of gold, lithium and copper. Recognizing neo-extractivism as a placeless and globally abstract phenomenon — “an ontology without territory” (Yusoff) — this thesis looks beyond land destruction’s territorial specificity to construct a critical archive of its meta-ontological form. Using legal and scientific documentation, interviews and writing, as well as image-making and architectonics as speculative practices, this thesis offers a collapsed poetry which foregrounds intimacy, loss and an overwhelming sense of contestation felt across geographies — ultimately destablizing the extractivist calendar and singular “voice” imposed by its legal frameworks. As its principle methodology, this thesis tests how narration through indirect, fragmented and indeterminate media might offer an expanded psychoanalytic space in which to study values given to natural forms, draw fluid associations between them, and locate hidden resonances — blind spots. The final offering is a microcosmic architecture layered into extractive infrastructure — an architecture honoring the signified over the signifier, ambiguity without absolute abstraction, and memory without recapitulation.

Advisors: Tuliza Sindi, Mary-Lou Arscott

Graana Kakakhel Khan

B.Arch 2024

Pukhtunwali and Spatial Tolerances: A Cultural Resilience in Tirah Valley Through Land, Hash, and Textile

Within the Khyber Pakhtunkwa region of Pakistan lies Tirah Valley, tucked between towering mountains in the Orakzai Agency of the Khyber District. In this stark landscape fitting of their steadfast attitude, Pukhtuns have historically led their lives in accordance with Pukhtunwali — a moral code. Media today has represented Pukhtun culture through a singular lens linked to violence and war. By referencing media artifacts from the British rule of Pakistan during the 1800s, how can the ways in which Pukhtun culture is illustrated to the West today be shifted by translating ephemeral cultural practices into series of visual relationships? This project realizes three scales in which Pukhtun cultural resilience is expressed: the environmental scale of “zmaka” (land), the labor scale of “bhaang” (hash) and the bodily scale of textile. The daily choreography of preserving these scalar relationships is what defines this cultural fortitude. The Pukhtun culture is rugged, stark and steadfast; the intention of this project is thus to capture the moments of this resolute culture created by a dedication to practice.

Advisors: Vernelle A. A. Noel, Mary-Lou Arscott

Graana Kakakhel Khan

Anishwar Tirupathur

Rebecca Cunningham

B.Arch

2024

the body at home: textures of the architecturally everyday

The body at home explores domestic space using experimental methodologies including lidar scan, collage, soundscape and installation to investigate the place in which our most intimate relationships are investigated. The home is secretive, erotic, everyday, liminal. It exists as a nexus of every interaction we have with the outside world, and is, as a result, in a state of constant flux. This work features memories, sensations and dreams of spatial relationships between body(ies) and the built environment. Like rooms in the home have the ability for chimerism, these scenes attempt to bleed into and over and through one another to represent with great care the textures and impressions of the ways we live every day.

Advisors: Heather Bizon, Mary-Lou Arscott

Anishwar Tirupathur

B.Arch

2024

Growing Confidence: Improving Flexure Strength of Mycelium-Bound Composites Through Digital Fabrication of Reinforcements

The application of mycelium-bound composites as load-bearing elements within architecture offers opportunities to develop more sustainable ways of building. However, the use of these composites is limited by their relative weakness and lack of consistency in production. In its current state, these materials are largely limited to the creation of compression-only structures. In order to reliably increase the flexure strength of mycelium-bound composites, this thesis proposes to use 3D-printed polylactic acid (PLA) filament to produce reinforcements. Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to help design the layout of reinforcements for test samples. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to help evaluate the bond between the mycelium and the PLA. Based on the results of the experiments conducted, new speculative architectural applications are presented and discussed and areas of further research are identified.

Advisors: Juney Lee, Mary-Lou Arscott

107 Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Brian Hartman

B.Arch 2024

Toy Maker: 10th Ward Block

Thirty-foot-long slides neighbor abandoned houses and kids sled down the sloping vacant lots of Upper Lawrenceville. Dormers kiss the sky and basements become caves. This thesis critiques the arbitrary subdivisions of land use that forms the cities we live in. Through unpacking the everyday playfulness of the Pittsburgh block, the 10th Ward is used as a case study, specifically Lotus Way and Duncan Street between 53rd and 54th. A multi-purpose infrastructure is proposed in two unoccupied homes, housing a local toy maker and children’s community center. New forms of making through standard American wood framing emerge as interventionist architecture starts to unfold a new typology from the typical Pittsburgh row house. Parcels wash away like the very chalk that children use.

Advisors: Tommy

CheeMou Yang, Mary-Lou Arscott, Steven Sontag

Esme Wiliams

B.Arch 2024

Creating the Southern Gothic: An Exploration of the Filmmaking Process through an Architectural Lens

The South has long been regarded through Gothic imagery stemming from its history of ruin and failed reconstruction after the Civil War; this began to manifest in media through the writings of those like William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. As media evolved, the Southern Gothic evolved with it as film and television became prominent mediums. Although an appealing aesthetic, the Southern Gothic has become such a popular way to represent the South that its tropes have become conflated with reality. By using the filmmaking process as a way to apply the Southern Gothic to a site, this project hopes to understand the qualities that make up the Southern Gothic. Through the filmmaking process, I am interested in what it takes to fabricate the Southern Gothic and how it manipulates the way we view a site, both spatially and thematically.

Advisors: Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Mary-Lou Arscott

This thesis examines the traditional Chinese Gardens of Suzhou to uncover different methods of architectural design. Instead of using conventional schematic generators such as plans and sections, my investigation explores a language of architecture using only processes of perception, experience and view. To explore the applicability of this concept, I propose a series of small-scale programs and infrastructures between two existing rice villages on the fringe of Suzhou. These two villages are currently in the process of urban revitalization. Using values I’ve learned from the traditional gardens, I am challenging what it means to understand the villages as an extension of labor practices, sequential experiences and interconnectivity through ephemeral views. This proposal includes a tea house, a book lending library, an activity space and a series of multi-purpose pavilions that are connected by a system of corridors and footpaths.

Advisors: Tommy CheeMou Yang, Mary-Lou Arscott Tory Tan B.Arch 2024

Mira Teng B.Arch 2024

RE:MAKING MEMORY: an interdisciplinary architecture thesis that explores the house as a body that utilizes drawing as a way to preserve the mundane yet intimate memories of architecture. It is based in a series of mark-making endeavors that produce a range of work that understands the process as the product. This includes explorations in generative mark making as well as film, amongst a wide variety of mediums. The purpose is to understand the house for its anthropomorphic abilities to remember by imbuing it with the potential of drawing machines to document. It seeks to understand what exists in the space between the softness of intimacy and the precision of automation.

Advisors: Daragh Byrne, Mary-Lou Arscott

RE:MAKING MEMORY

Colin Walters

B.Arch 2024

Inverted Assemblages: Adaptive Reimaginings of Extractive Industry in Rural Pennsylvania

The rural landscape of southwestern Pennsylvania is occupied and dissected by natural gas and coal industries. All layers of the earth and sky have been permanently altered by the mining, processing and transportation of fossil fuels. This thesis contemplates scenarios for landscape rehabilitation through the adaptive reuse/reimagining of industrial infrastructure. The work recasts interpretations of this contentious rural place, perceiving it not as a playground for industrial exploitation but as a model for revitalizing a violated landscape.

Advisors: Jared Abraham, Mary-Lou Arscott

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Master of Architecture (M.Arch)

The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) is a two-year, NAAB-accredited, professional degree program to educate tomorrow’s leaders in architecture through a collaborative, studio-based education that centers design, research and technology.

Advisors: Sarosh Anklesaria, Gerard Damiani, Stefan Gruber, Theodossis Issaias, Waku Ken-Opurum, Jonathan Kline, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Tuliza Sindi

Instructor: Sarah Rafson

112 Theses & Dissertations

Autumn D’Souza M.Arch 2024

Sympoietic Shores: An Interscalar Architecture for Sri Lanka’s Coastal Futures

This thesis investigates the nexus of architecture, coastal ecosystems and community resilience in the context of Sri Lanka’s southwest coast, and is situated in the town of Hikkaduwa. The thesis unpacks the multiscalared entangled realities of coastal communities through a decolonial lens, addressing the intertwined challenges of environmental degradation, colonial legacies and socio-economic vulnerabilities. By foregrounding the agency of coastal communities and embracing pluriversal perspectives, the research proposes an architecture that fosters sympoietic and symbiogenic relationships between human and non-human actors, leveraging local knowledge and practices for ecological restoration and community empowerment.

The thesis utilizes the methodological lens borrowed from Gabrielle Hecht’s definition of “interscalar objects”. Here, “interscalar objects” are not merely physical artifacts but rather act as potent symbols that embody the complex interplay of practices across different scales. The thesis proposes an architecture that is influenced by the narrative of the objects and offers a framework for reimagining radical coastal futures in Sri Lanka.

Advisors: Sarosh Anklesaria, Sarah Rafson, Theodossis Issaias

Moyin Okulate M.Arch 2024

Challenging Cultural Genocide and Colonial Borders in West African Architecture

“Ethnofuturism,” a term coined through the research process and inspired by the practice of “Afrofuturism,” lays the path for a new way of thinking about speculative design outside the rigid framework of Eurocentric academia. It does so by creating a visual graph that weaves ancient vernacular architectures into mythical futuristic ones. The thesis uncovers records of systemically destroyed architectures founded by the indigenous people of West Africa, and highlights the parallels between the largest ethnic groups in West Africa with respect to culture and doctrine. The thesis centers on the belief that the systemic spatial infrastructures that uphold colonization to this day (with a focus on national borders) will eventually dissipate, which will allow for true decolonization from the empirical forces that exploit indigenous Africans of their resources and strip them of their capacity for democratic self-determination and self-governance.

Advisors: Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Tuliza Sindi, Waku Ken-Opurum

Meghan Pisarcik

Moyin Okulate

Meghan

Pisarcik M.Arch 2024

Infrastructural Urbanism: An Architecture-Infrastructure Cross-Category to Connect the Fragmented American City

This thesis proposes an infrastructural urbanism to counteract the collapse of regional identity and the corresponding placelessness in American cities through the stitching together of their urban fragments. A phenomenon of monoculture is solidifying a sense of placelessness as the local and the specific are becoming harder to find. Since the mid 1900s, the condition of fragmentation within American cities has only accelerated as the megalopolitan instruments of the skyscraper and the serpentine freeway have assisted in the erosion of residential stock, secondary industry and any meaningful public realm within the city — representing a victory of universal civilization over locally inflected culture. A hybridized infrastructure and architecture — an urban cross-category — is the vehicle through which I propose to weave together fragments of the urban condition. The hybrid seeks to address the mediation between universal civilization and local culture through the integration of infrastructure’s universal functionality and architecture’s site specificity.

Advisor: Gerard Damiani Priyanka Thakur M.Arch 2024

Generating Resilience

In a world marked by environmental and societal challenges, architects play a pivotal role in revolutionizing traditional practices and fostering positive change. This thesis explores the transformative potential of architecture as a mediator, bridging divergent perspectives, and envisioning a resilient future. Shifting away from conventional norms, the focus turns to sustainable and adaptable design concepts. Bamboo, a local material in Majuli, symbolizes strength, eco-friendliness and innovation. By blending bamboo with other local materials, the thesis aims to craft flexible, high-performing structures that blend seamlessly to integrate with nature. Field studies in Majuli floodplains serve as a testing ground, highlighting the viability of a hybrid material system. This system not only reduces environmental impact but also prioritizes energy efficiency and responsive design. This new architectural era, emerging from the site, fosters resilience and catalyzes transformative change. Ultimately, the thesis aims to inspire an architecture that transcends boundaries, embraces resilience, and upholds values of sustainability and social responsibility.

Advisors: Vernelle A. A. Noel, Vicki Achnani

Master of Urban Design Thesis: Commoning

the City

The Master of Urban Design (MUD) is a post-professional, two-year program that prepares graduates for careers using urban design to critically address environmental, economic, social, political and cultural issues affecting contemporary urbanization.

Commoning the City is a yearlong research-based design thesis studio focused on social justice and community-led urban transformations, positioning design as an agent of change that can support citizens claiming their “Right to the City.”

Instructors: Stefan Gruber, Jonathan Kline

Aditi Shreedhar MUD 2024

Reviving Water Wisdom: Bengaluru, India

Numbering amongst the fastest growing cities on Earth, Bengaluru, home to 14 million, is drowning deep in the looming threat of a Day Zero — the day when the taps run dry. Absent a perennial river, well-intentioned centuries-old measures have given way under the stress of the swelling populace. On one hand, incessant rains submerge neighborhoods built on what used to be lakes. And on the other, land easements have allowed innumerable private bore-wells to guzzle the depleting ground water, leaving the average household fighting for their share. In this tangled assemblage of flow and fixity, the project inquires — where does the opportunity lie for collectivizing the responsibility to be water-wise? With our livelihoods dependent on it, if the groundwater aquifer were to be cared for and its use negotiated as a water commons, how can citizens come together to build consensus regarding the true ecological price of water?

Rutuja Badve MUD 2024

In the bustling metropolis of New York, its extensive public transportation network continues to grapple with inadequate services, particularly affecting the elderly. This study addresses the pressing issue of urban mobility for seniors, who encounter difficulties in routine activities due to limited accessibility. Recognizing the limitations of current government initiatives and community resources, the thesis proposes a holistic urban mobility strategy rooted in the principles of mutual aid and community engagement.

Lost in Transit

This project addresses the pressing challenge of rising temperatures and the urban heat island effect in Guangzhou, China, focusing on vulnerable populations residing in Shipai urban villages, the largest one in Guangzhou. It highlights the social, economic and environmental complexities surrounding urban village revitalization, including conflicting stakeholder interests and the reliance on air conditioning exacerbating the heat island effect. Proposing a sustainable, commoning approach, the study suggests strategies such as optimizing urban ventilation, collaborating with residents and investors for redevelopment, and enhancing living environments with green spaces and clean energy solutions. By balancing mitigation and adaptation strategies, the project aims to offer a sustainable solution to the urban heat island effect while fostering a more equitable and climate-resilient urban future in Guangzhou’s urban villages.

2024

Reclaiming Platform Futures: Towards Alternative Models of Cities and Data

This thesis delves into the techno-spatial and ecological impacts of platforms on cities, focusing on Bangalore, India. In India, delivery platforms like Uber Eats and Zepto serve nearly six million customers daily, heavily relying on gig workers treated as independent contractors. While this is convenient to customers, there are many problems associated with labor, worker rights, lack of a supportive physical infrastructure and tremendous quantities of food waste impacting millions. Through intensive data scraping and research, the project highlights how platforms rely on dark architectures such as micro-warehouses and dark stores to facilitate their operation while disrupting neighborhoods and their local economies. The project proposes an alternative future for platform governance and investigates the possibilities of reconfiguring the typologies of spaces that constitute the platform.

Koushik Srinath

Seyoung Choo B.Arch 2023

MUD 2024

Senior informal waste-collecting laborers are a representation of South Korea’s population of poverty today. This group of people, about 32,000 men and women mostly over the age of 65, barely make a living by collecting recyclable materials on the streets and selling them to illegal urban junkyards. This form of poverty and labor is a result of Korea’s 40 years of rapid economic, urban and industrial development. While the waste-management performance completed by this group of people is noticeable, this form of informal waste collecting done by our senior citizens questions our society and government’s responsibilities of care and management. This project proposes experimentation of utilizing and activating existing space and commoning resources to care for the elderly population, manage and properly control the waste-management process, and integrate valued seniors back into the larger community and promote diversity.

Shreya Mathur MUD 2024

Integrating elderly-focused programs into Mumbai’s dabbawalas delivery system holds promise for transformative community impacts. The objective is to address working conditions and post-retirement challenges of the dabbawalas while serving the growing elderly population in a city ranked as the second least safe for this demographic. Leveraging the dabbawalas’ efficiency and community bonds can combat urban isolation among the aged. Companion modules and basic healthcare assistance can enhance urban healthcare access, earning dabbawalas time credits for future health services. The thesis introduces the “time bank” concept, which utilizes existing infrastructure and commoning practices. It proposes a network involving dabbawalas, the elderly, NGOs, government and corporations. By implementing bike racks, low-cost toolkits and modular furniture, the thesis demonstrates how small interventions and optimizing existing systems can address urban challenges, ultimately improving living standards for both communities through shared resource utilization.

Dabbawala-fying Elderly Care

Aniket Surve

Yash Parikh

Xinyue Zhang

Yash Parikh MUD 2024

This thesis intends to uplift the marginalized Hijra community through a process of introducing an institute in a residential neighborhood which would enhance/enable a platform of resource sharing between the local residents and the Hijra’s. The resources exchanged would be a series of skill sets that would be useful for both the stakeholders.

Aniket Surve MUD 2024

Reimagining Urban and Development Narratives: Aarey Forest, Mumbai

This thesis examines the Aarey Forest in Mumbai, highlighting its multifaceted and systemic challenges. It explores the clash between development goals and environmental conservation. By delving into historical, political and ecological dimensions, the thesis advocates for alternative models of urban practice grounded in selfgovernance, environmental sustainability and social equity. The thesis advocates for a library economy model as a means of collective living, shared ownership and voluntary cooperation. It envisions a future where resources are managed collectively for the benefit of all, challenging the commodification of public goods. Through collaborative efforts and grassroots activism, the thesis argues for empowering marginalized voices in shaping urban development trajectories. It underscores the interconnectedness of environmental and social issues, emphasizing the need for inclusive and sustainable urban futures. This exploration resonates globally, highlighting the imperative of urban growth and the importance of alternative approaches to address systemic challenges around “development.”

Xinyue Zhang MUD 2024

Cao Yang New Village 7: A Community-led Revitalization for Sustainable Urban Living

This thesis examines the sustainable revitalization of Cao Yang New Village, a historical residential area in Shanghai, established in 1951. Facing challenges such as aging infrastructure, inadequate green spaces and outdated communal facilities, the village requires comprehensive urban renewal. This study proposes a communityled approach that leverages urban farming and active resident participation as catalysts for transformation. By tapping into the village’s rich history and communal spirit, the project aims to revitalize not only the physical infrastructure but also the social fabric of the community. This approach promises to enhance livability, promote sustainability and model urban living innovations in Shanghai. Through strategic community engagement, phased implementation and sustainable practices, the project seeks to create vibrant, inclusive communal spaces, fostering a cohesive community environment.

Hijra Community in New Delhi

Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD)

The Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD) is a post-graduate, studio-based program that engages emerging methods of design and fabrication through architectural design to speculate upon future modes of architectural practice, enhanced construction methods and material culture within the built environment.

With a par ticular emphasis upon design, the foursemester program leverages the School of Architecture’s and CMU’s core strengths in design fabrication, architectural robotics, computational design and ecological-thinking as vehicles for knowledge acquisition and speculation. The program focuses on the creation of new insights and new knowledge through the design process, or “research by design.”

The program probes the technical and cultural opportunities and implications of a data-rich future in which design methodologies, construction processes and sustainable building lifecycles are intrinsically interlaced.

The goal is to produce consciously speculative and experimental work deeply enmeshed with social and environmental concerns, with explicit ties to humanistic and cultural discourses, industry trends and contemporary practice. The faculty seek advanced-level projects that will position graduates as future thought leaders in architecture and allied fields relating to advanced fabrication, material performance, construction methodologies and/or academia.

Advisors: Stefan Gruber, Jonathan Kline, Jingyang (Leo) Liu

Track Chair: Jeremy Ficca

Theses & Dissertations

Kiuyang Yang MAAD 2024

Addressing Material Uncertainty: A Methodology for Repurposing Waste and Reclaimed Materials in Architecture

Dongtao Bi MAAD 2024

Waste and salvage materials are abundant in our environment, yet their reuse remains rare. The primary challenge lies in their varying quality, including dimensions, geometry, density and structural strength, which are difficult to control during fabrication and construction processes, thus significantly impacting building performance and quality. The objective of my thesis is to propose a methodology for addressing the unpredictability and uncertainty inherent in waste and reclaimed materials. Specifically, I have developed various material assembly approaches and employed robotic fabrication, computer vision and machine learning to sort and reorganize materials based on their quality and properties. This workflow operates in a circular fashion, enhancing the interaction between materials, machines and robotic fabrication through feedback mechanisms to adapt to material unpredictability. The aim is to widely repurpose salvage materials at an architectural scale and explore the possibility of transforming waste into valuable resources and robust structures.

Re-imagining Hospital Treatment Environment and Experiences through Collaborative Design between Designers, Patients, and Providers

Designing service-oriented built environments is a complex process that often overlooks the crucial role of design as a mediator in the interaction between participants and their surroundings, including services, technology and environment. This oversight can diminish the quality of participant experiences. This thesis, situated within the healthcare service delivery context, evaluates dynamic design methods that enhance the ability to incorporate feedback from diverse participant groups throughout the design process, ensuring outcomes that remain centered on participant experiences.

Master of Science and PhD in Architecture–Engineering–Construction Management (MSAECM & PhD-AECM)

Architecture–Engineering–Construction Management (AECM) synthesis course is designed to apply the diverse knowledge and skills that AECM students have acquired during the program to a critical public-interest issue related to the built environment. During the first few weeks of the course, students learn about the global, regional and local impacts of construction debris as well as a wide array of existing mitigation efforts through readings and discussions with experts near and far. We then discuss basic research skills and methods. From this knowledge, students formulate a coordinated research project working in teams. Findings are presented to a panel of stakeholders and distilled into a collective report.

Advisors: Erica Cochran Hameen, Kristen Kurland, Ellyn A. Lester, Vivian Loftness, Peter Scupelli

Track Chair: Joshua D. Lee

Shekhar Damaria, Aksha Pandya & Shannon Utama MSAECM 2024

Adaptive Reuse Strategies for Railroad Roundhouses: Lessons Learned from Hazelwood Green

Roundhouses, originally for locomotive service, hold significant historical value but only about 5% of the 3,000 built in the U.S. remain. This scarcity threatens the loss of important heritage. Our study aims to preserve these structures and inform economic decisions in their conservation. Our literature review covers cost analysis, building typologies and the distinctive challenges and opportunities posed by roundhouses, emphasizing the advantages of adaptive reuse over new construction. A lack of understanding regarding adaptive reuse projects tailored to railroad roundhouses was identified in the literature. The Hazelwood Green Roundhouse case study highlights cost-effectiveness and the benefits of adaptive reuse. Our research method involves a case study, interviews and data analysis. We stress the importance of early hazard consideration and value engineering. This research contributes to understanding construction and economic challenges while preserving historical significance, with findings showing significant cost differences between adaptive reuse and new construction.

Snehal Avhad, Shashwati Khawale & Alexandra Teran Rubio MSAECM 2024

Strategic Adaptive Reuse for the Wilkinsburg Bank Building for Community and Economic Regeneration

Adaptive reuse offers a sustainable solution to the global challenge of vacant buildings, particularly relevant in Wilkinsburg, PA, where approximately 15% of properties stand empty due to economic decline and population loss. Our literature review explores adaptive reuse, emphasizing its cost-effectiveness and role as a catalyst for urban revitalization. The review identifies a gap in the applicability of this research to the situation in Wilkinsburg, emphasizing the need for a holistic market study and funding exploration specific to Wilkinsburg. The Wilkinsburg Bank Building’s strategic adaptive reuse is the focus of this study. Our GIS-based market analysis and economic feasibility study inform the project’s repurposing strategy. The proposed plan includes a shared kitchen, escape room and rooftop BBQ facilities to address community needs. Investment projections suggest breaking even in the fifth year, supporting community revitalization while generating profit. This project serves as a model for historic building revitalization, fostering community pride and sustainable economic impact, contributing to Wilkinsburg’s social fabric and future prosperity.

Zahraa Atha, Sudha Dwivedi & Tanisha Yelaka MSAECM 2024

Converting St.Casimir Church into the 22nd Street Condos: An Adaptive Reuse Case Study

Amid widespread demolitions contributing to 90% of construction waste, adaptive reuse offers an eco-friendly alternative. With numerous church closures, this study examines adaptive reuse, focusing on economic and community impacts, exemplified by the 22nd Street Condos in Pittsburgh’s South Side Flats. The literature review highlights converting abandoned churches into residences, covering decision-making, cultural nuances and financial considerations. Despite valuable insights, research gaps persist in detailed case studies and economic analyses. This study addresses these gaps, offering practical guidance for developers. Our research includes a case study of the 22nd Street Condos and a financial analysis focusing on funding, sales and profits. Insights come from stakeholder interviews and city council engagements using GIS technology for crime mapping. Findings detail the successful transformation of St. Casimir Church into luxury condos, emphasizing construction strategies and financial viability with a potential profit of $1.13 million. The study promotes sustainable urban development and historical preservation, recommending developers maintain cultural value and innovation.

Introduction: Omar Khan

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Colophon

Deepanshi Jaiswal, Odette Jin, Wei-Ni Ting & Junqi Wang MSAECM 2024

Social Impacts of Adaptive Reuse in the Conversion of Vacant Office Buildings to Residential in Downtown Pittsburgh

The current urban landscape shows increased office vacancies and a shortage of affordable rental housing, leading cities to explore office-to-residential conversions. As of 2023, office vacancy rates reached 20.2% across 54 markets, while 7.3 million rental homes were needed for extremely low-income individuals. Pittsburgh reflects this trend. To address it, the city and its Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) launched the Pittsburgh Downtown Conversion Program (PDCP) to convert vacant offices into mixed-income residential units, including affordable housing. While much research quantifies adaptive reuse’s environmental and economic impacts, limited studies focus on the social impacts. This study aimed to identify the social benefits and challenges of living in downtown Pittsburgh and how conversions could support social sustainability. Using GIS, case studies and interviews, we analyzed social impacts focusing on accessibility, affordability and safety. Findings indicated that infrastructure needs improvement for better social equity. Increased population didn’t correlate with higher crime rates.

Advika Shetty, Purav Kothiya & Naishal Gajjar MSAECM 2024

Planning for Adaptive Reuse Initiatives: A Survey-Based Study of the Owner’s Perspective of Adaptive Reuse in Western Pennsylvania

Adaptive reuse is transforming Pittsburgh’s urban landscape, offering a sustainable alternative to new construction, which contributes nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. Our literature review highlights adaptive reuse’s potential. However, the literature lacks insight into building owners’ perspectives. Old factories, warehouses and historic buildings are being reimagined as living spaces, offices and cultural hubs, recognizing the benefits of repurposing structures, such as preserving cultural heritage and minimizing urban sprawl. This study addresses how owners weigh factors like cost and environmental sustainability when embarking on these projects. Through a survey of Pittsburgh building owners, we found sustainability often ranked higher than cost, with owners valuing contributions to climate change mitigation without needing high returns on investment or short payback periods typical of new construction. This paper discusses why owners invest in adaptive reuse, their motivations and its significance to AEC practitioners in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Faris Khan & Kevin Rao

Maximizing Adaptive Reuse Potential by Developing a Rating System

Adaptive reuse (AR) is gaining prominence due to urban areas’ struggles to meet population demands and the push for sustainable development. Despite its growing recognition, there are no rating systems for AR projects. Existing environmental rating systems (ERS) lack specific criteria for AR, and adaptive reuse models (ARM) only rate the potential of new buildings, not existing projects. A single set of criteria is insufficient given the different contexts of AR projects. Therefore, we created a new rating method to evaluate AR projects pre- and post-construction. Case studies on Mill 19 and Carina Apartments showed that while some projects exceed their potential, others, despite scoring well in ERS, fail to meet key prerequisites and are “ineffective.” Effective AR projects should fulfill both cultural and ecological sustainability goals. Our research suggests integrating ARM and ERS for a comprehensive AR project rating system. This could guide policy-making and tax credits, encouraging projects to reach their full adaptive reuse potential.

Varma PhD-AECM 2024

A 4D Interactive Carbon Emissions Dashboard: A Visualization and Assessment Tool for Urban Building Environmental Impact

Energy and water benchmarking has become a crucial method for evaluating the performance of buildings and setting targets for future improvements to their efficiency. The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) reports that in the U.S., as of 2023, 44 cities and eight states have adopted varied energy benchmarking and transparency policies, with some being voluntary and others mandatory. However, three primary challenges have been identified in these existing policies: lack of user-friendly data-sharing tools, absence of emission forecasts, and inconsistent dashboarding standards. To tackle these challenges, this dissertation introduces a framework for developing a dashboard that not only visualizes existing benchmarking data but also integrates future emission predictions. This “4D Interactive Carbon Emissions Dashboard’’ features a dynamic 3D representation of buildings alongside data on energy, water, wastewater, municipal solid waste, renewable energy and greenhouse gas intensities. As a result of the dissertation, the framework also provides seven new standalone applications for cleaning and preparing raw data for analysis and dashboarding. The tool is designed to enhance the transparency and accessibility of building performance data, enabling more informed decisionmaking and fostering a proactive approach to energy, water, waste and wastewater management to reduce emissions. Ultimately, this research contributes to the ongoing dialogue on urban sustainability and provides actionable insights that can drive meaningful environmental change in the built environment.

Committee: Erica Cochran Hameen, Kristen Kurland, Ellyn A. Lester, Vivian Loftness, Peter Scupelli Kushagra

Master of Science and PhD in Building Performance & Diagnostics (MSBPD & PhD-BPD)

The Master of Science in Building Performance & Diagnostics (MSBPD) is a two-year program intended for practitioners, researchers and educators in architecture and the building industry who wish to be leaders in the integration of advanced building and urban technologies for environmental sustainability, human health and productivity, and organizational change. This year’s thesis topics contributed to two very different school initiatives: ongoing design/ engineering research with the General Services Administration for the White House Clean Air in Buildings pledge; and ongoing design/ policy research with the National Academy of Sciences committee for Accelerating Decarbonization in the U.S. through investments in the built environment.

Established in 1976 by Professor Emeritus Volker Hartkopf, the Ph.D. in Building Performance & Diagnostics (PhD-BPD) is the oldest doctoral degree in building science in the U.S. With dissertations focused on innovations in high performance buildings and infrastructures, building performance simulation, building data analytics, building policy and economics and indoor environmental quality, PhD-BPD graduates are driven to advance a shared quality of life and a sustainable future through leadership in academia, government, research, industry and practice.

Advisors: Erica Cochran Hameen, Dana Cupkova, Evyatar Erell, Matt R. Gormley, Christine Mondor, Azadeh Sawyer, Louis Suarez, Pingbo Tang, Ji Zhang

Track Chair: Vivian Loftness

Data-driven Approaches to Improving EUI Prediction Accuracy for Benchmarking

Data-driven benchmarking plays a crucial role in identifying and reducing the 40% of global energy consumption and 42% of global carbon emissions attributed to the building sector. Energy use intensity (EUI) prediction, the centerpiece of all benchmarking standards, currently relies on multi-linear regression with an inadequate level of accuracy. This thesis comprehensively compares eight machine learning algorithms — including multi-linear regression, LASSO regression, Ridge regression, random forest, gradient boosting, XGBoost, support vector machines and LightGBM — on a dataset comprising 66,000 buildings across 19 building types and seven climate zones. The findings can enhance the reliability of future data-driven benchmarking.

A Toolkit of Sustainable Surfaces for Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience

Cities face heightened vulnerability to a spectrum of climate challenges, from rising temperatures and floods to the loss of species, food insecurity and air pollution. Current research reveals significant gaps in addressing these challenges in a holistic manner. This thesis investigates emerging design strategies for facade, roof and street surfaces for flood mitigation, reduction of heat island effects, biodiversity enhancement, promotion of urban farming and improvement of air quality. The analysis of 45 case studies supports the creation of a design taxonomy and approaches to quantifying the benefits of the taxonomy, tested in a vulnerable six block neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

Bill Guo MSBPD 2024

Laura Lasariia MSBPD 2024

A Data-driven Fault Impact Analysis Framework for Enhancing Building

Indoor Air

Negin Shahidi MSBPD 2024

Abnormal operation of HVAC systems can lead to higher energy consumption, poor indoor air quality, thermal discomfort and reduced productivity. However, current HVAC fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) metrics have been primarily developed for energy savings, with little consideration of the impacts on IAQ. This thesis proposes a data-driven fault impact analysis framework for enhancing building IAQ. After a systematic review of fault rules from three leading vendors, a curated list of faults that influence IAQ are selected. Based on two years of time series BAS and FDD data for a federal office building, machine learning tools help to quantify the relationship between building operation faults and indoor carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, to help generate FDD priorities for IAQ.

Accelerating Sustainability Goals for Indoor Air Quality Impacting Human Health

The full suite of pollutants that define indoor air quality (IAQ) is a significant public health issue, especially given the extensive time people spend indoors. While LEED, WELL and other green rating systems integrate IAQ strategies, there is potential for further enhancement to more effectively impact health. This research highlights a gap in fully leveraging IAQ measures within sustainable design and advocates for a broader application across green building certification systems. A shift in sustainable building practices to prioritize IAQ will be critical for enhancing both occupant health and environmental sustainability.

Maya Ma MSBPD 2024

Margaret

(Xinyue) Zhang MSBPD 2024

Next Generation Thermostats with IAQ Controls for Commercial HVAC

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a critical design factor in the design and management of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for occupant health and cognitive performance. Beyond air temperature, existing HVAC controls do not incorporate any IAQ metrics into system management other than DCV with CO2 — not PM2.5, TVOC, formaldehyde or humidity. This study proposes a next generation thermostat to provide critical room input to a thermal and IAQ metrics-centered control logic. The new control logic was evaluated with CONTAM and field data from in the Phipps Conservatory ESC building. Replacing conventional thermostats with next generation temperature and IAQ “stats” will play a transformative role in prioritizing IAQ performance in smart buildings.

Jiarong Xie

PhD-BPD 2024

Occupant-Centric Shading and Lighting Control

Using a Simulation-Assisted Data-Driven Framework

Automated shading systems play an important role in balancing the benefits and drawbacks of daylight ingress within indoor environments. When properly operated, these systems significantly reduce building energy consumption while ensuring occupant access to daylight and views - comforts that are crucial in preventing occupants from manually overriding the system. However, there are no simple, practical methods to account for occupants’ visual comfort and preferences within automated shading control processes, leading to manual overrides by occupants who are not weighing the advantages and disadvantages of daylight ingress. To address this challenge, this dissertation proposes simplified and practical occupant-centric approaches to integrated shading and lighting control, promoting automated shading in real-world settings. The proposed simulation-assisted, data-driven control framework eliminates the use of indoor camera sensors or real-time, computationally intensive daylight modeling, while practically incorporating glare considerations into the control of shading systems to improve occupants’ satisfaction with the shading system. The proposed “open-only” control approach could further enhance user satisfaction by practically including occupants’ preferences in control loops.

Committee: Azadeh Sawyer

James Katungyi PhD-BPD 2023

The Impact of Dynamic Thermal Conditions on the Health and Productivity of Building Occupants

Indoor thermal environments have long-term impacts on building occupants because humans spend most of their lifetime indoors. The conventional approach to evaluating indoor thermal conditions using thermal comfort or sensation surveys captures “right here, right now” subjective perception of the thermal environment. This is a short-term measure. When evaluating indoor thermal conditions, it is necessary to measure both short-term and long-term impacts. Long-term impacts on health and productivity are seldom measured because they are difficult to quantify. And yet without a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of thermal conditions on building occupants, efforts to optimize indoor thermal conditions for occupant wellness can only be partially fruitful. To test two approaches to quantifying thermal comfort, I set up an experiment in Kampala, Uganda to compare the impact of the two thermal conditioning approaches on the wellness of building occupants. Results of the experiment indicated multiple benefits of naturally ventilated buildings: fewer incidents of sick building syndrome, improved conditions for female participants and improved resting heart rate. Indoor pollutants like carbon dioxide (CO2), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and particulate matter (PM2.5) were higher during the air conditioning week because of the lower air change rates. The research also showed the need for longer term investigations to better capture the effects of thermal conditioning approach on building occupants.

Committee: Vivian Loftness, Evyatar Erell, Erica Cochran Hameen, Anne Germain

Wei Liang PhD-BPD 2024

An Automatic Mobile Sensing Platform for Indoor Environmental Quality Assessments

This thesis proposes an innovative automated mobile sensing platform to overcome challenges in monitoring indoor environmental quality (IEQ) by facilitating simultaneous, continuous, and autonomous evaluation of IEQ conditions. The platform incorporates advanced technologies for monitoring thermal comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), lighting levels and acoustics. Integrated with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and computer vision technologies, the platform provides high-granular and efficient post-occupancy evaluations (POE). The dissertation resulted in four key deliverables: 1)A superior POE protocol for measuring IEQ, utilizing sensor technology incorporated into a mobile platform with mapping data technology. 2) A new framework and platform designed to assess mean radiant temperature (MRT), which has elsewhere proven challenging to measure. 3) A social robot integrated into the IEQ platform to conduct qualitative post-occupancy evaluations (POE) and collect satisfaction feedback from building occupants. 4) A Gaussian process model based on realworld measurements to enable high-resolution spatiotemporal monitoring of IEQ physical attributes that can overcome traditional stationary sensor networks’ limitations. By measuring and improving existing IEQ conditions, the proposed mobile sensing platform aims to enhance occupant comfort and health, ultimately enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions that reduce energy costs and contribute to better indoor environments.

Committee: Vivian Loftness, Erica Cochran Hameen, Pingbo Tang, Ji Zhang

Tian Li PhD-BPD 2024

AI-Driven Building Energy and Carbon Emissions

Benchmarking at Multiple Scales

Data limitations, especially for monthly and end-use loads, are a major challenge for energy benchmarking in the US. Benchmarking classifications are typically conducted by primary types and in particular climate zones. However, multiple building attributes impact energy consumption, leading to identical building types with distinct energy use patterns. This study proposes an AI-driven, generalizable building energy and carbon emissions benchmarking approach that is applicable to any city in the contiguous U.S. in three layers: annual total; annual end-use; and monthly electricity and natural gas energy usage. Building-energy benchmarking classifications are conducted by intelligent clustering algorithms that challenge typical models in order to improve model performance. Furthermore, this study creates a benchmarking approach that can accurately predict monthly electricity and natural gas loads from annual total energy use, improving energy efficiency and management. Meanwhile, the research develops a post-prediction model evaluation method to gain insights into the performance of multiple AI models. During post-prediction, a statistical acceptance interval evaluates and classifies the actual and predicted values into well-estimated, underestimated and overestimated clusters. This approach also assesses prediction performance associated with energy patterns, building types and climate zones, providing a deeper reference for future studies.

Committee: Azadeh Sawyer, Pingbo Tang, Matt R. Gormley

Master of Science and PhD in Computational Design (MSCD & PhD-CD)

The Master of Science and PhD in Computational Design (MSCD & PhD-CD) programs investigate new design opportunities and critical perspectives at the nexus of design and computation. The programs mobilize CMU’s computational strengths to develop new technical and critical perspectives on computing as it relates to architecture, design and the built environment. Ranging from the applied to the speculative — and from the poetic to the critical — the work of the program explores subjects including artificial intelligence; architectural robotics; digital fabrication; computational geometry; responsive environments; augmented, virtual and mixed reality; and shape grammars, as well as embodied and tangible forms of interaction and expression. Guided by an interdisciplinary group of core faculty and external advisors, students develop a thesis through the reflective development of experimental design systems, algorithms, computational artifacts and/or environments, or by crafting novel critical and historical perspectives interrogating technological imaginaries of design.

Advisors: Joshua Bard, Daragh Byrne, Daniel Cardoso Llach, Omar Khan, Vernelle A. A. Noel

External Advisors: Dina El-Zanfaly, Mayank Goel, Sinan Goral, Jinmo Rhee, Daniel Rosenberg

Track Chair: Daniel Cardoso Llach

Yanting Deng MSCD 2024

Immersive Audio Design Tools: Exploring Affordances and Interaction Modalities for Spatial Sound Experiences

This thesis discusses the modalities of an immersive soundscape design system, Sound Hologram. This system is developed with wavefield synthesis (WFS) and motion tracking. The thesis introduces the current state of the art and discusses issues of spatial sound synthesis in the development of computer-aided composition, as well as common problems of existing interfaces such as the need for advanced controlling mechanics. The design of a new interface is presented, comprising three software integrated in a technical stack, providing convenience for designers prototyping soundscapes. A user test is presented with quantitative and qualification evaluations of this interface, concluding with general guidelines for interface design and future development.

Advisors: Joshua Bard, Daniel Rosenberg

Zain Hao

MSCD

2024

Shap-Explorer: Introducing Manipulable Text-to-3-D Generation Into 3-D Art Creation

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technologies are increasingly employed by artists for their capability to rapidly generate intricate designs. While textto-image (T2I) applications have been explored in art creation with constructive outcomes, the integration of text-to3-D (T23D) methodologies remains underexplored, primarily due to the knowledge gaps between users and tool-makers. Developers aim to refine models for speed and accuracy, yet artists struggle to intuitively guide the generation process. To bridge this gap, this research introduces Shap-Explorer, a tool that streamlines the use of T23D, enabling users to incrementally control the generation and iteratively modify the output models. Through a series of user studies, this research examines the affordance of T23D and the impact of enhanced interactions on the generative system. With Shap-Explorer, the research provides insights into the manipulation capabilities of GAI tools in the design workflow, offering a step forward in the interactive creation of 3-D art.

Advisor: Daragh Byrne

Steve (Peiyu) Hu

MSCD 2024

Bridging the Gap: Exploring a Design-via-Making Approach in Architecture through Digital Guidance Systems

This research explores the concept of the “Albertian split” in architecture, emphasizing the divide between design and construction and its impact on creativity. The study proposes a design-via-making approach, using digital technology to bridge the gap without traditional drawings. Case study projects investigate a guiding system prototype. The prototype’s development highlights the use of immersive display systems for a richer guiding system providing realtime comparison between design and execution. It explores color-coded geometry overlay and realtime geometry scanning interfaces. The deployment process is then illustrated in the design and fabrication of pottery pieces with both the traditional sequenced approach and the integrated design-make process. Results show a detailed comparison between physical and virtual designs, evaluating the guiding system’s effectiveness. The discussion acknowledges system limitations and emphasizes the importance of design values during making, advocating for synchronized design and construction processes. The research fosters collaboration between designers and makers through innovative digital tools.

Advisors: Daniel Cardoso Llach, Dina El-Zanfaly

Hongfei Ji

MSCD 2024

A Design Inquiry into Negative Algorithmic Experience: Prototyping Embodied LLM Hallucination

The rapid development of large language models (LLM) has sparked interest in integrating them into conversation-based embodied artifacts in our everyday lives. While gaining unprecedented enabling capability from large-scale human-generated datasets and algorithms, the negative side of the algorithm becomes much easier to ignore. In this context, hallucination, an intrinsic flaw leading to the deviated intention from user input, could spark different interpretations and more interactive experiences in personal space. Our work expands algorithm experience prototyping methodology and uses a series of speculative prototypes to investigate what hallucination could look like, how different narrative media contribute to possible interaction scenarios, and what encounters will emerge during prototyping sessions in the corresponding context. Our work reflects on the possibilities and design implications of LLM hallucination when embodied LLM becomes an enabling agent of our everyday multimodal input/ output and contributes to the creative interpretation of the dark side of algorithms and a new perspective of applying prototyping methods.

Advisors: Daragh Byrne, Sinan Goral

Yujeong Seo MSCD 2024

Design with Data-Driven Shape Rule Recognition through Learning-Based Shape Grammar Interpreter

Shape grammar, which has been applied to design practices and research in many fields, is a rule-based system. Shape grammar interpreters still often find it challenging to achieve computationally perfect sub-shape recognition in all dimension shapes and limit the generation of a variety of design alternatives because designers are required to generate shape rules based on their knowledge and expertise. However, with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) research, there have been increasing attempts to solve design problems using data-driven or learning-based methods through deep learning in architecture. Unlike the rule-based method, the learning-based method approaches the design problems by extracting the patterns of data inductively. How might a learningbased shape grammar interpreter, which helps designers recognize potential shape rules, affect the designer’s design approach and change their design experience? The research addresses the questions by designing the learning-based shape grammar interpreter that infers rules and comparing it with the rule-based interpreters with simple geometry patterns through the user study. This study examines the changes in designers’ design approaches and experiences and demonstrates the potential of datadriven methods to support rule-based systems. Such interaction with the interpreter may yield unexpected shape rules for designers and enrich the rule space.

Advisors: Vernelle A. A. Noel, Daniel Cardoso Llach, Jinmo Rhee

Felicia Luo MSCD 2024

A 4-D Diary Co-authored by Human and Machine: Interactively Visualize, Control, and Understand Data Collection and ML Computation within Built Environments

Ubiquitous data acquisition and machine learning (ML) systems, in particular, smart cameras, have proliferated throughout all kinds of built environments for surveillance or profit-oriented analysis. However, building occupants are rarely consciously aware of their presence and have no access to the data or its analysis. Transparency and privacy concerns may be exaggerated when ML inferences extract more information from the collected data. Occupants should gain not only awareness but also control over the data collected from themselves and the computation analyzing them. Critically investigating ML-powered smart cameras, I first performed a self-surveillance experiment documenting my personal life. It generated a vivid 4-D diary that captured lively details and recreated memories through a combination of machine recognitions and personal diaries. Extending the first experiment, I transformed the unidirectional data acquisition and ML computation into a bi-directional interactive system in the form of a 4-D diary co-authored by the machine and the occupants. Through user study of a digital prototype and semistructured interviews, I studied the dynamics between the occupants and the data collection and ML computation system. The interactive data visualization, control and communication with a chatbot promoted occupants’ understanding of the system and addressed transparency and privacy concerns. This research seeks to empower occupants with an active voice in the current climate of passive data acquisition and ML computation systems, and reintroduce the rich and humane aspects that have been overshadowed by automation. It demonstrates a methodology guiding technology development empathetically.

Advisors: Daniel Cardoso Llach, Mayank Goel

David

Troetschel MSCD 2024

Reality Integrated Design: Harnessing Real-World Data for Next-Generation Virtual Environments

I propose a shift from traditional asset modeling, advocating instead for the utilization of real-world data as the foundation for next-generation virtual environments. Rather than creating assets from scratch or relying solely on parametric designs, we should enable designs by harnessing the knowledge and resources available in the world around us; not from abstract spaces but from tangible concepts and analogies, combining disparate elements into innovative wholes. Most of our design endeavors are influenced by existing creations. By utilizing reality as our primary source of

inspiration, we gain access to a vast array of design morphologies, both historical and contemporary. By capturing reality through established techniques and applied across diverse scenarios, we can streamline the design process, cultivate knowledge and facilitate the creation of novel design realities. By employing techniques such as reality capture and scene segmentation, we can significantly reduce the workload associated with design while enhancing our understanding of existing resources. Additionally, we can isolate and segment various elements from captured scenes, enabling their reuse across multiple contexts.

Manuel Rodríguez Ladrón de Guevara PhD-CD 2024

Advisor: Daniel Cardoso Llach

Parametric-Based Models for Artistic Representations

Driven by the popular adoption of AI for artistic purposes, this thesis examines its technical and ethical implications, and presents new approaches for parametric algorithms that generate different types of artistic representations based on optimization methods and learning models. In the midst of the success of machine learning algorithms in image generation and other creative tasks of pixel-based diffusion and large language models, my dissertation is framed within the field of parametric representation, which is closer to human art than pixel-based methods. The dissertation analyzes and proposes an array of computational methods — including procedural, optimization and machine learning — created with the intention of creating computer-generated artwork. Through different algorithms, we demonstrate new approaches to stylization, controllability and identity preservation. We explore the complex landscape of artistic styles, artistic vision and the perception of art. Throughout the different algorithms presented, we demonstrate new ways to find stylization, controllability and identity preservation. We disentangle such a complex landscape of artistic styles and strategies, and leverage some artistic vision under some perception of art. Finally, we tap into computational creativity, whether algorithms can be creative, and discuss future steps in the field of machine learning and art.

Committee: Ramesh Krishnamurti, Daragh Byrne

Jingyang Liu PhD-CD

Construction

In architectural studies, space—more than a volume or container—can organize resources, confer identities and establish socio-cultural protocols between inhabitants. Meanwhile, spatial information such as distance, orientation and space layout may orchestrate the interaction between humans and machines in a shared space. The emergence of spatial computing technologies, such as augmented reality and mixed reality (AR/MR), brings new possibilities for reconnecting the digital world with the physical space through digitization, registration and spatial interaction. Situated in this context, my research aims to explore the mutual constitution between physical space and spatial computing. With a specific focus on the robotic-supported construction scenario, I investigate the role of physical space in human-robot interaction (HRI) by asking three primary questions: 1) how might we use physical space for contextualizing virtual information to make it easier to be understood and engaged with; 2) how might we leverage the relationship between the physical environments and the wellentrenched body skills for intuitive programming; and 3) how can physical space serve as a shared spatial reference frame for both face-to-face and remote collaboration.

Committee: Daniel Cardoso Llach (Chair), Joshua Bard, Mayank Goel

Jinmo Rhee PhD-CD

A Computational Method for the Identification and Comparative Analysis of Urban Form Types: A Case Study of Rust Belt Cities

This dissertation develops and evaluates a new computational method for constructing and analyzing large urban datasets, enabling new insights into a city’s spatial, urbaneconomic, land use and demographic dimensions. The method is predicated on an alternative way of representing cities that takes urban spaces — rather than buildings or blocks — as a city’s constitutive unit. In contrast to conventional data methods for urban form analysis, this method preserves the morphological features of urban spaces at different scales in order to capture their spatial characteristics. A deep neural network model trained on the dataset will cluster form data by feature, yielding morphologically distinct urban types. By examining characteristics of each urban type, one can visually and numerically address configurational characteristics of the urban space. When types are induced based on multiple cities, unique and common types can be identified by comparing the morphology features of individual urban spaces. Analyses of morphological traits derive from an inductive investigation of changes, trends, and structures of constituents for differing city situations — namely, emergence, growth, shrinkage, declination and dissipation. Individual urban spacecentered analysis enables the identification of unique and common urban types and their characteristics, providing spatial insights into restructuring strategies of city space via urban economy, land use and demography analysis.

Committee: Daniel Cardoso-Llach, Ramesh Krishnamurti, Bhiksha Raj Ramakrishnan

Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD)

The Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD) is a postprofessional, design-research program that fosters innovative sustainable strategies for designing the built environment across scales. The program’s interdisciplinary thinking and technical expertise empower the creative fusion of design agency with evidence-based practices, positioning architecture as a vehicle for environmental stewardship. The MSSD program advances design methodologies that integrate multicultural and geospatial aspects of ecological thinking, focusing on addressing architectural responses to climate change. It incorporates dynamic bioclimatic processes into the design of constructed environments, guiding students to explore climate-specific socio-ecological placemaking through computational design, environmental science, material research and advanced manufacturing.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Azadeh Sawyer, Louis Suarez Co-Advisors: Nina Baird, Dina El-Zanfaly, Sinan Goral, Robert Heard, Suzy Li, Vivian Loftness, Miguel Lopez, Christine Mondor, Allison Smith

Track Chair: Dana Cupkova

Jil Berenblum

MSSD 2024

INDICATING MATTER: Outdoor and indoor sensing with biomaterials

This biomaterial research thesis explores how architectural surfaces can serve as interfaces for outdoor and indoor environmental sensing, thereby enhancing our understanding of environmental health. Lichen, a natural bioindicator of air and water pollution, is central to this study. The deliberate integration of lichen habitats within architectural systems can enhance the visibility of environmental pollution and inform remediation strategies. Moreover, this research examines the potential of pH changes on indoor wall surfaces as indicators of water and microbial activity variations. By emphasizing the incorporation of biomass and pH indicators into architectural surfaces, an area that has received limited attention in biomaterial research, the aim is to raise awareness about environmental pollution through architecture while fostering the development of pollution-responsive landscapes. Through the use of these materials, architectural façades transcend their conventional functions, becoming active agents of environmental stewardship. For architects, this presents an opportunity to provide users with insights into microbial and biomass fluctuations within their surroundings.

Nandan Bhusry MSSD 2024

BUILDING FACADES AS PASSIVE DEHUMIDIFIERS:

Integrating Isothermal Membrane Assisted Dehumidification (IMAD) for Enhanced Thermal Comfort in Hot and Humid Climates Building Facades as Passive Dehumidifiers

In hot, humid climates, discomfort arises from elevated temperatures and humidity levels, impeding effective sweating and increasing heat-related risks. While vernacular architecture utilized materials like mud for passive dehumidification, contemporary concrete construction heavily relies on energy-intensive air conditioning systems. Drawing inspiration from passive systems, this study focuses on adapting the hygroscopic properties of isothermal membrane-assisted dehumidification (IMAD) technology to extract moisture from the air without additional energy input. The thesis explores the integration of IMAD into building envelopes, effectively converting façades into functional conditioning systems. By situating passive design at the intersection of material properties and topologically enhanced performance grounded in the Bernoulli principle, the thesis advocates for innovative façade assemblies to promote energy efficiency and thermal comfort in hot and humid climates, thereby advancing sustainability and resilience of the built environment.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Robert Heard

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Robert Heard 151 Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Nandan Bhusry

Arunima Dubey

Arunima Dubey

MSSD 2024

WATER LANDSCAPES:

A study of controlled flooding and hydrological patterns to restore Mumbai’s resilience towards an Urban Estuary

Urban flooding presents a global challenge, and Mumbai, India is no exception. Over centuries, the city has undergone extensive reclamation and rapid urbanization, leading to the loss of its natural “soft” cover. Consequently, Mumbai has faced recurring floods in recent decades. This research proposes estuary urban solutions that incorporate green infrastructure inspired by natural hydrological phenomena, studied through physical simulation and GIS data. The aim is to prioritize ecological resilience over conventional regulatory systems. The objective is to develop an expanded water network rooted in ecological redundancy, utilizing existing green spaces and integrating with the city’s topology while minimizing disruption to social settlements. The system envisions a dynamic water landscape capable of holding floods rather than draining them, drawing on Mumbai’s historical relationship with its estuarine environment.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Christine Mondor

Bela Nigudkar

MSSD 2024

ELIMINATING MATERIAL TOXICITY FROM CLASSROOMS:

a tool to enhance the accessibility of material ingredient and health risk information to occupants.

A scoring framework for classroom designs based on the chemical composition of the specified finish materials

Studies indicate that humans spend about 90% of their time indoors, where pollutant concentrations often reach two to five times higher levels than outdoor air (EPA, 2017). The built environment significantly influences occupant health and comfort. Since the early 2000s, health initiatives targeting the built environment through material health declaration programs have enhanced our understanding of the hazards posed by toxic substances in building materials. Consequently, there has been substantial research and industry efforts to select healthier material alternatives. This study aims to analyze five case studies to comprehend typical material specifications for classroom spaces (K-12) and their associated health implications. Evaluating classroom design specifications through the lens of healthy materials, and crossreferencing disparate material libraries, can help mitigate health risks associated with toxic building materials for children. The study’s scope is limited to spaces regularly occupied by children, given their increased vulnerability to toxic environments compared to adults. Documentation such as health product declarations and the “informed” tool developed by the Healthy Building Network are utilized as references. Subsequently, a scoring method is developed based on material composition to inform stakeholders of the broader impact of toxic substances on children’s health and identify gaps in material knowledge that require assessment. Additionally, the study explores the use of virtual reality as a tool to enhance the accessibility of this information.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Azadeh Sawyer, Allison Smith

Exploring Virtual Reality (VR) as

Wan

The construction of architecture significantly contributes to the global carbon footprint. Current research in decarbonization focuses on reducing embodied energy by utilizing low-carbon and high-performance cementitious materials to decrease carbon emissions in the construction sector. Advances in 3-D printing and additive manufacturing play a significant role in this process. This thesis explores an evaluation framework for the carbon impact of concrete systems, with a specific focus on binderjetting. This method allows for the inclusion of recycled material feedstocks coupled with additive manufacturing processes. The workflow demonstrates the relationship between decreasing carbon footprint emissions while maintaining the structural strength of the structures through topology optimization. The methodology is based on physical measurements of material properties combined with structural topological simulation. The goal is to better understand carbon footprint reduction while considering the physical properties of the structures.

Advisors: Dana

Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Robert Heard

Nazish Pathan MSSD 2024

CARBON SEQUESTRATION PATHWAY FOR BUILDING

ENCLOSURES: A life-cycle assessment takeaway and potential of architecture as carbon sink using bio-based and high-performance envelope assemblies

As our terrestrial opportunities for extraction decrease and the need to address climate change becomes more critical, designing building envelopes with their carbon sequestration capacity in mind is increasingly important. Bio-based building assemblies have significant potential to sequester biogenic carbon, while advanced materials like building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) can substantially offset operational carbon emissions. Quantifying the performance of envelope materials through life cycle assessments (LCAs), and evaluating their impact on structural embodied carbon, along with other performance metrics, can support design optimization, facilitate comparisons between solutions and guide decision-making, while positioning architecture as a potential carbon sink.

Meghna Roy MSSD 2024

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Miguel Lopez, Louis Suarez

REINFORCING COASTLINES: Adaptive Reshaping of Coastal Terrain Informed by Natural Sedimentation Patterns for Mangrove Root Systems

This research framework focuses on gaining a deeper understanding of natural sedimentation as a regenerative tool for reinforcing coastal areas, drawing inspiration from the growth patterns of mangrove systems. The study highlights the importance of adaptive solutions for coastal landscapes, acknowledging the dynamic nature of these environments and leveraging insights from natural soil accumulation patterns to enhance the resilience of coastal landforms in the future. The methodology primarily involves two key exercises: computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis and physical testing using simulation sand. Utilizing GIS data mapping of coastal terrain in combination with land loss data enables the development of prediction models, and the mapping of ecological biomes and ecosystems against these models, while identifying the vulnerable coastlines. Additionally, experimental physical testing with simulation sand contributes to the creation of a database detailing the topological shaping of the terrain to achieve self-regenerative coastal reinforcement.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Christine Mondor

Meghna Roy

Ankita Sinha

Ankita Sinha MSSD 2024

RESPONSIVE BUILDING SKINS: Daylight and Energy Analysis of Smart Thermo Bi-metal Systems

Building envelopes significantly influence thermal comfort, daylighting and heating and cooling loads in buildings. Adaptive façades, capable of responding to variable boundary conditions and shifting performance criteria by periodically altering their features and behavior, have emerged as a strategy to optimize building performance. However, many contemporary adaptive or kinetic facades require many mechanical parts for operation, which are challenging to maintain and prone to breakdown over time. This study explores the effectiveness of temperature-responsive smart materials, specifically thermo bi-metals, as an alternative to mechanical kinetic facades, focusing on environmental performance and occupant satisfaction. It aims to develop a digital workflow to simulate their behavior using climate data and documented material properties to analyze performance. This analysis is compared against a static shading system with the same module design and patterning logic. Additionally, the study examines how occupant control of adaptive facades can be implemented through manual overrides and assesses the potential impacts on energy performance.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Azadeh Sawyer, Louis Suarez

Angie Wang MSSD 2024

URBAN SONIFICATION: A Computational Design Framework of an Adaptive Sound Barrier System in Urban Context

In an era marked by rapid technological and economic development, urbanization has exacerbated noise pollution, posing challenges to collective human comfort and well-being. This thesis delves into the development of an adaptive framework for urban sound barriers, aimed at reducing noise. It seeks to mitigate the physical and mental health effects associated with excessive noise while fostering positive social impacts by establishing sound visualization “boundaries” within urban environments. This thesis adopts a focused workflow that incorporates live sound collection, data processing, machine learning, real-time sound visualization, acoustics simulation with analysis, and prototyping. The objective is to develop a framework for adaptive sound barrier systems tailored to different decibel levels and sound frequencies. Through simulated evaluation, these systems are assessed for their effectiveness in noise reduction. Key methodologies include field acoustics simulation, as well as the integration of sound visualization, sonification, the internet of things (IoT), tiny machine learning and design systemization.

Advisors: Dana Cupkova, Louis Suarez, Dina El-Zanfaly

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

2023-24 Public

Programs Series: Revolutions/Resolutions

What is architecture’s role in revolutionizing or repairing broken systems? This year the school’s public programs highlighted conversations that call for both incremental and radical shifts within our discipline, profession and society.

Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s 2023-24 Public Programs were organized by Sarah Rafson, Curator of Public Programs, in consultation with a faculty-student committee. The 2023-24 Public Programs Committee comprised of Priyanka Bista, Daragh Byrne, Christi Danner, Stefan Gruber, Morgan Newman-Perry and Tommy CheeMou Yang.

The fall semester highlighted architects who, to borrow Toni Cade Bambara’s phrase, “make the revolution irresistible” — artists and thinkers who challenge us to envision a multitude of approaches to making and being.

Symposium: 2023 Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop(ACAW) Thursday, August 17

Exhibition: Containment, Care+Community

On view Tuesday-Sunday, September 5-10 with an event Thursday, September 7 in conjunction with the Center for Arts in Society (CAS)

Launch & Welcome Back Party: EX-CHANGE 2023 Friday, September 8

Issue launch: inter•punct “Reconstructions”

In conjunction with the inaugural Pittsburgh Art Book Fair (PABF) Saturday, September 9

Discussion: ApproachestoActivism Hosted by the Architectural Theory & Contemporary Issues seminar Wednesday, September 13

Friday Night Film: CripCamp:ADisability Revolution(2020)

Introduction by activist and co-director Jim LeBrecht Friday, September 22

Book Launch: Designing theComputationalImage, ImaginingComputational Design By Daniel Cardoso Llach and Theodora Vardouli, with the FrankRatchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Wednesday, September 27

Lecture: Ana María León (Harvard GSD) Friday, September 29

Reception: ImpossibleMusic Exhibit Hosted by the Miller Institute of Contemporary Art Friday, September 29

Convening: Unsettling Matter,GainingGround Exhibition presented by the Carnegie Museum of Art Thursday-Friday, October 5-6

Symposium: AddressingWicked Challenges:Colloquies forTransgenerational Collaboration

Part of the Systemic Design Association’s RSD12 Friday-Sunday, October 6-8

Friday Night Film: RadicalLandscapes(2022)

Introduction by director Elettra Fiumi, part of Pittsburgh Architecture Week Friday, October 27

Lecture: Andrew Santa Lucia (Portland State University) Monday, October 30, 2023

Lecture & Book Signing: Sharon Egretta Sutton (Parsons School of Design) Friday, November 3

Discussion: WrappingUptheSeries Hosted by the Architectural Theory & Contemporary Issues seminar Friday, November 10

Spring 2024: Resolutions

The spring public programs emphasized architects as mediators negotiating disparate modes of thought, creating common ground and mitigating harm. We discussed how our work addresses critical sites and debates in the world around us; what it takes to articulate our values and stand by them.

Lecture and Book Signing: Conversations on Practice andPedagogy

Momoyo Kaijima (Atelier Bow-Wow)

Saturday, January 27 & Monday, January 29

Lectures & Workshops: Conversations with Machines

With Vernelle A. A. Noel (Situated Computation +Design Lab, CMU), Madeline Gannon (ATONATON), Jake Marsico (Deeplocal) and Audrey Desjardins (University of Washington, Studio Tilt)

February 2-4

Dual Lecture: Brian MacKay-Lyons (MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects) & Anssi Lassila (Office for Peripheral Architecture)

Supported by the Doug Cooper, A 1970, Fund for Drawing and Architecture Thursday, February 15

Symposium:

HandDrawing:WhyitStill Matters for Architects in theDigitalAge

Keynote: Juhani Pallasmaa

Supported by the Doug Cooper, A 1970, Fund for Drawing and Architecture

Saturday, February 17

Lecture & Workshop: Phillip Denny (Harvard) Thursday, February 22 and Friday, February 23

Lunch Discussion: Values in Practice

With Bill Bates, Omar Khan, Morgan NewmanPerry and Ala Tannir In conjunction with the seminar Introduction to Value-Based Design Friday, March 15

Lecture & Workshop: Vinu Daniel (Wallmakers) Supported by the Architecture–Engineering–Construction Management Program

Friday, March 29 and Saturday, March 30

Lecture: Emmanuel Pratt (Sweet Water Foundation)

Watson Chair in Architecture, Organized by the Remaking Cities Institute (RCI)

Friday, April 5

Consensus-Building Workshop: Architectural Workers United Monday, April 8

Exhibition Opening: MultispeciesFutures: BuildingaWorldofMany Worlds

Curated by Priyanka Bista (2022-24 Joseph F. Thomas Visiting Professor) Friday, May 3

Conversations with Machines

Conversations with Machines was a series of events from February 2–4, 2024 that explored the relationship between humans and machines and considered how we might resolve these dynamic relationships through architectural space and practice.

Curated by Daragh Byrne, Associate Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon Architecture, the series included two lectures, four fascinating hands-on workshops and one public showcase delivered by Vernelle A. A. Noel (Situated Computation + Design Lab, CMU), Madeline Gannon (PhD-CD ’17, ATONATON), Jake Marsico (MTID ’14, Deeplocal) and Audrey Desjardins (University of Washington, Studio Tilt).

Conversations with Machines was supported by the Computational Design Program, the 2023-24 Sylvia and David Steiner Speaker Series at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and the CMU Open Source Programs Office.

2024-25 Public Programs Series: Artificial and Other Intelligences

The psychologist Howard Gardner famously argued that intelligence should be thought of in the plural: intelligences. Beyond the eight intelligences he identifies, architects and designers leverage many forms of intelligence and wisdom in their practices and ways of being: material, indigenous, more-than-human, just to name a few. At a university with a history of groundbreaking development of artificial intelligence, Carnegie Mellon Architecture's 2024-25 public programs invites architects, scholars, designers and artists to think about intelligence in their work and the things they design. How do we rethink our processes, and to what ends?

Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s 2024–25 Public Programs are organized by the incoming Curator of Public Programs in consultation with a faculty-student committee. The 2024–25 Committee comprises Daragh Byrne, Dana Cupkova, Christi Danner, Julia Kasper, Juney Lee, Vernelle A. A. Noel, Paul Pangaro, Misri Patel and Vina (Jiaying) Wei, who worked with outgoing Curator Sarah Rafson on the fall 2024 line-up.

Inaugurated in spring 2024, the Watson Chair in Architecture invites distinguished scholars, researchers and professionals to campus for lectures, seminars and workshops that engage the Carnegie Mellon Architecture community in critical discourse on the built environment. Chairs provide intellectual and professional insights on topics the school is engaging and have a broad appeal across the different degree programs. Chairs bring global perspectives, interdisciplinarity approaches, and diversity of experience to the school.

The chairship is named in honor of the life, artistic work and teaching of Jill Watson. Watson was a Carnegie Mellon University alumna, adjunct faculty member in the School of Architecture and an acclaimed Pittsburgh architect who died tragically in the TWA Flight 800 crash on July 17, 1996.

2024 WATSON CHAIR: EMMANUEL PRATT

Emmanuel Pratt, an American urban designer, is the inaugural Watson Chair in Architecture. In 2009 he co-founded the Sweet Water Foundation, which practices regenerative neighborhood development on the South Side of Chicago. The foundation is centered around bringing inter-generational members of the community together for education and to work on urban agriculture and reclaiming abandoned properties and transforming them into productive landscapes. Pratt was born in Virginia and graduated in 1995 from Maggie L. Walker Governor's School in Richmond, Virginia. In 1999, he graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University, and he received a Masters of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University in 2003. From 2016 to 2017, Pratt was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2019, Pratt was invited to participate in the third Chicago Architecture Biennial, where his entry Reroot + Redux explored the connections between architecture and the Great Migration. Pratt was also named a MacArthur Fellow. In April 2024, Pratt worked with the Remaking Cities Institute and Carnegie Mellon Architecture Public Programs to bring a team from Chicago’s Sweet Water Foundation to lecture, share meals and design-build furniture with the Sankofa Village Community Garden in Homewood. The team’s visit to Pittsburgh was accompanied by a public lecture, “Re-Mapping the Publics: Resolutions for Regenerative Neighborhood Development,” which featured a conversation with Karen Abrams (City of Pittsburgh) and Vikki Ayanna Jones (Sankofa Village Community Garden). Watson Chair

Research Centers

Applied Architectural Robotics Collective

The Applied Architectural Robotics Collective (AARC) at CMU investigates the application of industrial robots in building and construction.

Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics

The Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics (CBPD) at CMU, in conjunction with its university-industry-government partnership the Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium (ABSIC), is engaged in ground-breaking work that investigates the impact of natural and advanced technologies on the physical, environmental and social quality in buildings and communities. The CBPD works to advance building systems and systems integration for environmental sustainability; human health and productivity; and organizational flexibility and performance.

CodeLab

The CodeLab (Computational Design Laboratory) is a post-disciplinary research and learning laboratory exploring critical questions and creative opportunities at the nexus of design, computation and the built environment. Current work includes research into experimental design and fabrication systems, tangible interaction, spatial analytics, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, data visualization and architectural robotics, and theoretical questions concerning technology in design.

Remaking Cities Institute

The Remaking Cities Institute (RCI) is Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s research center for urbanism, participatory action and community design. The RCI’s mission is to catalyze spatial equity and resilience in the future of cities. It provides a forum for transdisciplinary discourse and collaboration, radical imagination, creative advocacy and place-based activism in response to the most urgent contemporary issues in urbanism. It contributes to the Pittsburgh region’s revitalization and advances community leadership in that process.

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

PJ Dick Innovation Fund: Faculty Grants Program

In 2023, the PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group established an Innovation Fund to support the pedagogical mission of Carnegie Mellon Architecture. The fund supports the Faculty Grants Program, which supports faculty research and teaching innovations that address the school’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. Carnegie Mellon Architecture is proud to announce the 2024 awardees for the PJ Dick Innovation Fund Faculty Grants Program. A total of $100,000 has been awarded to 16 project and teaching grant proposals. The Faculty Grants Program will award a total of $400,000 over four years and is open to all full time faculty at the school. The proposals were assessed for their impact in furthering a faculty member’s research and teaching, their contribution to interrogating the school’s challenges, their viability to garner further research support, make an impact on the discipline and expand the pedagogy of the school.

2024 PROJECT GRANTS

Project Grants support projects that address the school’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The grants support the diverse work of Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s faculty in creative practice, professional practice, artistic practice, funded research, participatory design, design build, curation, scholarship, critical and digital humanities, and more. The intention of the PJ Dick Project Grants Program is to provide support for a variety of projects including faculty seed funds to start a project with the aim of getting external support, to continue work on a project that may not have the option for sponsored research, and to support organizing symposia and conferences at the school.

The proposals were evaluated by a committee comprised of school head Omar Khan; associate heads Joshua Bard, Mary-Lou Arscott and Kai Gutschow; Erica Cochran Hameen, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Theodossis Issaias, Special Faculty; Jenn Joy Wilson, Assistant Dean for Research Development and Sponsored Projects; and Aaron Martin, Associate Director, Institutional Partnerships, College of Fine Arts.

2024 TEACHING GRANTS

Teaching Grants recognize that the future of architecture and its related industries starts with the education of the profession’s next generation of practitioners through innovative pedagogies. The teaching grants are focused on supporting changes to existing courses and development of new courses that focus on the three challenges.

Jeremy Ficca, Associate Professor; “Farm to Prototype: Constructing Biogenic Robustness through Hempcrete Prototypes”

Tommy CheeMou Yang, Visiting Special Faculty; “Village in the City, City in the Village: The Twelve Villages of San Pu Loei”

Sarosh Anklesaria, Assistant Teaching Professor; “Contestations of Modernity: Origins, Obsolescence and Liberatory Futures for a City Museum”

Vernelle A. A. Noel, Lucian and Rita Caste Assistant Professor in Architecture; “Craft Practices and Computation in Three Cultures: Pittsburgh, South Carolina and Thailand”

Matthew Huber, Special Faculty; “(de)Mass(ing) Timber: Geometric and Tectonic Strategies for Material Resource Reduction in Timber Construction”

Azadeh Sawyer, Assistant Professor in Building Technology; “Leveraging AI for Equitable Lighting: Smart and Adaptive Solutions for Healthy Environments”

Vicki Achnani, Associate Studio Professor; “The Second Life: From Waste to Oasis_ A Greenhouse Design-Build Project Using Bamboo as the Primary Material”

Priyanka Bista, Joseph F. Thomas Visiting Professor; “Sharing the Entangled Stories of the Anthropocene: Multispecies Conflicts /Multispecies Futures Globally and Locally”

Joshua Lee, Assistant Professor; “Sustainable Design for Uncertain Futures Book Production and Website Enhancement Support”

Juney Lee, T. David Fitz-Gibbon Assistant Professor of Architecture; “Regenerative Structures Laboratory: Seed Funding for Pilot Prototype”

Jongwan Kwon, Assistant Teaching Professor; “Urbanism and Social Production of Space”

Dana Cupkova, Associate Professor; “Image Deep: /Contested Matter”

Francesca Torello, Special Faculty; “The Pittsburgh Sequence”

Jared Abraham, Associate Studio Professor; “Mixed Use in Pittsburgh’s ‘Climate Haven’”

Daragh Byrne, Associate Teaching Professor; “Data Dump: Unmaking Intelligent Spaces”

Tuliza Sindi, Ann Kalla Visiting Professor in Architecture; “Unreasonable Architecture”

Awards

Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s annual awards program provides over $100,000 to support travel, projects, internships and research for undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and alumni. The awards recognize student work in public interest design, representation and design, sustainability and professional promise.

We appreciate the generous support of our donors for making these awards available and the juries for their work evaluating the applicants. We also extend our thanks to EPIC Metals for sponsoring the reception following the spring awards ceremony

2023-24 Awards Committee: Meredith Marsh (Chair), Joshua Bard, Christi Danner, Omar Khan

PROJECT & INTERNSHIP SUPPORT

Burdett Assistantship

B.Arch & M.Arch Student Award

This award is open to all Carnegie Mellon Architecture students pursuing their first professional degree in architecture and is intended to support projects and activities that will enhance the winning student’s future work.

Fall 2023 Jury: Matthew Huber (Chair), Vicki Achnani, Nina Baird, Jongwan Kwon

Awardee: Graana Khan, B.Arch ’24

Proposal: Architectural Non-Form Manifestations: How Pashtun Women

Experience Their World Orally Award: $4,000

Jury Comment: Thisprojectisuniqueand inspiringinincorporatingethnographic research,usingthefundstosupport outreachoftenimpossibleintheisolated worldoftheacademy,andexemplifying BobBurdett’slegacyofchampioning respectforothers.

Awardee: Ella Moon, B.Arch ’26

Proposal: Cells to Structures: Applications of Biomimetic Design in Adaptable Structures Award: $4,000

Jury Comment: Remarkable for its thoroughnessandrigor,thisproposal offersaclearlydefinedresearch trajectorywithacarefulnessthatbefits theAssistantship’sdevotiontopatience. Itisanexcitingsynergyofprocess,theory andtechnology.

Awardee: Meghan Pisarcik, M.Arch ’24

Proposal: Fabricated Light Structure Award: $4,000

Jury Comment: Thisproposalextends theapplicant’spersistent,academic career-spanningexplorationsinthe craft,tectonicsandform-making potentialsofglasssculpture.Morethan anyotherproposal,itdemonstratesthe Assistantship’scallforloveofsubject,an obviousdevotiontomaking.

Alwin Cassens, Jr. Memorial Fund in Architecture Student Award

This award provides financial support to Carnegie Mellon Architecture students to attend conferences or other events in support of their academic pursuits in the area of public interest design.

Fall 2023 Jury: Matthew Huber (Chair), Vicki Achnani, Nina Baird, Jongwan Kwon

Awardee: Valeria Duque Villegas, MUD ’25 Proposal: Model. Barcelona Architectures Festival Award: $2,200

Jury Comment: In service to the award’s missionofpursuingpublicinterest design,Valeriaproposestoexploreissues ofculturalidentityinLatinAmerican architectureandurbanismthrougha decolonizinglens,seekingtoequip herself at a conference in Barcelona focusedonradicalempathy.Perhapalso, theuniquehistoryofCatalonianidentityin theSpanishcolonialcontextwillserveas further fodder for her work.

Awardee: Priyanka Thakur, M.Arch ’24

Proposal: Bouw met Bamboa! Rotterdam Award: $2,200

Jury Comment: Priyanka’sproposal lookstostrengthenheralreadyrobust knowledgearoundandnetworkof contactsinbambooconstruction.Already anemergingexpertvoice,Priyankasees bamboo as an alternative to conventional construction materials that is sustainable andresilientandthatoffersskillbuilding opportunitiesinthepublicinterest.

Measuring & Monitoring Services, Inc.

Internship Fund

Undergraduate Student Award

This award provides financial support to undergraduate students who wish to undertake a summer internship or related program under the guidance of established professionals during the summer preceding their final year of undergraduate study.

Fall 2023 Jury: Matthew Huber (Chair), Vicki Achnani, Nina Baird, Jongwan Kwon

Awardee: Jeffrey Li, B.Arch ’25

Internship: Internship at Arup Award: $3,200

Jury Comment: Jeffrey’sapplication demonstratedanopportunityatArup,one oftheworld’spremierengineeringfirms, toengageinlearningfromarigorous environmentandacultureofproblem solving,whilefocusingonavarietyof thegrandchallengesthatmotivateour pedagogy.

RESEARCH AWARDS

Ferguson

Jacobs Prize in Architecture Student Award

This award was established to promote the continuity of traditional architecture and building techniques in contemporary architectural practice. The prize supports projects, travel experiences, individual apprenticeships or internships that explore traditional architecture and building techniques as knowledge vital to an architect’s education, practice and scholarship.

Fall 2023 Jury: Joshua D. Lee (Chair), Douglas Cooper, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Francesca Torello

Awardee: Natalie Waldram, B.Arch ’23

Proposal: Rituals of Reconstruction, Maintenance and Repair of Traditional Japanese Wooden Architecture Award: $6,500

Jury Comment: Thejuryfound Natalie’s interest in both traditional and contemporarypracticesofcare,along withthelistofprojectsthroughout JapanandKorea,compelling.Welook forwardtoreviewingtheproposedbook ofarchitecturaldrawings,collaged photographyandexperientialnarratives.

Isabel Sophia Liceaga Discretionary Fund Faculty Award

This award was established to support faculty-led projects that critically engage students and advance the mission and reputation of the school.

Fall 2023 Jury: Jonathan Kline (Chair), Juney Lee, Steve Lee, Sarah Rafson

Awardee: Vicki Achnani

Proposal: Bending Active Systems — Bamboo Research Pavilion: Prototyping Material and Spanning System in Bamboo Using Robotic Arms and Steam-Bending Award: $3,000

Jury Comment: ThejuryfeltthatVicki’s proposalhadagreatpotentialforcritical studentengagementbecausethegrant isaimedatdirectlysupportingapair ofdesign-buildmaterialexploration seminars.Theproposalsupportsthe missionoftheschoolandwillhelp advance Vicki’s career.

TRAVEL AWARDS

Gindroz Prize for Summer Travel and Study in Europe Student Award

This award was established to enrich lives and enhance education through travel and the study of traditional architecture, urbanism and music in Europe.

Fall 2023 Jury: Joshua D. Lee (Chair), Douglas Cooper, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Francesca Torello

Awardee: David Vargas, B.Arch ’26

Proposal: Canal Cities of the Netherlands and Belgium Award: $10,000

Jury Comment: Thejuryappreciated theproject’spotentialfordetailed documentation of locations that have dealt with the existential threat of sea levelriseformanygenerations.David’s personalconnectiontothisissueand extraordinaryportfolioofhanddrawings led to this selection.

Luther S. Lashmit and Louis F. Valentour

Traveling Scholarships

B.Arch Student Awards

These awards support international travel and research under the guidance of a faculty advisor for students with one or more years remaining in their degree program.

Fall 2023 Jury: Joshua D. Lee (Chair), Douglas Cooper, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Francesca Torello

Awardee: Henry Von Rintelen, B.Arch ’25

Title: Latin America: Fusion as an Act of Survival Award: $6,500

Jury Comment: Thejurywasintrigued byHenry’srecognitionoftheideological contradictionsbetweentheoriginal intentionsandcontemporaryusageof manyprojectsthroughoutMexico,Brazil andPeru andwasconvincedbythe detaileditinerarywithspecificcases.

Awardee: Nathan Cottrell, B.Arch ’27

Title: Exploring Chiang Mai, Thailand’s Vernacular Lanna Compound Homes Award: $6,500

Jury Comment: Throughaseriesof drawingsanddocumentaries,theproject will share the embedded wisdom and evolutionofcommunalhomesinresponse tothecity’sdestructivetop-downplanning.

Awardee: Morgan Newman, PhD-Arch

Title: Spatial Research Methods at Forensic Architecture (FA) and Goldsmiths University Award: $6,500

Jury Comment: Theawardwillsupport Morgan’sdoctoraldissertation proposal,advisedbyNidaRehman,to mapenvironmentalsacrificezonesin Alabama’sBlackBeltregionandidentify racializedspatialpatterns.

DESIGN & REPRESENTATION AWARDS

EPIC Metals Competition

B.Arch Student Award

The EPIC Metals Corporation sponsors the EPIC Metals Competition for thirdyear Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) students in the Praxis II Studio to design an innovative project incorporating metal deck systems. The project brief for the 19th annual competition in 2024 was Margaret Morrison corridor campus improvements.

Spring 2024 Jury: Michael Schuyler, AIA (Manager of Estimating, EPIC Metals Corporation); Steve Lee; Praxis II Studio faculty Jeremy Ficca (coordinator), Vicki Achnani, Erica Cochran Hameen, Jeff King, Jongwan Kwon

First Place: Benni Guo, B.Arch ’26 & Patrick Zheng, B.Arch ’26 Award: $3,000

Jury Comment: Thedesignproposalis assertiveinitsstructurallanguageand invitingtothecampuscommunitythrough itsopenness.Thedesignthoughtfully incorporatesvariousEPICMetals productsatappropriatescaleandutility.

Second Place: Tina Han, B.Arch ’26 & Angela Yang, B.Arch ’26 Award: $2,600

Jury Comment: Thedesignproposal achievesdynamicstructuralexpression throughlivelyandkineticgroupingsof forms and materials.

Third Place: Zoe Liu, B.Arch ’26 & Jack Zhu, B.Arch ’26 Award: $2,200

Jury Comment: Thedesignproposal presentsadelicateandelegantsolution thatthoughtfullycombinestranslucent andperforatedcanopymaterialsto achievealightcanopystructure.

John Knox Shear Award B.Arch Student Award

This award recognizes exceptional design and representation as demonstrated through studio work.

Spring 2024 Jury: Laura Garófalo (Chair), Jongwan Kwon, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Vernelle A. A. Noel

Awardee: Chengming (Jacky) Jia, B.Arch ’25 Award: $14,000

Jury Comment: Chengming(Jacky) Jia’sstrongfocusoncraftandmaterial productionisclearlyevidentinhis portfolioandwelldefinedinhisstatement. Thisexplorationisstronglyenhancedby hiscapabilitiesasadesignerandevident loveforcraft.Thecommitteehopesto supporthisinvestmentinthecraftor inarchitecture,promotingcontinued explorationwiththisaward.

PROFESSIONAL PROMISE AWARD

Stewart L. Brown Memorial Scholarship

B.Arch Student Award

This award recognizes professional promise in terms of attitudes and scholastic achievement. Applicants submit a design portfolio and a statement articulating their interest in professional practice. A jury convened by the Pittsburgh AIA reviews the portfolios, interviews finalists and selects the awardee.

Spring 2024 Jury: Pittsburgh AIA Chapter leadership: Sean Sheffler (President), John Ryan (Immediate Past President), Bob Shelton (First Vice President)

Awardee: Neha Chopra, B.Arch ’25 Award: $10,000

Jury Comment: Thejurywasquite taken with the demeanor and character displayedbyNehaChopra.Her“fursat” project,completedindependentlyin India,representedtousthetruespiritof architecturalpractice—scale,material, budgetandleadership—thatwefeelthis awardwasintendedtorecognize.

PUBLIC INTEREST DESIGN AWARDS

George W. Anderson, Jr. Award Graduate Student Award

This award recognizes graduate students who demonstrate through their work an exceptional level of attention to detail or dedication to beneficially impacting the community. The 10 finalists presented Pecha Kucha presentations of their work to fellow students and faculty on March 25, 2024.

Spring 2024 Jury: Joshua Bard (Chair), Nina Baird, Kristen Kurland

First Place: Jil Berenblum, MSSD ’24; Nandan Bhusury, MSSD ’24

& Rovina George, M.Arch ’24

Title: MYCOFLAME: In Care of Forest Biomes and Wild Fire Resiliency Award: $2,500

Jury Comment: Thisprojectdemonstrates agreatcombinationofempiricalstudy, physicalprototypingandprojectivedesign thinking.

Runner-up:

Valeria Duque Villegas, MUD ’25

Title: Enhancing the Social Impact of Natural Rehabilitation: Harnessing Natural Recomposition as a Catalyst for Social Transformation; Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: Thejurywasimpressed withtheproject’smulti-scalarapproach andtheentwiningofsocialandecological systemsintheproject.

Runner-up: Trevor Orgill, M.Arch ’24

Title: HomeCraft Workshop: The Expandable House — Studies in Recycling, Repurposing Building

Materials In Urban Villages of Chiang Mai Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: Thejuryappreciated theproject’scommitmenttomultiple modesofdesignexploration,inparticular photography,drawingandphysical modelingofveryhighquality.

Runner-up: Koushik Srinath, MUD ’24

Title: Reclaiming Platform Futures: Towards Alternative Models of Cities and Data; Award: $1,500

Jury Comment: Thejuryappreciatedthis projectandhowitmadetheabstractand systemicconcretethroughaclosereadof thebuiltrealitiesofthecity.

David Lewis Community Engagement

Design Scholarship Student Award

This award provides financial support to students who demonstrate a commitment to working within diverse communities through participatory architectural design processes and who demonstrate commitments to social justice and community service.

Spring 2024 Jury: Stefan Gruber (Chair), Tuliza Sindi, Francesca Torello, An Lewis

Awardee: Seyoung Choo, MUD ’25

Title: Continued Interest in Working with the Korean Community; Award: $2,500

Jury Comment: The work demonstrates thedesigner’ssustainedcommitment tospatialjusticeandrepairacross herresearch,designandpractice endeavors,andengagestheimportance ofeveryone’sroleintheproductionof justspaces.Theselectedworkeffectively deploysrepresentationinwaysthat communicate with and touch a diverse rangeofaudiences,andtheworkexplores expansivedefinitionsofcommunity engagement,fromartistic,tosocial,to scientific.

Awardee: Jeffrey Li, B.Arch ’25 Award: $4,500

Jury Comment: The committee selected JeffreyLiforhisexceptionalachievement inintegratingsustainabledesign principles,bothpassiveandactive, resultinginanet-zeroenergybuilding thatelegantlyalignswithaesthetic considerations. His extensive attention tophysics,buildingscienceandhighperformanceenvelopeandsystems distinguishhiswork,demonstratinga commendablelevelofdevelopmentand systemsintegration.

TRAVEL AWARD

Master of Architecture (M.Arch) Travel Awards

The Master of Architecture program grants travel awards each spring for selected students who have submitted a travel proposal and project plan.

Awardee: Connor Gates, Iceland (Reykjavik): Landscapes as Infrastructures

SUSTAINABILITY AWARD

Payette Prize in Building Science Student Award

This award recognizes the accomplishments of a student who has achieved exceptional performance by integrating the fundamentals of building science in their design work.

Spring 2024 Jury: Azadeh Sawyer (Chair), Nina Baird, Anne Chen, Kristen Kurland

Awardee: Riddhi Gugale, Japan: Bottom-up, Adaptive and Emergent Ways — Transforming Public Spaces in Japan’s Urban Context

Awardee: Parikshit Kalavadia, Spain (Barcelona, Palamos, Olot): Investigating the Work of RCR Arquitectes

Awardee: Claire Laux, Canada (Toronto): Architecture and Time — A Study of Brigette Shim and Howard Sutcliffe Architects

Awardee: Clara Martucci, England (London), U.S. (New York City): Next gen Theatres — Exploring Shape-Shifting Theatres, Automation and Adaptive Reuse

Awardee: Abirami Periakaruppan, Spain (Barcelona, Tarragona, Calpe): Urban Living — A Redefinition: Learning from the Tangible Reminders of Architectural Versatility Through the Work of Ricardo Bofill

Awardee: Daria Svintsova, Spain (Barcelona): Sheltering Humanity — Architectural Responses to the Global Refugee Crisis

Awardee: Jenish Thakkar, Portugal (Porto, Braga, Lisbon): Spatial Dialogues — Materiality, Minimalism and Plastic-FormMaking through Abstraction in Eduardo Souto De Moura’s Works

GRADUATION AWARDS

Carnegie Mellon Architecture recognizes the outstanding achievement of graduating students through its annual Graduation Awards program. The winners are announced during the annual Diploma Ceremony.

Alpha Rho Chi Medal B.Arch & M.Arch Student Award

This award recognizes graduating architecture students for their leadership and service and what they offer the future of the profession. One graduate from either the B.Arch or the M.Arch program is eligible to receive this award each year.

Awardee: Anishwar Tirupathur, B.Arch ’24

AIA Medal for Academic Excellence B.Arch & M.Arch Student Award

This award is granted to the top graduating students in NAAB-accredited degrees, including Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s B.Arch and M.Arch programs.

Recipients: Rebecca Cunningham, B.Arch ’24 & Rachel Ruscigno, M.Arch ’24

Alumni Design Award

B.Arch Student Award

This award is granted by the faculty to a graduating student in the B.Arch program to recognize exceptional design and representation as demonstrated through studio work within the last two years of the program.

Spring 2024 Jury: Mary-Lou Arscott (Chair), Heather Bizon, Gerard Damiani, Jeremy Ficca, Laura Garófalo, Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Heather Workinger, Tommy CheeMou Yang, Omar Khan (ex-officio), Kai Gutschow (exofficio)

Recipients: Brian Hartman, B.Arch ’24 & Shray Tripathi, B.Arch ’24

Masters Thesis/Capstone Project Graduation Awards

These awards recognize exceptional design research through a thesis or capstone project within Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s master’s programs.

Kui-Yang Yang, MAAD ’24

Thesis: Addressing Material Uncertainty: A Methodology for Repurposing Waste and Reclaimed Materials in Architecture

Autumn Dsouza, M.Arch ’24

Thesis: Sympoetic Shores: An Intercalar Architecture for Sri Lanka’s Coastal Futures

Team D.O.W.J.anes: Deepanshi Jaiswal, MSAECM ’23; Yunxiao Jin, MSAECM ’23; Wei-Ni Ting, MSAECM ’23; and Junqi Wang, MSAECM ’23

Project: Social Impacts of Adaptive Reuse in the Conversion of Vacant Office Buildings to Residential in Downtown Pittsburgh

Laura Lasariia, MSBPD ’24

Thesis: A Toolkit of Sustainable Surfaces for Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience

Zhixin (Felicia) Luo, MSCD ’24

Thesis: A 4D Diary Co-Authored by Human and Machine: Interactively Visualize, Control and Understand Data Collection and Machine Learning Computation Within Built Environments

Nandan Bhusry, MSSD ’24

Thesis: Facades as Passive Dehumidifiers

Koushik Srinath, MUD ’24

Thesis: Reclaiming Platform Futures: Towards Alternative Models of Cities and Data

ARCC King Student Medal Program for Excellence in Architectural + Environmental Research PhD Student Award

This award is given by the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) based upon criteria that acknowledge innovation, integrity and scholarship in architectural and/or environmental design research.

Recipient: Tian Li, PhD-BPD ’24

Dissertation: AI-Driven Building Energy and Carbon Emissions Benchmarking at Multiple Scales

ALUMNI AWARD

Carnegie Mellon Architecture offers a spring alumni award on a biannual schedule.

TRAVEL AWARD

Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship Alumni Award

This award supports Carnegie Mellon Architecture alumni in the study of collections belonging to locales to promote the professional development of awardees and contribute to the richness of our surroundings.

2024 Jury: Douglas Cooper, faculty and muralist; Gerard Damiani, faculty and practitioner; Daniel Garber, FAIA, practicing architect (B.Arch ’79); Sheldon Goettel, retired practitioner (B.Arch ’79); Can Tiryaki, practitioner and former Highlands awardee (B.Arch ’98); Heather Young, practicing architect

Awardee: Susie Kim, B.Arch ’23

Proposal: Hiroshima as Tabular Rasa: A New Modern Urban Ethos in Response to Crisis and Uncertainty

183 Carnegie Mellon Architecture

AUGUST

Hunt Library hosts Color Constructs exhibit, featuring 45 color studies in model, collage and digital form by students under Associate Professor Laura Garófalo’s instruction. → 1

SEPTEMBER

The Minority Architects of Pittsburgh Scholarship (MAPS) awards scholarships to the following students in fall 2023: Janessa Gaston, M.Arch ’25; Shayla Thomas, M.Arch ’24; Neha Chopra, B.Arch ’25; Elizabeth Hager, B.Arch ’26; Camilla Martinez, B.Arch ’26; Shazadi Padda, B.Arch ’26; and Starr Wasler, B.Arch ’26. Spring 2024 award recipients are: Priyanka Thakur (M.Arch ’24), Rovina George (M.Arch ’24), Moyin Okulate (M.Arch ’24) and Abirami Periakaruppan (M.Arch ’25).

Fourth-year B.Arch student Andy Weiwen Jiang, advised by Special Faculty Tommy CheeMou Yang, creates an interactive archive of community voices in Thai villages facing urbanization and loss of agricultural land. → 2

CMU’s College of Fine Arts Magazine features alumni Goil Amornvivat (A’96) and Betty Rexrode (A’89), illustrating how their architecture education enabled them to forge successful pathways and make positive contributions to the world. → 3

Associate Professor Daniel Cardoso Llach with co-editor Theodora Vardouli launches a new book, “Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design” in Montréal book launch . The book is later presented at McGill University’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and Florida Atlantic University in the spring. → 4

Assistant Professor Juney Lee contributes a chapter to the recently published book “FABRIC[ated]”. The book examines fabric as a catalyst for innovation, reflection, change and transformation in architecture and explores the ways in which research and development of fabric can revolutionize architecture, teaching and design.

This year’s New Pedagogies courses focus on the school’s three pedagogical challenges: climate change, artificial intelligence and social justice. These classes include: Co-Designing Vertical University’s Living Classroom in Kurule taught by Priyanka Bista; Material Regeneration taught by Jongwan Kwon; A Multiple-Making Approach to Inquiry in Craft + Computation taught by Vernelle A. A. Noel; and Unsettling Ground: Retiring the God View, taught by Tuliza Sindi.

Professor and Head Omar Khan is quoted in an article in Architectural Record about the school’s pedagogical engagement with AI.

Associate Professor Gerard Damiani partners with Mason Contractors Association of Western PA and the International Masonry Institute to create a series of masonry lanterns on the College of Fine Arts terrace as part of the Materials & Assembly course. → 1

Visiting Professor Priyanka Bista’s Vertical University Project, as a part of creative solutions to the climate crisis, is featured in the exhibition Design for the Common Good International in Budapest, Hungary and in the publication “It’s Freezing in L.A.”

Associate Professor Dana Cupkova contributes to the international architectural jury CEZAAR 2023, organized by the Slovak Chamber of Architects. The jury serves as an opinion-forming entity with the aim of increasing awareness and the value of architecture, public spaces and the environment among the general public.

Assistant Professor Nida Rehman is a panelist for Unsettling Matter, Gaining Ground, a public symposium organized by faculty Theo Issaias and Ala Tannir at the Carnegie Museum of Art on Oct. 6. Prof. Rehman participates in the panel discussion “At the Front Lines” on the intersections of creative practices and frontline communities organizing for social and environmental justice. She also presents the paper “Anthropocene in the Garden” at The Next Monsoon: Climate Change and Contemporary Cultural Production in South Asia, at Cornell.

Special Faculty Tommy CheeMou Yang publishes an article in “The Scientist Designer and Storyteller” as part of the “Nature of Cities” Global Roundtable supported by the United States Forest Service Department of Agriculture. He also publishes a book chapter with Brian McGrath et al. titled “Urban designs as social-natural resolutions” in “Nature-Based Solutions for Cities” edited by Timon McPhearson, et al.

Assistant Professor Vernelle A. A. Noel guest edits a special issue of Digital Creativity titled “Critical Computational Relations in Design, Architecture and the Built Environment” with Yana Boeva. The issue also includes “Form Data as a Resource in Architectural Analysis” by Michael Hasey, Jinmo Rhee and Daniel Cardoso Llach.

Assistant Professor Erica Cochran Hameen is featured in a Scientific American article highlighting four researchers who are addressing environmental inequities and improving the health of their communities.

Faculty and alumni on project teams at Pittsburgh-based design firms are recognized for outstanding design at the 2023 Design Pittsburgh Awards. Winners include:

mossArchitects claims three awards under the leadership of former faculty member Andrew Moss, including the project Flemish51 on Butler, which earns a Certificate of Merit in the small projects category and included adjunct Katie LaForest on the project team. → 2

Fall 2023

Nickie Cheung, AIA (B.Arch ’18) serves on the project team for the Chatham Anderson Dining Hall entry by Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, which receives a Certificate of Merit in the medium projects category. → 1

Anne Chen, AIA, adjunct faculty, serves on the project team for the Willkommen on Vine entry by GBBN, which receives an Honor Award. → 2

Tonya Markiewicz, adjunct faculty, serves on the project team for the Eighth & Penn entry by PWWG Architects, which receives an Honor Award in the large projects category. → 3

Associate Teaching Professor Daragh Byrne, with Dina El-Zanfaly (Design), receives a Southwest Pennsylvania Build Back Better subgrant, announced by CMU’s Block Center. Technology and Society, for their proposal “Machine Learning Augmented Youth Welding Training Support from Ideation, Planning, to Manufacturing.” The nine awardees support skills-focused training programs that will help Southwestern Pennsylvanians secure jobs in robotics and advanced manufacturing.

Tannaz Afshar (PhD-AECM) and Associate Teaching Professor Joshua Lee present “Urban Mining in the Rust Belt: Lessons from Pittsburgh’s Deconstruction Pilot Project” on Oct. 20 in Amherst, Massachusetts at the 2023 ACSA/AIA Intersections Research Conference: Material Economies.

Morgan Newman (PhD-Arch) presents a paper, “Designing For Liberation: Reparative Design Through The Lens of Activism and Abolition In The Black Belt” at the Urban History Conference in Pittsburgh. She is also a presenter on the panel, “From Region to Rights: Land, Dispossession, and Race in Postwar America.”

AI and Architecture Studio Instructor Manuel Rodríguez Ladrón de Guevara travels to Paris to present a paper, part of his PhD research and developed in Adobe Research, at the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), one of the largest and most important conferences in AI. He is also invited as a guest speaker to talk about AI and architecture at an important architecture organization in Barcelona.

NOVEMBER

Ashley Archie (MUD ’15) and Lizzie MacWillie (B.Arch ’07) address social justice issues in the built environment through policy, advocacy and activism. A partnerships officer in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Global Partnerships, Archie forges collaborations among the federal government and the private sector to advance foreign policy priorities like global health, sustainability and emerging technologies and is now contributing to sustainable reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. MacWillie’s varied experience from working at a global firm to a community design center and

now Assistant Director of the J. Max Bond Center for Urban Futures, proves that all architects and designers possess the agency — as individuals with knowledge, skills and training about policy and the built environment — to show up for justice work.

Teaching Professor Kristen Kurland moderates a webinar, Reinventing Construction Through Location Intelligence, sponsored by Engineering News Network and Esri, Inc. on Nov. 14. Prof. Kurland, co-chair of the Geographical and Geospatial Sciences Committee of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine hosts the fall meeting The Geospatial Workforce Crisis: A Diversity of Pathways Forward.

Assistant Professor Nida Rehman and Aparna Parikh (Penn State) hosts a book panel for Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology by Maan Barua (University of Minnesota Press, 2023). The book focuses on the multitude of entities — human and nonhuman — that make up the material politics of city making, helping us rethink infrastructure, the built environment, design, habitation and everyday practices of dwelling in South Asia and beyond.

PhD-BPD candidate Suzy Li’s research “Pittsburgh analysis for land surface temperature and tree coverage correlation image” is selected for the ESRI founder’s plenary presentation at the ESRI user conference. She presents “Assessing Social Equity and Urban Heat Risk: A Case Study of Pittsburgh” at GIS DAY 2023: Sustainable Cities and Communities on Nov. 15. The event is hosted by CMU Libraries.

Rachel Ruscigno (M.Arch ’24) receives the AIA Pennsylvania Student Award for outstanding academic achievement and design. The AIA award signifies the preparedness of a graduating student in architecture to embrace the challenges and responsibilities of a professional career in architectural design. She is conferred the award at AIA Pittsburgh’s Design Pittsburgh Architectural Excellence Design Awards celebration on Nov. 16.

Adjunct Nazia Tarannum joins the Department of City Planning for the City of Pittsburgh as Principal Planner in Community Planning.

University Professor Vivian Loftness gives in-person keynotes at the World Health City Conference and Ewha University on “The Design of Sustainable, Smart, Resilient & Healthy Cities” for the Future, Nov. 20-22 in Seoul, South Korea, and Professor Emeritus Volker Hartkopf gives remote keynotes on “Campuses as Living Laboratories for a Net Zero & Healthy Future.” Three PhD alumni, Dr. Khee Poh Lam (NUS Dean), Dr. Jie Zhao (WELL Director of Research) and Dr. Jihyun Park (Assistant Professor Ewha University), also keynote at the conference.

Assistant Prof. Vernelle A. A. Noel presents a project paper Carnival + AI: Heritage, Virtual Spaces and Machine Learning (ML), and a Field Note paper, Text-to-image Generators: Semiotics, Semantics, and Society at ACADIA 2023: Habits of the Anthropocene at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Profs. Stefan Gruber and Christine Mondor participate in the panel “Remaking Cities: the Future for Downtown Buildings” as part of AIA Pittsburgh’s Architecture Week 2023. Gruber also discusses post-Covid recovery of downtowns in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and on Stephen Henderson’s radio show Detroit Today.

Profs. Stefan Gruber and Jonathan Kline travel to Tbilisi, Georgia with the second year MUD cohort for field work and research on practices and spaces of commoning in the city’s transition from post-Soviet planning. Their research is part of the exhibition “An Atlas of Commoning” at the 4th Tbilisi Architecture Biennale in 2024.

Profs. Joshua Bard and Francesca Torello’s article “Architecture is Interface: Latent Virtuality from Antiquity to Zoom” is published in Architectural Design. The article contends that a sophisticated culture of hybrid, physical and virtual spaces runs through architecture’s history. The article features Bard and Torello’s collaborative work and student projects from their team-taught studios.

DECEMBER

Gary Li (B.Arch ’17) is named principal at Kostow Greenwood Architects.

Associate Professor Stefan Gruber is granted a fellowship at THE NEW INSTITUTE in Hamburg, Germany. This prestigious institute brings together academics with politicians, entrepreneurs, journalists and artists from around the world to develop social imaginaries for future societies. Prof. Gruber works with a transdisciplinary team on “Reclaiming Common Wealth: Towards a Law and Political Economy of Land Commons,” a project exploring possible pathways, processes and institutional designs for the generation and governance of land commons.

Special Faculty Christine Mondor receives a grant to develop scenario planning methods in collaboration with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Mondor and her evolveEA team also collaborate with the Trust for Public Land to lead a multi-city national cohort exploring the intersection of parks and affordable housing.

Special Faculty Tommy CheeMou Yang hosts a workshop with National Cheng Kung University in Thailand in collaboration with Brian McGrath and Cheng Luen Hsueh, “From Chang Moi to San Pu Loei,” Dec. 24-29. The workshop explores the existing house and temple “compound” strategy of urban villages, which structures growth around small collections of interrelated buildings sharing common open-courtyard spaces, and focuses on community-based designs for social inclusion and ecological resilience in the urban-to-rural transformation based on current villagers’ values of “gastronomy, agriculture and craft.”

Fall 2023

Carnegie Mellon Architecture launches a new website and branding designed by Luke Bulman. → See 202

PhD-BPD students Tian Li and Haipei Bie, faculty members Azadeh Sawyer and Vivian Loftness, and Tepper MBA student Yi Lu publish a study in the top building science journal Applied Energy (IF: 11.2) in special issue: AI in Low Carbon Emissions. The study proposes a precise building monthly energy benchmarking approach (MEBA) using AI techniques.

Jon Zubiller, Assoc. AIA (B.Arch ’99, CEE ’00) promoted to Senior Associate at David M. Schwarz Architects.

Jordan Luther, AIAS, NOMA, Assoc. AIA (M.Arch ’23) elected the AIAS National President for 2024-25.

Taylor Latimer, NOMA (B.Arch ’21) elected President of the New Jersey chapter of NOMA.

Aksha Pandya (MSAECM ’23) and Shekhar Damaria (MSAECM ’23) are awarded the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) Three Rivers chapter’s 2024 Presidential Scholarship.

Associate Professor Gerard Damiani’s residential project, the Thorne Residence in Sewickley Heights, is featured as House of the Month in the February 2024 issue of Architectural Record. The elegant home is the culmination of intensive materials research inspired by the poured concrete walls of Henry Hornbostel’s College of Fine Arts building. → 1

MARCH

Vina Wei (PhD-CD '28) uses AI for online engagement in interactive fabrication. Her robotic assembly research uses real-time monitoring to potentially transform the making convention in architectural fabrication from a linear process to an interactive loop.

Susie Kim (B.Arch ’23) is awarded Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s 2024 Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship for her proposal “Hiroshima as Tabular Rasa: a new modern urban ethos in response to crisis and uncertainty.” The fellowship supports alumni in the study of collections belonging to locales to promote the professional development of awardees and contribute to the richness of our surroundings.

Jason Shannon (B.Arch '03) and Paola Yañez (B.Arch '03) and their practice J_spy develop a project to address the affordable housing crisis, offering a free house design, Free Haus.

Raymond L. Gindroz, FAIA, alum and former faculty member, publishes “Taking a Pen For a Walk”, in which he shares over two decades of experiences of place through drawing. Accompanied by concise yet charmingly anecdotal and informative commentary, this collection of over 500 travel sketches invites the reader to discover the hidden language that buildings speak, one deeply rooted in both history and the human experience.

Associate Professor Daniel Cardoso Llach delivers a keynote address on Feb. 23 at the fourth Hemispheric Meeting of Deans and Directors of Architecture schools of North, Central and South America, held in Puebla, Mexico. Focusing on AI and architectural education, Cardoso’s talk links the long history of generative design methods in architecture to the current state of the art, and features recent research by his research group at the school’s Computational Design Laboratory.

Assistant Professor Erica Cochran Hameen delivers a Power Talk titled “2030 Sustainability Goals - We Got This! What’s next for 2050?” during the inaugural CMU Energy Week Research Summit on Mar. 21.

Associate Teaching Professor Joshua Lee travels to Kochi, India, to launch a new design trophy for the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA-India) focused on “Reimagining India’s Everyday Modernism through Adaptive Reuse” to an audience of 3,000 attendees. Professors Sarosh Anklesaria and Lee create the call and form a jury that includes Liliane Wong, Bie Plevoets, adjunct Nazia Tarannum, and others. MSAECM student Tarun Krishna, former President of NASA, invites Lee to present the trophy launch and a talk on his forthcoming book, “Sustainable Design for Uncertain Futures,” with PhD-AECM student Joseph Murray.

Adjunct Stephen Quick offers a tuition-free, remote course, “Skyglow: Where Have All the Stars Gone?” to study light pollution.

APRIL

A project led by Asstistant Professor Azadeh Sawyer with Associate Professor Stefan Gruber receives a grant from the Department of Energy: Energy Future Grants. The project, “Larimer Build 100: A National Model to Transform Disadvantaged Communities Through Clean Energy Home Ownership,” aims to improve energy reliability and resilience in the community by implementing clean energy solutions.

197 Spring 2024

Freedom by Design awarded prize at Impact CMU 2024 on Apr. 11, held by Design for America. Led by students Gabrielle Benson, Hannah Haytko-Desalvo, Nathan Cottrell, David Decker, Zoe Botta and Youstina Riad, the club presents their Mobile Library Project and receives acknowledgement for the project’s efforts and impact within the Pittsburgh community, in partnership with Reading Ready Pittsburgh.

The Journal of Architectural Education acceptsa paper co-authored by Professors Sarosh Anklesaria and Jonathan Kline thatexpands on the work of the Praxis I M.Arch studio to demonstrate how design-studio pedagogy frames emerging discourse on “just transitions” through architectural projects and practices that transform means of production, infrastructure and everyday life.

Associate Professor Daniel Cardoso Llach delivers a lecture at the Biennale Tecnologia in Turin, Italy on Apr. 18 and participates in a conversation with faculty and students at the Politecnico Di Torino about architecture and artificial intelligence on Apr. 19. The lecture presents a critical history of generative design and discusses recent research at Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s CodeLab.

Architectural Crafts Collective members visit Frosty Hollow Lumber Yard for a guided nature walk and tree-identification workshop. ArchCC also joins the school’s public programs to host a lecture and wall-making workshop by Vinu Daniel, founder of the architecture practice Wallmakers. → 2

PhD-BPD candidate and instructor Suzy Li wins the 2024 Graduate Student Teaching Award, part of CMU’s annual Celebration of Education Awards. The committee is impressed by her commitment to students’ learning. Li also receives a $1,500 Travel Award from the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research to present her work at the Geodesign Summit at ESRI.

Second year B.Arch student Christian Duckworth is awarded a $5,000 fellowship from CMU’s Community-Based Research-to-Practice Program. Working closely with Professor Steve Lee and Pittsburgh City Council members Deb Gross and Anthony Coghill, he plans to use the funding to design, prototype and test portable housing solutions that meet the performance criteria of House Bill 2023-2197 and key constituencies in the city.

Associate Professor Jeremy Ficca presents the design research project Incremental House, which receives the Best Project award at the ACSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. → 1

Architecture librarian Lynn Kawaratani presents “Zines: The New Generation of Radical Architecture Little Magazines” at the Association of Architecture School Librarians conference in Vancouver, highlighting a critical technique for teaching and learning about architecture.

Assistant Professor Azadeh Sawyer co-authors a chapter, “Building Better Spaces: Using Virtual Reality to Improve Building Performance,” in Artificial Intelligence in Performance-Driven Design: Theories, Methods, and Tools (Wiley, 2024). She also co-publishes 50 Bird-Friendly Glass Patterns for Sustainable Building Design with the American Bird Conservancy.

Alumni Lola Ben-Alon (PhD-AECM ’20) and Leah Wulfman (B.Arch ’16) are honored as recipients of the 2024 Architectural League Prize on the theme “Dirty.” The annual competition recognizes visionary work by young practitioners and features a lecture series and exhibition organized by the Architectural League of New York and its Young Architects + Designers Committee.

Brent Capron AIA, LEED AP, ASID, ANFA (B.Arch ’96) joins global architecture and design firm Corgan as New York Interiors Studio Design Director and Associate Principal. With more than 25 years of experience in the design industry, Capron will lead the creative endeavors of Corgan’s corporate interiors practice in New York.

A team of students in the school’s Computational Design program, Felicia Luo, Isaac Martinotti and David Troetschel, along with CodeLab visiting scholar Federica Joe Gardella, deliver a paper at the Heri-Tech conference in Florence, Italy on Apr. 29. The team, directed by Associate Professor Daniel Cardoso Llach, present A Multi-scalar and Multi-modal Approach to Architectural Heritage Documentation: An Interactive Digital Representation of the St. Nicholas Chapel.

New Carnegie Mellon Architecture Website Launches

After much anticipation, in February 2024, Carnegie Mellon Architecture launched a new website: architecture.cmu.edu.

And at the launch event, there was more to celebrate — the school rolled out the new Carnegie Mellon Architecture visual identity, which has already appeared around the school on posters, t-shirts, slide decks and more this academic year.

Since joining Carnegie Mellon Architecture as head in 2020, Omar Khan envisioned a new visual identity for the school to reflect its vibrancy, inclusiveness and interdisciplinarity. In 2023, the school began working with the Office of Luke Bulman to envision a new brand identity, which rolled out over the course of the 2023-24 academic year.

In initial meetings with Bulman, Khan described Carnegie Mellon Architecture as a “school of many.” With that in mind, the visual identity is simultaneously well-formed and open. It combines two primary elements: a unit mark and an icon, which may be used independently or in tandem.

Many thanks to the communications staff who collaborated with Digital Pulp on the intensive work of developing the new website and its rollout: Christi Danner and Meredith Marsh.

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Steve Lee, Alumnus, Professor and Former Head of School, Retires

During his 43 years of service, alumnus, professor and former Head of School Steve Lee has had a profound influence on Carnegie Mellon Architecture. Having served as Head from 2008 to 2020, he developed many of the programs, opportunities and partnerships that continue to grow today. But the accomplishments during his tenure as Head are only the beginning of the impact he has had at Carnegie Mellon.

Steve completed his Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1975 and returned to earn a Master of Architecture in Advanced Building Studies in 1977. He started teaching in the school in 1981. He led numerous student design-build projects on campus, worked with John Folan to establish the Urban Design Build Studio and was the faculty advisor for the school’s Solar Decathlon teams in 2002, 2005 and 2007.

Through these activities and others, Steve strove to impart his students with confidence, practical skills and a comprehensive perspective that he hopes will lead them to make more efficient and sustainable design choices in their practice.

Steve reflects on his guiding principles as an educator: “My goal was to form a balance between formal and conceptual understandings of architecture with the pragmatics of architecture. My belief of the school when I was Head — we have always been and should continue to be a school that graduates expert practitioners. With our emphasis on sustainability, computational design and urban design, this means you don’t only have the basic chops of design and formalism, but you also have the basic chops of how to assemble materials in the context of sustainability and computation.”

Read more about Steve’s contributions and see images from Steve’s student days at architecture.cmu.edu/news.

Clockwise from top left: Lee addresses alumni at an event in Beijing, 2016; Design/Build project and completion, 2024; early days of TAI+LEE Architects; on the phone in CFA 200, 1970s; Beaux Arts Ball costumes, 1979

205 Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Student Organizations

National Organization of Minority Architecture Students

inter·punct

American Institute of Architecture Students

Architectural Crafts Collective

Freedom by Design

Undergraduate Architecture Student Advisory Council

Graduate Student Assembly Committee

Architecture Peer Mentors

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

National Organization of Minority Architecture Students

In alignment with the mission of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), the CMU chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS) focuses on creating safe spaces for minority and underrepresented students at Carnegie Mellon Architecture. The organization provides a community of purpose for students by championing diversity, advocating for an education that considers the socioeconomic consequences of design and connecting students to minority professionals in the field.

2023-24 NOMAS CMU Leadership

President: Akanksha Tayal (B.Arch ’25)

Vice President: Jordan Scott Lee (B.Arch ’26)

Treasurer: David Vargas (B.Arch ’26)

Secretary: Ana Furtado (B.Arch ’26)

Publicist: Catalina John-Melendez (B.Arch ’27)

NOMAS Carnival Pavilion: Kaleidoscope

Students in the Carnival Gateway Pavilion Course, conducted by NOMAS and advised by instructor Omar Khan, spent the semester designing, fabricating, constructing and documenting the entryway structure for CMU’s Spring Carnival, which ran from April 11-14, 2024. This year, the entryway was constructed from salvaged bamboo. (Photos by Serena Sun)

Kaleidoscope is a celebration of inclusivity, interactivity and sustainability. Envisioned as a framework for showcasing art within a robust metal box supporting a cave of panels, it reflects the vibrant diversity of the CMU community. Through collaboration, each painted panel on the pavilion represents a CMU organization, with patterns, colors and symbols that represent their identities. In an effort to minimize the environmental footprint of the pavilion, metal scaffolding was rented and used as the primary structure, so that it could be returned after the pavilion is deconstructed. Panels will be repurposed and used for classes or given to the collaborating organization, ensuring NOMAS' commitment to environmental sustainability.

Faculty Advisor: Omar Khan; Project Manager: Jordan Scott Lee; Design Team: Tvisha Arora, Ana Furtado, Terinilla Robinson, David Vargas, Jerry Xu; Builders: Andrew Chan, Calvin Chan, Eva Chen, Nadia Cho, Stephanie Choi, Nathan Cottrell, Emma Dana, Khoi Do, Natasha Fernandez, Hazel Froling, Elizabeth Hager, Simon Han, Catalina John-Melendez Darin Kim, Kiki Kuang, Paul Li, Shahzadi Padda, Amanda Qian, Youstina Riad, Kai Shaw, David Tang, Hua Tong, Russell Tsai, Franklin Xu, Irene Yang, David Yao, Kevin Yao, Brenda Yu

inter·punct

inter·punct is a platform for ideas, theory and discourse — sometimes about architecture and sometimes at its periphery. Founded by students in 2011, the group has released issues “para·meter” (2014), “inter·view” (2016), “now is the time to panic!” (2021), “we only dream the night before tomorrow” (2021), “just listen” (2022), “Reconstruction” (2023) and “Demolition” (2023). Through guest interviews, group discussions and writing, inter·punct looks critically to better understand the past and future.

2023-24 inter·punct Leadership

Publisher: Graana Khan (B.Arch ’24)

Advisor: Mary-Lou Arscott

Co-editors: Khoi Do (B.Arch ’26) & Selina Zhou (B.Arch ’26)

American Institute of Architecture Students

The CMU chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) creates a connection between students and the professional and academic world of architecture by offering members a diverse set of events and experiences, including firm visits, local and national networking opportunities, community service build initiatives and exposure to cutting edge developments within the field of architecture.

2023-24 AIAS CMU Leadership

President: Julia Kasper (B.Arch ’26)

Vice President: Gloria Lee (B.Arch ’25)

Treasurer: Ashley Jauregui (B.Arch ’27)

Professional Development Coordinator: David Warfel (B.Arch ’25)

Outreach Programming Coordinator: Mikayla Gee (B.Arch ’27)

Committee Engagement Chair: Camila Martinez (B.Arch ’26)

Public Relations: Ryan Shen (B.Arch ’27) & Starr Wasler (B.Arch ’26)

Graduate Student Liaison: Natasha Fernandez (MSAECM ’24)

First Year Student Liaison: Ali Sadi (B.Arch ’28)

Architectural Crafts Collective

The Architectural Crafts Collective (ACC) is an organization dedicated to enriching the academic journey of students from first years to masters by teaching traditional and contemporary crafts such as woodworking, ceramics, metalworking, glassblowing and more. Through workshops, club-sponsored lectures, field trips and collaboration, the organization educates members on methods and techniques related to craftsmanship.

2023-24 ACC Leadership

Co-Presidents: Neha Chopra (B.Arch ’25) & Hazel Froling (B.Arch ’26)

Advisor: Steven Sontag

Secretary: Bella Salazar Harper (B.Arch ’26)

Outreach Chairs: Khoi Do (B.Arch ’26) & Ternilla Robinson (B.Arch ’26)

Treasurers: Vanshika Bhaiya (B.Arch ’25) & Shreeja Harisrikanth (B.Arch ’26)

Design Chairs: Grace Kolosek (B.Arch ’25) & Shahzadi Padda (B.Arch ’26)

Programming Chair: Abiola Morakinyo

Documentation Chairs: Paul Li & Starr Wasler (B.Arch ’26)

Build Chair: Patrick Zheng (B.Arch ’26)

ACC is excited for the upcoming school year as they continue to host fun and educational workshops and activities. This past year they joined a blacksmithing workshop hosted by Rivers of Steel at Carrie Blast Furnace. Participants designed clay tiles and cast them in aluminum. The club has hosted crafting opportunities and also began hosting “Work Nights” in the ArchShop, where club members were invited to steam-bend wooden lampshades.

Freedom by Design

Freedom by Design™ (FBD) is a community service program of AIAS that uses the talents of architecture students to radically impact the lives of people in their communities through modest design and construction solutions. The CMU chapter of AIAS has an FBD program that provides students with real-world experience through working with clients, learning from local licensed architects and contractors, and experiencing the practical impacts of architecture and design. The chapter’s signature outreach program is the Weatherization Kit project, a box of items that helps Pittsburgh residents prepare their homes for winter.

2023-24 FBD CMU Leadership

Co-Directors: Zoe Botta (B.Arch ’27) & David Decker (B.Arch ’27)

Project Manager: Nathan Cottrell (B.Arch ’27)

Development Manager: Youstina Riad (B.Arch ’28)

Undergraduate Architecture Student Advisory Council

The Undergraduate Architecture Student Advisory Council (SAC) provides a formal means of interaction between students, faculty and administration. The student representatives are responsible for communicating the efforts of the council to their colleagues, bringing issues forwarded by fellow students to the council, and contributing time, energy and ideas to improve both Carnegie Mellon Architecture and CMU.

Advisor: Heather Workinger Midgley

Graduate Student Assembly Committee

The Graduate Student Assembly Committee (GSAC) is the student body that represents Carnegie Mellon Architecture graduate students. GSAC oversees the planning and funding of graduate social events and offers programs that benefit the school’s graduate students. Representatives meet regularly with the GSAC advisor and school head over the course of the semester to address the concerns of graduate students and to develop solutions. Graduate students are invited to speak with their representatives about the changes they would like to see in their programs and facilities. GSAC liaisons to the Carnegie Mellon Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) advocate on behalf of Carnegie Mellon Architecture to the greater GSA network, connecting students with opportunities and funding. Campus wide, GSA and departmental committees strive to improve academic support and collegiate activities for graduate students.

Advisor: Alison Petrucci

Architecture Peer Mentors

Architecture Peer Mentors (APM) connects first-year students with upper-level students to encourage a community of mentorship, learning and interyear collaboration. Mentors assist students in their transition into Carnegie Mellon Architecture to establish an early, mutually beneficial relationship.

Coordinator: Kaitlyn Hom (B.Arch ’25)

Advisor: Heather Workinger Midgley

Year 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

Undergraduate Architecture Student Advisory Council Representatives

Jessica Adenuga, Alma Caselles & Lilianne Kouyate

Nathan Cottrell, Nataniella Essang & Ashley Jauregui

Hazel Froling, Bina Guo & Starr Wasler

Michael Bi, Gloria Lee & Andrea Wan

Gabrielle Benson & Sharon Fung

Program

MAAD M.Arch MSAECM MSBPD MSCD MSSD MUD PhD-AECM PhD-BPD PhD-CD PhD-ARCH

Graduate Student Assembly Committee Representatives (open)

Trevor Orgill (2nd year)

Zachary Brigham (1st year) & Faris Khan (2nd year)

Riya Malhotra (1st year) (open)

Mohammed Zeesha Kareem Sheriff (1st year) & Bela Nigudkar (2nd year)

Sindhu Prabakar (1st year) & Fangyu Huang (2nd year)

Nihar Pathak

Haipei Bie (open)

Morgan Newman-Perry

PEDAGOGY

In the School of Architecture, pedagogy involves the methods of teaching employed in lectures, seminars and studios to impart knowledge and skills to students and also the physical, political, social and cultural context within which such learning takes place. We take direction from John Dewey’s understanding of pedagogy as a vehicle for student self-realization, but also are guided by the work of critical pedagogy—Paulo Freire, Edward Said and bell hooks—that education, research and creative practice are always in dialogue with society’s evolving concerns and must critically examine its prevailing paradigms. We situate our pedagogy to address three imminent challenges facing society:

Climate change and its impending environmental and social problems and how architecture can support living in the Anthropocene

Artificial intelligence and the development of smart buildings and cities and how architecture can support human agency and living in a posthuman society

Social justice and the need for greater equity and inclusion of race, gender and intersectionality in our politics and communities and how architecture can support cultural and social diversity

To prepare our students to address the three challenges of climate change, artificial intelligence and social justice, the school is developed three separate but interrelated pedagogies in Design Fundamentals, Design Research and Design Ethics. Our goal is to continue to develop these pedagogies, informed by our global context, to foster an ongoing dialogue within the school — across our public programs, coursework and collective thinking.

DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS

The Design Fundamentals pedagogy articulates an expansive approach to teaching core architectural competencies. It builds on learning through drawing and making (hand and digital), supported by computational, building science and ecological thinking. It embraces indigenous and global historical models that demonstrate care and responsibility for the environment.

DESIGN RESEARCH

The Design Research pedagogy focuses on developing new knowledge and innovation in architectural design. It embraces interdisciplinary, industry and community engaged approaches to develop better design practices and new technologies.

DESIGN ETHICS

The Design Ethics pedagogy addresses the role architecture can play in creating more equitable, inclusive and just communities at every scale. It promotes democratic approaches to design and recognizes the agency of humans and nonhumans in the sustainability of our built environment. It also takes a critical approach to design education that has been exclusionary and instead aspires to bell hooks’ formulation of education as a “practice of freedom.”

Our pedagogies emerged from a strategic planning process titled Pedagogies 2020, taking place over the 2020-21 academic year, while we were beset by the global COVID pandemic. The moment provided a vital context to understand our global interconnectedness and how we need to revise our presumptions on architectural education and the relevance of architecture. The process in a review of the school’s mission, values and programs developed an actionable vision to address some of the significant challenges facing architecture and the built environment in the 21st century. To address these challenges, Pedagogies 2020 was divided into three unique but interrelated pedagogies: Fundamentals, Design Research and Race & Inclusion. Each was tasked with using the fall 2020 semester for stocktaking to engaging faculty, staff and students in conversations and information gathering. In spring 2021, we translated these efforts into actionable items that better aligned our mission, programs, personnel, facilities and resources to address the global and institutional challenges we had laid out for ourselves. ReadmoreaboutPedagogies2020onlineat: architecture.cmu.edu/pedagogies-2020

Undergraduate

Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch)

Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (B.A.)

Master's & PhD

Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD)

Master of Architecture (M.Arch)

Architecture—Engineering—Construction Management (MSAECM, PhD-AECM)

Building Performance & Diagnostics (MSBPD, PhD-BPD)

Computational Design (MSCD, PhD-CD)

Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD)

Master of Urban Design (MUD)

PhD in Architecture (PhD-Arch)

Doctor of Design (DDes)

Multiple Degree Options

Accelerated Master's Program (AMP)

UNDERGRADUATE

BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE (B.Arch)

BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ARCHITECTURE (B.A.)

Carnegie Mellon Architecture offers two baccalaureate degree programs: the Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) and the Bachelor of Arts in Architecture (B.A.). Both programs begin with the same studio-based curriculum in the first year. The B.Arch requires 10 studios, while the B.A. only requires a minimum of four studios, which can be spread out over the four years of the program.

The B.Arch is a five-year, first professional degree program accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB). This program can be a good fit for students interested in pursuing a career as a licensed architect, and centers around a structured set of professional and technical courses about building design and construction. Our students graduate with a professional degree that prepares them to excel in practice — but that also launches them into key specialties within the profession. Due to the technical nature of the B.Arch program, it is STEM-eligible, meaning that in addition to one year of Optional Practical Training (OPT), a student on an F1 visa may apply for a 24-month STEM OPT extension following graduation.

The B.A. is a four-year pre-professional degree program that allows and encourages interdisciplinary exploration. B.A. students have the opportunity to double major, test the boundaries of the discipline and explore a variety of interests. As a four-year degree program, the B.A. allows those who are interested to go on to specialize in other fields in graduate school, including the two-year professional M.Arch degree program (often called a 4+2 degree).

MASTER OF ADVANCED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN (MAAD)

The Master of Advanced Architectural Design (MAAD) is a postgraduate, studio-based program that engages emerging methods of design and fabrication through architectural design to speculate upon future modes of architectural practice, enhanced construction methods and material culture within the built environment.

Track Chair: Jeremy Ficca

With a particular emphasis on design, the four-semester program leverages the School of Architecture’s and Carnegie Mellon’s core strengths in design fabrication, architectural robotics, computational design and ecological thinking as vehicles for knowledge acquisition and speculation. The program focuses on the creation of new insights and new knowledge — or “research” — through the design process, or “research by design.”

The program seeks to probe the technical and cultural opportunities and implications of a data-rich future in which design methodologies, construction processes and sustainable building life cycles are intrinsically interlaced.

The goal is consciously speculative and experimental work that is deeply enmeshed with social and environmental concerns, and with explicit ties to humanistic and cultural discourses, industry and contemporary practice. The faculty seek advanced-level projects that will position graduates as future thought leaders in architecture and allied fields relating to advanced fabrication, material performance, construction methodologies and/ or academia.

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE (M.Arch)

The Master of Architecture (M.Arch) is a two-year, NAAB-accredited, professional degree program to educate tomorrow’s leaders in architecture through a collaborative, studio-based education that centers design, research and technology.

Track Chair: Sarosh Anklesaria

The program addresses the grand challenges of our time through an understanding of design ethics at the intersections of social equity, technology and climate change. It trains students to demonstrate a solid intellectual base in design thinking by participating in advanced and emerging discourses in the discipline.

The curriculum aligns closely with the Pedagogies dialogues at Carnegie Mellon Architecture to offer courses in three simultaneous tracks: Design Fundamentals, Design Ethics and Design Research. The M.Arch curriculum features advanced design methods that focus on design-research, synthesis and integration at every level through deep disciplinary and interdisciplinary engagement of sites, buildings, landscapes, ecologies and technical systems.

ARCHITECTURE—ENGINEERING— CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT (MSAECM, PhD-AECM)

The Master of Science and PhD in Architecture–Engineering–Construction Management (AECM) programs are jointly offered by the School of Architecture and the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Track Chair: Joshua D. Lee

The AECM programs prepare buildingdelivery professionals for careers in capital project delivery dealing with the entire life cycle of capital projects, from pre-design to design, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance stages. It focuses on the integration of design and technology, particularly advanced information systems, as a means of both improving building performance and enhancing environmental sustainability.

Graduates of our AECM programs are educated to become effective decision makers who can positively impact economic, environmental and ethical aspects of the built environment through professional management strategies. Our graduates have successful careers in government, industry, business, real estate and NGO (non-governmental organization) sectors, prospering in positions where design professionals continuously make large-scale capital project design, construction and operations decisions. Graduates of the program have specific position titles including Real Estate Developer, Project Manager, Construction Manager, Facility Manager, Code Inspector and Plan Reviewer.

BUILDING PERFORMANCE & DIAGNOSTICS (MSBPD, PhD-BPD)

The Master of Science and PhD in Building Performance & Diagnostics (BPD) have long led the world in advanced building technologies that sustainably reshape the built environment.

Track Chair: Vivian Loftness

“Sustainability” was our passion and expertise long before it became a buzzword. Our top-ranked building science degree programs are dedicated to advancing high performance buildings and communities for a more resilient and sustainable future.

The MSBPD is a two-year program for architecture and engineering graduates committed to advancing the quality of the built environment for human health and ecological sustainability. MSBPD graduates have successful careers in design and engineering practice, industry, government, consulting and non-profit sectors designing, catalyzing and quantifying high performance buildings and communities.

The MSBPD and PhD-BPD curricula offer a building science and researchoriented course of study with technical depth for careers in sustainability-focused professional practice, environmental research and consulting, the building industry and higher education. These programs are specifically designed for those who seek quantitative depth in building and urban design, building performance, building science, computational design and design invention, leading to sustainability positions in professional practice, research, environmental consulting, industry and government.

COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN (MSCD,

PhD-CD)

The Master of Science and PhD in Computational Design (CD) investigate creative opportunities and critical issues at the nexus of design and computation.

Track Chair: Daniel Cardoso Llach

With a shared emphasis on critical technical practice, faculty and students in the program draw from fields including computer science, robotics, humanmachine interaction, machine learning, art, and science and technology studies to illuminate emerging potentials as well as unforeseen consequences of new technologies in design. The program examines topics including robotically-supported construction, machine learning- and AIbased approaches to design generation and analysis, tangible interaction, shape grammars, responsive environments, digital heritage and computational urban studies, as well as historical and ethnographic investigations into design technologies and technologicallymediated design practices. The program’s research and creative works are frequently published and exhibited in leading national and international venues. Inherently interdisciplinary, the program invites students to forge unique curricular paths, closely interacting with field-defining researchers, educators and mentors in the program and across the university. The program is well suited to highly inquisitive applicants with technical, creative and/or critical backgrounds who are motivated to challenge disciplinary boundaries, develop a unique research agenda and explore the intersection of computation and design with creativity, technical rigor and critical depth.

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN SUSTAINABLE DESIGN (MSSD)

The Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD) is a post-professional, designresearch program that fosters innovative sustainable strategies for designing the built environment across scales.

Track Chair: Dana Cupkova

The MSSD program advances design methodologies that integrate multicultural and geospatial aspects of ecological thinking, focusing on addressing architectural responses to climate change. It incorporates dynamic bioclimatic processes into the design of constructed environments, guiding students to explore climate-specific socio-ecological placemaking through computational design, environmental science, material research and advanced manufacturing. The program emphasizes the relationship between historical patterns and new technologies, constructed and natural systems, the symbiosis of human and non-human environments, energy systems and human-centered design, regenerative landscapes and circular economies, bio-based material production, and the integration of architectural assemblies. The goal is to cultivate actionable decarbonization expertise and understand the holistic ecological impact of design and construction.

The MSSD program builds upon its robust academic roots in sustainability and green building systems integration while expanding on bioclimatic approaches from architecture to landscape ecology to natural material systems. Embracing cross-scale relationships between human habitation, biodiversity, industrialized manufacturing and the extraction of material resources, the MSSD program promotes symbiotic strategies that integrate passive and active building systems with

low-tech and high-tech modes of production within the context of embodied and operational energy. The program emphasizes regenerative design methods that connect ecological and natural patterns with social sustainability and the decarbonization of the built environment.

MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN (MUD)

PHD IN ARCHITECTURE

The Master of Urban Design (MUD) is a post-professional, two-year program that prepares graduates for careers using urban design to critically address environmental, economic, social, political and cultural issues affecting urbanization.

Track Chair: Stefan Gruber

The studio-based curriculum allows students to explore design strategies in a variety of scales and settings, from the post-industrial city to the suburban periphery to the dense global metropolis. The studio sequence is supported by small-group seminars and workshops to develop the skill sets necessary for an urban designer in the 21st century. Students graduate with a firm grasp of the history, theory and practice that has established urban design as a discipline, as well as skills in cuttingedge media and design methods. This program is distinguished by its emphasis on integrating socially engaged practice with new tools and techniques for representing, understanding and designing cities; by the opportunity to work in trans-disciplinary teams at the intersection of the arts, humanities and technology across Carnegie Mellon’s departments and colleges; and by its location in Pittsburgh — a thriving postindustrial laboratory.

The PhD in Architecture (PhD-Arch) program at Carnegie Mellon advances interpretive, critical and contextual perspectives on the built environment and spatial design.

Track Chair: Nida Rehman

Bringing together methods in history of architecture, urban studies, critical spatial practices, environmental humanities, digital humanities, environmental justice and community-oriented research, the program offers students an interdisciplinary platform to investigate built environment cultures, practices and politics across a range of historical and geographical contexts.

The intellectual foundation of the program is informed by Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s commitments to racial and spatial justice in architectural epistemology, pedagogy and practice. The program builds on and extends the foundational work in the school in the area of community-oriented urban design and research and is supported by the wide-ranging expertise and resources in the school and across the university, particularly in the arts and humanities.

DOCTOR OF DESIGN (DDes)

The Doctor of Design (DDes) is a threeyear program for mid-career professionals aspiring to solve advanced problems in the fields of architecture, engineering or construction.

Track Chair: Erica Cochran Hameen

The program’s modes of study include conference and video calls, web-based learning, field work, professional practice work, international exchange and institutional meetings and conferences.

Unlike academically founded graduate programs, the DDes is based on the assumption that mid-career professionals can develop doctoral-level research, building on their tacit knowledge acquired through years of professional practice. The cohorts in this program come from various AEC (Architecture–Engineering–Construction) fields, as well as from various states in the U.S. and nations of the world. The program is a collaborative effort with Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse.

We seek self-motivated cohorts who thrive in multitasking situations and are able to manage concurrently the DDes program requirements and their full-time professional practice responsibilities. Thanks to a sophisticated distance-delivery system, the program accommodates participation both in residence (Pittsburgh) and remotely.

MULTIPLE DEGREE OPTIONS

ACCELERATED MASTER’S PROGRAM (AMP)

Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s Accelerated Master’s Program (AMP) offers undergraduate students the opportunity to expedite their completion of a master’s degree, saving both time and money and allowing them to hit the job market with specialized knowledge and two Carnegie Mellon degrees.

Joshua Bard

Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Research

Carnegie Mellon Architecture students can obtain an accelerated master’s degree in one additional year after completion of their bachelor’s degree. Two options are available based on the undergraduate program:

5+1 BACHELOR OF ARCHITECTURE (B.Arch)

Five years of undergraduate coursework followed by two semesters of full-time master’s level coursework for a total of six academic years.

4+1 BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ARCHITECTURE (B.A.)

Four years of undergraduate coursework followed by two semesters of full-time master’s level coursework for a total of five academic years.

COURSES

UNDERGRADUATE

FIRST YEAR FALL

48-100: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: POIESIS STUDIO I

Coordinator: Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland

This studio investigates the role and process of architectural design as different forms of practice.

48-104: SHOP SKILLS

Instructor: Jon Holmes

This course introduces basic material assembly methods and the use of shop machinery, hand and power tools, preparing students to participate in aubsequent building and fabrication projects.

48-025: FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: ARCHITECTURE EDITION

Instructor: Heather Workinger Midgley

The main objective of this first-year seminar is how students learn, develop and make decisions as they begin architecture education.

62-125: DRAWING I

Instructor: Douglas Cooper

This is an introductory course in freehand architectural drawing. Its central learning objective is building a capacity for visualizing threedimensional space through freehand drawing.

62-122: DIGITAL MEDIA I

Instructor: Matthew Huber

This is the first in a two-course sequence that introduces students to cultures of digital drawing and image production.

62-104: DESIGN ETHICS & SOCIAL JUSTICE IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructors: Valentina Vavasis

This course is an introduction to social justice and design ethics, and pedagogy around these issues.

FIRST YEAR SPRING

48-105: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: POIESIS STUDIO II: RADICAL EMPATHY IN ARCHITECTURE/STORYTELLING AS AN ARCHITECTURAL MANIFESTO

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang

As the second studio within the Poiesis Sequence, this studio nurtures a way of making and thinking in design that aims to cultivate the practice of architecture as an act of creative citizenship.

48-111: EXPLORING PITTSBURGH

Instructor: Francesca Torello

Students start exploring Pittsburgh – as built environment in which their work might be situated, as cultural context they need to interpret and as creative material for their own work. They learn some of Pittsburgh’s urban history, looking at phases of physical growth and dramatic change over time.

48-112: DIGITAL FABRICATION SKILLS

Instructor: Steven Sontag

This course serves as an introduction to the type of equipment and methodologies utilized in architectural fabrication. Students develop a basic understanding of the field to leverage these processes to explore and represent the complex nature of their designs.

62-123: DIGITAL MEDIA II

Instructor: Matthew Huber

This is the second course in a two-course sequence that introduces students to a broad range of architectural drawing techniques and practices that document, communicate and generate design possibilities.

62-126: DRAWING II

Instructor: Douglas Cooper

The central learning objective of this course is building student capacities for visualizing threedimensional space through freehand drawing. A broader objective is developing hand and visual skills: the ability to use line, tonal values and color to represent architectural space and proposals.

48-240: HISTORY OF WORLD ARCHITECTURE I

Instructor: Diane Shaw

This survey cuts a broad swath through time, geography and cultures, surveying critical episodes in the built environment of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas from ancient times through the 19th century. Reflecting the inseparable relation between building and human needs, this course is not only a history of architecture, but also a history through architecture.

SECOND YEAR FALL

48-200: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: POIESIS STUDIO III

Coordinator: Laura Garófalo

This studio explores how architectural and landscape design can respond to a local biome. With a focus on climate and ecology, it highlights the use of precedent and the relevance of context in how architecture takes shape – how it develops its morphology.

48-215: MATERIALS & ASSEMBLIES

Instructor: Gerard Damiani

This course introduces and examines the fundamentals between design intent and construction materials, and the science of materials (performance) and their assemblies.

48-116: INTRODUCTION TO BUILDING PERFORMANCE

Instructor: Nathan Sawyer

This course introduces fundamental concepts of building physics. The knowledge & skills obtained from this course can be applied to studio projects and beyond, improving building design and performance through standard methods of evaluation and simulation tools.

62-225: GENERATIVE MODELING

Instructor: Joshua Bard

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of generative modeling using computer aided design as practiced in the field of architecture.

SECOND YEAR SPRING

48-205: SECOND YEAR OPTIONS STUDIO: DESERT LANDS/DRY LANDS: OTHER WAYS OF WORLDMAKING

Instructor: Sarosh Anklesaria

With the anthropogenic climate crisis, it is essential to reimagine the architecture of the desert as one of radical empathy with the land. Using the desert as a prompt and area of study, this studio opens up other ways of building, dwelling and worldmaking.

48-205: SECOND YEAR OPTIONS STUDIO: OUR REALITY IS EROS, OUR DESIRE IS REVOLUTION.

Instructor: Theodossis (Theo) Issaias

The studio springs from the belief that space is a formation that is co-constituted through sexualities and genders. If the discipline of architecture has disregarded this very fact, queer and marginalized communities have been carving with remarkable ingenuity, courage and skill spaces to create the conditions for themselves. They have done so beside architecture and its technologies.

48-205: SECOND YEAR OPTIONS STUDIO: DESIGN/BUILD OPTIONS STUDIO: PHASE 2, PEACE GARDEN PROJECT

Instructor: Steve Lee

This studio is part of a multi-year, interdisciplinary, design-build effort to provide a diverse group of students with the opportunity to work with their eyes, hands and brains to transform an idea from a virtual world into the physical world. In this semester, we again work with campus constituents to improve the quality of life on campus through engaging design intervention(s).

48-205: SECOND YEAR OPTIONS STUDIO: CIPHERING MATERIALITY: CATECHIZING CRAFT AND THE PARADOX OF HIGH TECH

Instructor: Misri Patel

This studio extends the provocation: How can one explore craft that assimilated culture and other foreign influences with the aid of cutting edge research in advanced fabrication techniques? Can the digital craftsman also have different sequences and tactile character?

48-205: SECOND YEAR OPTIONS STUDIO: SEVEN FIRES PROPHECY: CONJURING GROUND EMBASSIES

Instructor: Tuliza Sindi

The intent of this studio is to understand the potential spatial futures that are unfolding through the Seven Fires Prophecy, toward the realization of Fire Seven’s redemptive arc. The studio works across several timescapes, where the Seven Years War event, as well as the Fort Pitt Block House site (whose histories were generally predicted through Fire Four), provide the mythological gateway into Pittsburgh’s — and the North American continent’s — spatial frameworks and material futures.

48-234: INTRODUCTION TO STRUCTURES

Instructor: Ted Segal

This course introduces structural systems and the materials and elements that make up those systems.

48-241/48-641: HISTORY OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Kai Gutschow

This course investigates the global history of modern architecture and theory across the 20th century. It asks critical questions about the canon; the changing nature of history and theory; the biases embedded in terms like “modernism,” “progress” and “non-Western”; and the deep legacies of colonialism, globalization, extractivism and capitalism in which modern architecture so actively participated.

62-275: FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN

Instructor: Vernelle A. A. Noel

Addressing conceptual and practical aspects of the relationship between computation and design, this course explores the fundamentals of generative

Courses

and rule-based systems for designing and making, responsiveness, along with basic approaches to creative data processing, representation and materialization.

THIRD YEAR FALL

48-300: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: PRAXIS STUDIO I

Coordinator: Heather Bizon

In this studio, the design research part of the semester becomes the project itself. Students think critically about how we construct the identity of a place through its cultural, social and ecological systems, and develop procedures for doing so.

48-315/48-635: ENVIRONMENT I: CLIMATE AND ENERGY IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Vivian Loftness

This course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation and natural conditioning; human comfort; and the site-specific dynamics of climate.

48-250: URBANISM AND THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF SPACE

Instructor: Jongwan Kwon

This course introduces students to urbanism and explores architecture as a situated and relational practice subject to broader social, political, economic, ecological and cultural forces.

THIRD YEAR SPRING

48-305: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: PRAXIS STUDIO II

Coordinator: Jeremy Ficca

This studio introduces integrated architectural design as the synthesis of disparate elements, demands and desires. It situates architecture as a technological, cultural and environmental process that is inherently contingent and entangled, yet tethered to a historical project of autonomy.

48-324: STRUCTURAL DESIGN I: FORM AND FORCES

Instructor: Juney Lee

This course introduces fundamental concepts of static equilibrium and stability of structures. By using geometry as the common language between architecture and structure, students explore new ways of shaping structural form by drawing and manipulating the geometry of forces.

48-380/48-658: CONSTRUCTING VALUE(S): ECONOMIES OF DESIGN

Instructor: Alicia Volcy

This course explores the systems of economic, political, social and regulatory forces driving the production of contemporary architectural projects. It critiques these systems, examines alternatives and tests interventions in pursuit of value propositions outside of the bottom-line driven norms of late capitalism.

FOURTH & FIFTH YEAR FALL

48-400: ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO: PRAXIS STUDIO III

Instructors: Gerard Damiani (Coordinator), Erica Cochran Hameen, Steve Lee

The objective of this studio is to go beyond the typical studio project and demonstrate necessary integrations within structural systems, building envelope, and environmental control and life safety systems while providing the measurable outcomes of building performance as part of the design process.

48-432/48-655: ENVIRONMENT II: DESIGN INTEGRATION OF ACTIVE BUILDING SYSTEMS

Instructor: Nina Baird

This course focuses on active systems in commercial buildings and their integration with passive design elements: envelope, ventilation and lighting.

48-525: THESIS SEMINAR

Instructor: Francesca Torello

This seminar is designed to prepare students planning to work on a thesis project in the B.Arch or M.Arch programs. The seminar helps students refine the scope of their thesis argument, define appropriate research methods and sharpen communication about thesis work in all phases.

FOURTH & FIFTH YEAR SPRING

48-383/48-648: ETHICS AND DECISION MAKING IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Valentina Vavasis

This course investigates ethics for architecture and the built environment. Students learn about ethics as a discipline, how to identify an ethical issue and how one might work through an ethical problem.

48-381/48-649: ISSUES OF PRACTICE

Instructor: Stuart Coppedge

This course explores the interdependence of contracts, drawings, specifications and correspondence and introduces the concept of the standard of care. It addresses business development, staff training and time management and introduces the economic, cultural and political contexts in which architecture is created. To reflect the pedagogical priorities of the school, social justice related issues related to architecture are examined.

48-519: THESIS: NO EASY RESOLUTIONS

Instructors: Mary-Lou Arscott, Sarah Rafson

An architectural thesis is a proposition that results from a critique and reexamination of the role of architecture as a critical participant in the conditioning of (public) space. Marking the transition between academic and professional practices, the thesis project is an exciting opportunity for students to define their unique positionality and modes of practice relative to the discipline of architecture.

ADVANCED SYNTHESIS OPTION STUDIOS

FALL

48-500/48-650: BUILDER’S BODIES

Instructor: Mary-Lou Arscott

Using narrative forms of drawn, modeled and cinematic media, the design work in this studio disrupts contemporary expectations with a new set of paradigms. The aim is to expand gender definitions, particularly in relation to workers engaged in construction, and to bring new insights to the production of the built environment.

48-500/48-650: REMATERIALIZING THE AMERICAN HOUSE

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

This studio examines a defining feature of the American landscape, the house, to explore alternative materializations, spatial configurations and models of living in the face of climate change and economic inequality.

48-500/48-650: DATA DUMP

Instructor: Daragh Byrne

This studio examines how we might {break down; undo; rethink; dismantle} the {visions; objects; infrastructures; landscapes; junk; detritus} of {smart; connected; intelligent} technology. Using a design research approach, we examine and unpack the wasteful, material and resource intensive cycles of innovation of modern technology.

48-500/48-650: COMMON IMAGINARIES

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang

This studio explores the possibilities for an architecture for and of the people, using Chiang Mai, Thailand, to contextualize and speculate through on-site fieldwork, film and visual storytelling.

48-500/48-650: BUILDING THE UNBUILT: THE MODEL METROPOLIS

Instructor: Anne Chen

This studio proposes to design and model a city creating an imagined urban landscape of geographic features, plots and circulation pathways, with experimental zoning rules to guide the placement of structures and spaces.

SPRING

48-510: ENTANGLED STORIES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE: MULTISPECIES CONFLICTS / MULTISPECIES FUTURES

Instructor: Priyanka Bista

This studio is situated in the Koshi Tappu buffer zone, a heightened multispecies conflict zone, fraught with increasing daily human-wildlife conflict as a result of over 80,000 people living directly adjacent to the 176 square km Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR). The ultimate goal of the studio is to find ways to reframe and reorient toward a future that is, hopefully, pluralistic and inclusive for all marginalized human and nonhuman inhabitants of the Koshi.

48-510: IMAGE DEEP/CONTESTED MATTER: VARIATIONS ON SHELTER AND BIOCEMENT IN THE ERA OF CLIMATE CRISIS

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

The ambition of this studio is to examine architecture of shelter and social housing that inquire into embodied energy and labor framework as a primary inspiration for formation of matter. The goal is to re-situate design within a hyper-local frameworks of material resources and life-cycle that positions architecture as a vehicle for ecological and communal restoration. Promoting a shift away from purely data driven rationales, the desire is to engage in the design framed by environmental ethics and sensory subjectivities as part of our collective aesthetic and ecological experience.

48-510: LANDFORM / LAND ART: SCALE AND THE TRADITION OF REGIONALISM

Instructor: Gerard Damiani

This studio looks at land art, in particular the works of Michael Heizer (b. 1944), an artist who specializes in large-scale, site specific sculptures. The studio speculates on the term “traditional regionalism” to help to refine an appreciation of site, landscape and landform. As part of this studio, we visit site-specific works to understand how they transform or reveal a new awareness.

GRADUATE COURSES FALL

48-510: TERRA FORMING: MANIFESTING MATERIAL HISTORIES

Instructor: Laura Garófalo

Once seen as static entities, earth sciences exhibition venues are facing challenges to their material and historical representations. This studio questions how institutions will represent geology in the face of the controversial new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. How do these institutions contend with critical material histories and hyper-natural conditions? How do they represent themselves? Can the buildings housing them engage visitors and scholars with sublime expressions of transformative forces? And most directly, how can processes like erosion, deposition, plate tectonics and atmospheric energy cycling (or weather) inform a design process and the expression and performance of a building?

48-510: HUMANIZING BRUTALISM: LONDON’S ICONIC SOUTHBANK CENTRE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Instructor: Hal Hayes

This studio explores the seminal integration of London’s cultural tradition of drama and its physical legacy of post-war Brutalist architecture at the Southbank Centre and studies how they may be adapted, reinterpreted and further developed to serve the needs of diverse users and capitalize on the technological opportunities of the 21st century.

48-510: DESIGN/BUILD STUDIO: PHASE 2 PEACE GARDEN PROJECT

Instructor: Steve Lee

This studio is part of a multi-year, interdisciplinary, design-build effort to provide a diverse group of students with the opportunity to work with their eyes, hands and brains to transform an idea from a virtual world into the physical world. In this semester, we again work with campus constituents to improve the quality of life on campus through engaging design intervention(s).

48-774: MAAD PRO-SEMINAR I

Instructor: Kai Gutschow

This course explores several evolving topics of material and digital culture in contemporary architectural design, research and practice in order to provide foundational knowledge necessary for the establishment of the MAAD thesis proposal.

48-785: MAAD RESEARCH BY DESIGN PROJECT

Instructors: Jeremy Ficca, Joshua Bard

48-772: MAAD ADVANCED SYNTHESIS

OPTIONS STUDIO I

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

48-630: M.ARCH STUDIO: PRAXIS I

Instructors: Sarosh Anklesaria, Jonathan Kline

This studio considers architecture as a broad framework for worldmaking across political, social and ecological contexts. It unpacks architecture’s entanglement with historical worldviews of extraction and capital to locate praxis as a mode of architectural agency and design ethics.

48-634: ARCHITECTURAL THEORY & CONTEMPORARY ISSUES

Instructor: Kai Gutschow

This graduate seminar explores important writings and ideas being discussed in architecture today in relation to “Design Ethics,” one of the central pedagogies of Carnegie Mellon Architecture and the M.Arch program.

48-635: ENVIRONMENT I: CLIMATE AND ENERGY IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Vivian Loftness

This course introduces architectural design responses for energy conservation and natural conditioning, human comfort and the site-specific dynamics of climate.

48-655: ENVIRONMENT II: DESIGN INTEGRATION OF ACTIVE BUILDING SYSTEMS

Instructor: Nina Baird

This course focuses on active systems in commercial buildings and their integration with passive elements: envelope, ventilation and lighting.

48-525: THESIS SEMINAR

Instructor: Francesca Torello

This seminar is designed to prepare students planning to work on a thesis project in the B.Arch or M.Arch programs. The seminar helps students refine the scope of their thesis argument, define appropriate research methods and sharpen communication about thesis work in all of its phases.

48-753: INTRODUCTION TO URBAN DESIGN MEDIA

Instructor: Jared Abraham

The methods and media used to represent the urban environment are essential tools for documenting existing conditions, proposing new interventions, illustrating suppressed or hidden characteristics and communicating ideas to fellow practitioners as well as the broader public.

48-742: PLANNING AND PUBLIC POLICY FOR THE FUTURE OF URBANISM

Instructor: Mark Chambers

This seminar focuses on the connections between policy/planning and the design of regions, cities and neighborhoods, down to the scale of the individual project.

48-740: URBAN DESIGN METHODS & THEORY

Instructor: Jonathan Kline

48-607: ARCHITECTURE, LABOR, AGENCY: DIG WHERE YOU STAND!

Instructor: Theodossis (Theo) Issaias

In this course, we take heed from the Dig Where You Stand movement and dig where we stand; we locate agency across a broad range of stories, processes, events, sites, ideas, contexts, practices and buildings.

48-705: URBAN DESIGN STUDIO I: URBAN PLACES

Instructor: Christine Mondor

As the first semester of the design studio sequence in the Master of Urban Design program, the Urban Places studio introduces students to the fundamentals of urban design.

48-707: MUD GRADUATE SEMINAR I

Instructor: Paul Ostergaard

This course introduces students to the practice of urban design. Six elements of practice are examined including multi-disciplinary teams, public participation, engagement of major stakeholders, context and heritage, design communication and implementation tools.

This course explores core urban design methods and theories organized into three themes intended to give students a foundational understanding of urban design, examine key critiques of urbanization and explore emerging modes of design agency.

48-718: URBAN DESIGN STUDIO III (MUD STUDIO III)

Instructor: Stefan Gruber

This is a yearlong research-based design studio on social justice and community-led urban transformations. Here, students explore design as an agent of change and how to support citizens in claiming their Right to the City. The first semester, taught by Stefan Gruber, provides theoretical framing and case study research as a stepping stone toward the development of an individual thesis proposal.

48-733: ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE SIMULATIONS

Instructor: Tian Li

This course refreshes essential building physics concepts, such as building thermodynamics; photometric quantification of light and luminous environment; human visual and thermal comfort; thermal modeling; and the principles of generating electricity from sunlight. The course emphasizes understanding, analyzing and simulating these underlying thermodynamic principles and processes

to provide immediate or in-depth quantitative feedback for informed exploration of various design alternatives.

48-731: MSSD SYNTHESIS PREP

Instructor: Azadeh Sawyer

This intensive course is designed to help students refine their research plan and prepare for their synthesis project.

48-768: INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY (IEQ): ENERGY, HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY

Instructor: Nihar Pathak

Americans now spend 95% of their time indoors, but under what conditions? How can we design our buildings to be energy efficient and promote healthy, safe, productive and inspiring environments? To answer these questions and more, this course focuses on the fundamentals and concepts of indoor environmental quality (IEQ).

48-765: AECM SYNTHESIS PROJECT

Instructor: Joshua D. Lee

This course is designed to apply the diverse knowledge and skills that AECM students have acquired during their program to a critical public interest issue related to Pittsburgh’s built environment.

48-767: TRANSDISCIPLINARY THINKING

Instructor: Steve Quick

This course is a compendium of architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) practice, methods and management with an emphasis on how the AEC professions can more effectively work together by understanding each other’s roles, responsibilities and professional perspectives.

48-798: HVAC & POWER SUPPLY FOR LOW-CARBON BUILDINGS

Instructor: Nina Baird

This graduate course focuses on heating, cooling, ventilation and power supply systems for new and future commercial buildings.

62-225: GENERATIVE MODELING

Instructor: Joshua Bard

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of generative modeling using computer aided design as practiced in the field of architecture.

48-729: SUSTAINABILITY, HEALTH AND PRODUCTIVITY TO ACCELERATE A QUALITY BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Instructor: Vivian Loftness

This course explores the relationship of quality buildings, building systems, infrastructures and land-use to productivity, health, well-being and a sustainable environment.

48-769: MSBPD THESIS/PROJECT

Instructor: Vivian Loftness

The culmination thesis project for the Master of Science in Building Performance & Diagnostics includes individual and collaborative dissertations on the integration of advanced building and urban technologies for environmental sustainability, human health and productivity, and organizational change.

48-725: GRADUATE REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT

Instructor: Valentina Vavasis

This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate development in the U.S. Students learn about the real estate development process and the social, economic and regulatory context in which land use and real estate development take place.

48-763: PROTEAN SYSTEMS: SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR UNCERTAIN FUTURES

Instructor: Joshua D. Lee

Uncertainty perpetually plagues the built environment. The inability of our buildings and cities to adapt to shifting circumstances has led to an enormous amount of waste. This class explores various forces and scales of change and reviews strategies in a wide array of precedents and products that have attempted to respond to these forces over time.

48-727: INQUIRY INTO COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN

Instructor: Daniel Cardoso Llach

This course examines the emergence of computation as a pivotal concept in contemporary architecture and design through a selection of design theories and practices responding to the so-called “computer revolution.”

48-724: SCRIPTING AND PARAMETRIC DESIGN

Instructor: Jinmo Rhee

This course prepares students for modeling geometry through scripted development of parametric schemes primarily for design applications — introducing students to basic scripting in a geometrical modeling environment, with a focus on form-making algorithms, and reinforcing and extending basic concepts of parametric modeling.

48-568: ADVANCED CAD, BIM AND 3-D VISUALIZATION

Instructor: Kristen Kurland

This course is designed to introduce students to 3D software tools, including AutoCAD 3D, Revit Architecture and 3D Studio MAX.

48-555/48-755: INTRODUCTION TO ARCHITECTURAL ROBOTICS

Instructor: Joshua Bard

This course provides a practical, hands-on introduction to the application of industrial robotics in architectural and related construction domains.

48-675 A2: DESIGNING FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS

Instructor: Daragh Byrne

Thermostats, locks, power sockets and lights are all being imbued with "smarts" making them increasingly aware and responsive to their environment and users. This course charts the emergence of the now "connected world" to explore the possibilities for future products and connected spaces with the Internet of Things.

48-676 A1: CONNECTED COMMUNITIES: TECHNOLOGY, PUBLICS, POLITICS, AND PARTICIPATION

Instructor: Daragh Byrne

This seminar examines how smart and connected technologies can be designed for neighborhoods, what considerations are involved, and what effects such technologies create for communities. We introduce and critically examine the relationships between smart systems with the places, infrastructures, histories, politics, publics and problems that surround them.

48-716: MSCD PRE-THESIS II

Instructor: Daniel Cardoso Llach

With the notion of “critical technical practice” as a touchstone, this seminar draws from across design, media, and science and technology studies to cultivate an awareness of the discursive and political dimensions of technology in design, and to guide participants in the formulation of a graduate thesis in computational design.

GRADUATE COURSES SPRING

48-711: PARADIGMS OF RESEARCH IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Joshua D. Lee

This course provides an introduction to a wide range of research strategies including experimental, simulation, quantitative, qualitative, correlational, interpretive-historical, logical argumentation, case study, and mixed methods that can be used successfully across a wide spectrum of knowledge production.

48-640: M.ARCH STUDIO: PRAXIS II: DEMASSING TIMBER

Instructors: Azadeh Sawyer, Matthew Huber, Jeffrey Davis

This course explores the role of tectonic cultures in molding our world and investigates strategies to demass timber, promoting responsible wood usage. Through a non-linear, multi-scalar design process, teams develop intricate architectural assemblies, considering construction methods, structural design, thermal and visual performance, aesthetics and ecological impacts.

48-638: STRUCTURAL DESIGN 2: MATERIALS & ANALYSIS

Instructor: Juney Lee

This course introduces fundamentals of strength of materials, computational modeling of structures and basic finite element (FE) analysis. It is the second of three courses of the Structural Design curriculum offered at Carnegie Mellon Architecture.

48-647: MATERIALITY AND CONSTRUCTION SYSTEMS

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

This course introduces students to contemporary methods of construction and draws attention to the materialization of architectural intent. It foregrounds the historical, technological and conceptual basis of construction systems to understand the building as a process and cultural artifact.

48-648/48-383: ETHICS AND DECISIONMAKING IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Valentina Vavasis

This course investigates ethics for architecture and the built environment. Students learn about ethics as a discipline, how to identify an ethical issue and how one might work through an ethical problem.

48-658/48-380: CONSTRUCTING VALUE(S): ECONOMIES OF DESIGN

Instructor: Alicia Volcy

This course explores the systems of economic, political, social and regulatory forces driving the production of contemporary architectural projects. It critiques these systems, examines alternatives, and tests interventions in pursuit of value propositions outside of the bottom-line driven norms of late capitalism.

48-649/48-381: ISSUES OF PRACTICE

Instructor: Stuart Coppedge

This course explores the interdependence of contracts, drawings, specifications and correspondence and introduces the concept of standard of care.

48-649: DESIGN LEADERSHIP

Instructor: Matthew Krissel

This graduate seminar explores architecture and adjacent creative fields for design leadership models to fuel future-forward speculation. How might we shape leadership and culture in a new design era?

48-706: URBAN DESIGN STUDIO II: URBAN SYSTEMS

Instructor: Nida Rehman

48-641/48-241: HISTORY OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Kai Gutschow

This course investigates the global history of modern architecture and theory across the 20th century. It asks critical questions about the canon; the changing nature of history and theory; the biases embedded in terms like “modernism,” “progress” and “Non-Western”; and the deep legacies of colonialism, globalization, extractivism and capitalism in which modern architecture so actively participated.

48-644/48-497: M.ARCH PRE-THESIS

Instructor: Sinan Goral

This course is designed for B.Arch and M.Arch students a year before their final spring semester. The course develops an understanding of research methods and explores the formation of ideas for architecture thesis projects.

This studio expands on MUD students’ understanding of neighborhood-scale urban design through the examination of urban systems and systemic processes, focusing on the infrastructures of toxicity and modes of local action against them.

48-773: URBAN DESIGN MEDIA: EMERGING MEDIA

Instructor: Suzy Li

In this course, students use ArcGIS to map local experiences and large-scale urban systems and use spatial data science to make inferences. Potential advanced ArcGIS skills will be introduced, such as raster imagery analysis, to identify urban built environment issues, including urban heat islands and social inequity, providing an evidenced-based mapping interface for decision-making.

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

48-713: MUD URBAN ECOLOGY

Instructor: Christine Mondor

This class examines the shifting regimes of urban ecology and equips students with skills and core concepts that enable them to lead and contribute to transition through design.

48-712/90-805: GRADUATE SEMINAR II: ISSUES OF GLOBAL URBANIZATION

Instructor: Richard Nisa

The seminar is an investigation into the future of cities focusing on three existential challenges: the escalating environmental crisis, growing social inequity and technological dislocation.

48-732: SUSTAINABLE DESIGN SYNTHESIS

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

This is a culminating course of the Master of Science in Sustainable Design (MSSD) program, following the pre-requisite “48-731: MSSD Synthesis Prep.” This course leads students through an independent thesis development, co-advised by wider CMU faculty, to develop a complete yearlong design-research project.

48-692: SHAPING LIGHT THROUGH SIMULATION AND VIRTUAL REALITY

Instructor: Azadeh Sawyer

48-708: MUD THESIS STUDIO: COMMONING THE CITY

Instructor: Jonathan Kline

Commoning the City is a yearlong research-based design thesis studio focused on social justice and community-led urban transformations, positioning design as an agent of change that can support citizens claiming their Right to the City.

48-677: URBAN LAND INSTITUTE (ULI) HINES COMPETITION

Instructor: Stefani Danes

This course is for graduate students participating in the prestigious national Urban Land Institute (ULI) Hines Competition, an intensive real estate and urban design competition taking place January 8-22, 2024. The purpose of the competition and companion course is for cross-disciplinary teams of graduate students to work collaboratively to create a complex urban design and real estate proposal on a real site in North America.

48-722/48-524: BUILDING PERFORMANCE MODELING

Instructor: Wei Liang

The building performance modeling course focuses on conceptual foundations and practical applications of advanced and integrated wholebuilding energy simulation programs with emphasis on architectural building envelope systems, mechanical electrical building systems and controls, and on-site renewable energy systems.

This course explores the quantities and qualities of light. Students study how we can design with and for light while understanding the paradox of lighting design — that it is both science and art. Digital design and simulation tools are augmented with virtual reality (VR) to extend quantitative measurements of lighting to include qualitative aspects of light such as its influence on occupants’ subjective impressions of a space, well-being and comfort.

48-569/48-781: GIS/CAFM: SPATIAL ANALYSIS IN INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING

Instructor: Kristen Kurland

The course includes in-person and asynchronous video lectures to learn important GIS concepts. Software tutorials and in-person/remote technical sessions cover leading GIS software from Esri Inc. Applications include ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Map Viewer, ArcGIS Story Maps and Dashboards. CAFM/IWMS software are reviewed.

48-721: BUILDING CONTROLS AND DIAGNOSTICS

Instructor: Tiancheng Zhao

This course introduces students to collecting and processing data acquired from building systems and evaluating their performance.

48-795 A3: LEED, GREEN DESIGN AND BUILDING RATING IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Instructor: Nina Baird

This mini-course uses global building rating systems to gain perspective about sustainable design around the world. The course is organized within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems.

48-795 A4: LEED, GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNITY RATING IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Instructor: Nina Baird

This mini-course uses global building rating systems to gain perspective about sustainable design around the world. The course is organized within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems.

48-769 A: MSBPD THESIS

Instructor: Vivian Loftness

The MSBPD Thesis course engages students in a year-long research project within the areas of high performance building systems and systems integration, indoor environmental quality and design for sustainability and climate.

48-715: MSCD PRE-THESIS I

Instructors: Daragh Byrne

This seminar introduces graduate students in Computational Design to the rudiments of graduate level academic research, offering a space to discuss inchoate research methods, questions and projects in the field.

48-769 B: MSCD THESIS/PROJECT

Instructor: Daniel Cardoso Llach

Classes provide both depth and breadth, while the culminating thesis project allows students the opportunity to narrow their research focus to a topic of personal and professional interest.

48-756: PROJECT PLANNING AND REPORTING

Instructors: Najeeb Hameen, Gerrod Winston

The goal of this course is to expose students to advanced project scheduling methods and familiarize them with the primary reporting practices as performed in the construction industry, such as change management, resource charts and project status reports.

48-759: VALUE-BASED DESIGN INTRODUCTION

Instructor: William Bates

This course will teach students the importance of value based design across all project types and delivery methods. Students receive a firm grasp on the roles of each project stakeholder in a range of small to large construction projects.

48-356: COLOR DRAWING

Instructor: Douglas Cooper

This Course provides practice in the use of color to depict architectural surroundings. Following preliminary exercises using pastels, watercolor is used for most of the course. A central objective is that by the end of the course, students will have good judgment in evaluating color hue, value and temperature and have gained confidence in the use of watercolor.

48-689: DESIGN SKILLS WORKSHOP

Instructors: Eddy Man Kim, Matthew Huber

Design Skills Workshop is a summer course for incoming Carnegie Mellon Architecture graduate students to establish a baseline of technical skills appropriate to the expectations of the design culture at the school. There is a series of workshops, assignments and tutorials on digital design skills.

48-734: IDEATE: POSSIBILISTIC DESIGN

Instructor: Sinan Goral

Design often favors probability. Rather than just problem solving, design should exploit curiosity, creativity and criticality. This project-based design seminar concentrates on how critical design theory and powerful storytelling might pave the way for a more responsible, equitable and exciting future.

48-222/48-622: EXPLORATIONS IN CRAFT: SOFT FORMS | STABLE STRUCTURES

Instructor: Laura Garófalo

While learning through making, students develop their own expression of softness. Presentations, demonstrations and workshops on craft inform experiments focused on material qualities and their formal affordances.

48-386 A1: PORTFOLIO & RESUME PREP

Instructor: Jared Abraham

48-786 A2: PORTFOLIO & RESUME PREP

Instructor: Heather Bizon

DESIGN FUNDAMENTALS SPRING

48-328/48-737: DETAILING ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Gerard Damiani

This course examines the role of architectural detail in the formation/thematic development of a work of architecture and how the detail reinforces the theoretical position of the architect.

48-355: PERSPECTIVE

Instructor: Douglas Cooper

This course emphasizes freehand drawing in general and free-hand perspective technique in particular. The objective is speed and the transfer of drawing skill to design.

48-517: CARNIVAL GATEWAY: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Instructor: Vicky Achnani

This course is for the team responsible for the design development of the entryway pavilion for CMU Spring Carnival, Apr. 11-14, 2024. The course is conducted by NOMAS and advised by Professor Vicky Achnani.

48-485: DESIGN AND DOCUMENTATION IN REVIT

Instructor: Nathan Sawyer

This course guides students through the process of designing in Revit, from the schematic, conceptual design phase to the construction document phase.

DESIGN ETHICS FALL

48-545/48-745: DESIGN FABRICATION

Instructor: Misri Patel

This course represents an evolving think-tank that explores the synergy between computer-aided design and advanced fabrication techniques. Rather than viewing this technology solely as a means of generating outputs, the course emphasizes a craft-based approach. It requires designers to first acquire and master the tools of their trade before proposing viable designs.

48-524: BUILDING PERFORMANCE MODELING

Instructor: Wei Liang

The building performance modeling course focuses on conceptual foundations and practical applications of advanced and integrated wholebuilding energy simulation programs, with emphasis on architectural building envelope systems, mechanical electrical building systems and controls, and on-site renewable energy systems.

48-516 A3: CARNIVAL GATEWAY: SPECIAL PROJECT

Instructor: Vicky Achnani

In this course, students fabricate and construct the entryway pavilion for CMU Spring Carnival, Apr. 11-14, 2024. The course is conducted by NOMAS and advised by Professor Vicky Achnani.

48-434: AZTEC TO ZACATECAS: MESOAMERICAN & SPANISH COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE OF MEXICO & GUATEMALA

Instructor: Diane Shaw

This architectural history course surveys the built environment of Mexico and Guatemala during the Mesoamerican and Spanish colonial eras.

48-560/48-750: HISTORIES OF URBAN DESIGN

Instructor: Diane Shaw

This architectural and urban design history course examines the cultural histories of the design and redesign of world cities. The scale of urban interventions we look at varies greatly, from the macro-scale of designing totally new capitals to the micro-scale of altering small nodes within a city.

48-699 A2: DESIGN ETHICS: ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM, INJUSTICE & UNFREEDOM: LESSONS FOR ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS

Instructors: Nida Rehman, Morgan Newman

In this seminar we examine the histories of environmental racism and injustice. We ground our conceptual understandings through a closer look at ongoing environmental justice issues in Braddock and North Braddock, including through dialogue with local advocates and community members. Students develop a case study focusing on air pollution in the Mon Valley region, working collaboratively to produce an annotated bibliography of atmospheric pollution and community action.

48-374: HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Instructor: Francesca Torello

An introduction to the architecture of the lands where Islam spread over the centuries, this course aims to provide a basic understanding of major epochs and regional variations. Students learn the function and meaning of the most important building types, examine how these types changed over time to adapt to the needs of changing societies and consider influences and exchanges with other traditions.

48-313/48-613: PROTOTYPING STORIES

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang

This design research course explores the current developments in hybrid, multi-platform design and communication media to prototype new ways of creative storytelling in architecture, visual development and concept design. Research methods around oral storytelling, ethno-ecology, radical mapping and children’s books can allow for the exploration of subjects in ways not available through typical architectural and urban research conventions.

DESIGN ETHICS SPRING

48-435/48-735: MODERN MEXICO: 19TH -21ST CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Diane Shaw

This course focuses on the 20th-century architectural and urban history of Mexico City. Students study both the high-style design vanguards and the vernacular built environment.

48-442: HISTORY OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Xin Chen

From prehistoric times to the 20th century, this course examines a broad spectrum of building forms and urban planning in China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia. The course motivates next-generation architects to include an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective in their own works of design.

62-525/62-725: URBAN NATURE, ARCHITECTURE AND THE MODERN SOUTH ASIAN CITY

Instructor: Nida Rehman

48-433/48-633: AFROFUTURISM

AND OTHERED WAYS OF SEEING & BEING IN THE WORLD

Instructor: Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland

The intent of this course is to explore how Afrofuturism allows one to shift perspectives out of a Eurocentric, white, patriarchal, heteronormative perspective to give agency to those who see and experience the world through different eyes.

This course examines the historic and ongoing processes of colonial and capitalist enclosure, extraction and exploitation that have shaped urban environments in South Asia from the mid-19th century onwards. The course also foregrounds scholarly literature and activist perspectives from across South Asia, challenging the destructive processes of capitalist urbanization to envision alternative imaginaries of the environment and shape new ecological and spatial futures.

48-314A/48-614A: NEW PEDAGOGIES: UNSETTLING GROUND: RETIRING THE GOD VIEW

Instructor: Tuliza Sindi

The course has students temporarily suspend modern architectural representation’s dependency on cartographic mapping — which, as a medium, masquerades as an objective marker of the spatiotemporal qualities of place — and commits architects to time-space philosophies that yield spatial disembodiment, territorial regimes and racial and land myths.

48-314B/48-614B: NEW PEDAGOGIES: MATERIAL REGENERATION

Instructor: Jongwan Kwon

The current energy crisis and climate change have impelled architects to challenge many standing assumptions in material culture and rethink the relationship between materials, the environment, construction methods and labor. This seminar offers a critical view of the conventional material systems and practices, examining ways to shift towards adopting carbon-neutral, regenerative and waste materials.

48-318/48-618: DISCOURSE AND PRAXIS IN THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY

Instructor: Sarosh Anklesaria

This course engages with emergent discourse in the climate emergency. It considers socioecological practices of resistance to the normative model of capitalist growth and extraction. The course considers a discursive set of readings in architecture, ecology, anthropology, climate change, transitional justice, degrowth and art to consider other ways of being and acting in the anthropocene.

48-314D/48-614D: NEW PEDAGOGIES: CO-DESIGNING VERTICAL UNIVERSITY’S LIVING CLASSROOM IN KURULE

Instructor: Priyanka Bista

As a subversion to the traditional way we understand knowledge, the “Vertical University” builds on the learning potential inherent in the place-based, deep-seated indigenous knowledge of farmers living in biodiversity-rich landscapes.

DESIGN RESEARCH FALL

48-620: GRADUATE SEMINAR: SITUATING RESEARCH

Instructor: Sarosh Anklesaria

This course introduces incoming graduate students to a range of research approaches through introductions to and conversations with Carnegie Mellon Architecture faculty, Ph.D. researchers and other invited guests.

48-367/48-667: MATERIAL HISTORIES

Instructor: Francesca Torello

This seminar looks at the history of the architecture of the last two centuries by following the thread of the history of materials. Students discuss the ways in which buildings of the past and the practice of architecture were affected by which materials were available, how they were produced, and the craft required to work them.

48-531/48-771: FABRICATING CUSTOMIZATION: PROTOTYPE

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca

This course builds upon the rich history of production and manufacturing in architecture and foregrounds architectural component customization to explore prototyping and customization within the context of contemporary practice. It introduces students to a range of prototyping and design for manufacturing frameworks.

48-314/48-614: CO-DESIGNING AN INDIGENOUS BIODIVERSITY KNOWLEDGE LEARNING SPACE FOR THE VERTICAL UNIVERSITY PROJECT IN NEPAL

Instructor: Priyanka Bista

The seminar emerges from the instructor’s work co-founding the “Vertical University” project in Nepal. As a subversion to the traditional way we understand knowledge, the project builds on the learning potential inherent to the place-based, deep-seated indigenous knowledge of farmers living in biodiversity-rich landscapes.

48-409/48-709: HISTORY AND FUTURE OF INTERACTION DESIGN

Instructor: Paul Pangaro

The history of interaction design (IxD) is far richer than what is commonly known among students and teachers, practicing designers and entrepreneurs. Understanding IxD’s origins and evolution helps us realize the promises and possibly avoid some of the pitfalls of IxD’s future.

48-763: PROTEAN SYSTEMS: SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS FOR UNCERTAIN FUTURES

Instructor: Joshua D. Lee

Uncertainty perpetually plagues the built environment. The inability of our buildings and cities to adapt to shifting circumstances has led to an enormous amount of waste. We explore various forces and scales of change and review various strategies through a wide array of built precedents and products that have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to respond to these forces over time.

48-307 A1: CARNIVAL PAVILION SCHEMATIC DESIGN

Instructor: Vicky Achnani

This course is for the team responsible for the schematic design of the entryway pavilion for CMU Spring Carnival, Apr. 11-14, 2024. The course is conducted by NOMAS and advised by Professor Vicky Achnani.

48-307 A2: CARNIVAL PAVILION DESIGN DEVELOPMENT

Instructor: Vicky Achnani

This course is for the team responsible for the design development of the entryway pavilion for CMU Spring Carnival, Apr. 11-14, 2024. The course is conducted by NOMAS and advised by Professor Vicky Achnani.

↘62-315/62-715: SHAPING ENVIRONMENTS: EXPERIMENTS IN GEOMETRY AND (WASTE) MATTER

Instructor: Dana Cupkova

This design-research seminar explores alternative material formations beyond our current petrochemical reality. Using digital environments and computational tools, such as photogrammetry, depth-map texture modeling, AI workflows and 3D printing, we experiment with shaping new hybrid material systems.

48-749: SPECIAL TOPICS IN COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN: RETHINKING AUTOMATION IN ARCHITECTURE

Instructor: Daniel Cardoso Llach

This project-based course explores the confluence of robotics and artificial intelligence methods and its potential applications to design, architecture and construction.

DESIGN RESEARCH SPRING

48-752: ZERO ENERGY HOUSING

Instructor: Nina Baird

This course explores passive and active systems that can be integrated for zero energy performance. Through lectures, case study research and an applied multifamily affordable housing project, students study the design approaches, codes, policy, technology and energy infrastructure that support net zero or carbon neutral performance.

48-795 A3: LEED, GREEN DESIGN AND BUILDING RATING IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Instructor: Nina Baird

This mini-course uses global building rating systems to gain perspective about sustainable design around the world. The course is organized within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating systems.

48-787 A4: LEED, GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNITY RATING IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Instructor: Nina Baird

This mini-course uses global building rating systems to gain perspective about sustainable design around the world. The course is organized within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems.

62-706: GENERATIVE SYSTEMS FOR DESIGN

Instructor: Jingyang (Leo) Liu

This course provides designers from multiple disciplines with a variety of computational techniques for generating, synthesizing, optimizing and materializing design alternatives based on custom inputs.

48-557: FORMLESS AS AN OPERATION

Instructor: Heather Bizon

This seminar focuses on the formless as an operation relative to social constructs, parametrics and aesthetics. Geometry is often thought of as rational or a structure that secures and grounds things, however the structures of the built environment are unfolding and indeterminate products.

48-314C/48-614C: NEW PEDAGOGIES: A MULTIPLE-MAKING APPROACH TO INQUIRY IN CRAFT + COMPUTATION

Instructor: Vernelle A. A. Noel

This course focuses on using ethnographic methods, computational modes of inquiry and design to study manual craft and its intersections with technological practices.

48-317: THE CHAIR

Instructor: Vicky Achnani

This is an intense design and prototyping course fueled by research, experimentation, material feedback and tooling. The exercise allows students to understand the chair as a piece of furniture, the manner of making that gives qualities to an abstract design or idea, the know-how of handling material, the emergence of tacit knowledge in the maker, and tolerance and feedback from the material. We explicate and employ alternative materials such as agro waste, natural fibers, bamboo and mycelium to develop full-scale chair prototypes.

48-425: EX-CHANGE: EXHIBITION & PUBLICATION IN PRACTICE

Instructor: Sarah Rafson

Students work alongside EX-CHANGE director Sarah Rafson and the professional designer selected for the 2024 EX-CHANGE book to get a glimpse into the editorial and curatorial practices.

48-619: MACHINE INTELLIGENCE, CYBERNETICS AND DESIGN

Instructors: Ensar Temizel, Paul Pangaro

The seminar module focuses on the intricate relationship between the fields of architecture/ design and cybernetics, dwelling on their intermeshed histories spanning more than six decades.

48-467: DESIGN/BUILD ELECTIVE: PHASE 2 PEACE GARDEN PROJECT

Instructor: Steve Lee

This studio is part of a multi-year, interdisciplinary, design-build effort to provide a diverse group of students with the opportunity to work with their eyes, hands and brains to transform an idea from a virtual world into the physical world. In this semester, we will again work with campus constituents to improve the quality of life on campus through engaging design intervention(s).

Carnegie Mellon Architecture

Jared Abraham, Associate Studio Professor

Vicki Achnani, Adjunct Faculty

Burcu Akinci, Affiliated Faculty, Professor & CEE Department Head

Sarosh Anklesaria, Assistant Teaching Professor

Mary-Lou Arscott, Associate Studio Professor & Associate Head for Design Fundamentals

Nina Baird, Assistant Teaching Professor

Chelsea Jno Baptiste, Adjunct Faculty

Nina Barbuto, Adjunct Faculty

Joshua Bard, Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Research

William Bates, Adjunct Faculty

Priyanka Bista, Joseph F. Thomas Visiting Professor

Heather Bizon, Special Faculty

Daragh Byrne, Associate Teaching Professor

Daniel Cardoso Llach, Associate Professor

Mark Chambers, Adjunct Faculty

Anne Chen, Adjunct Faculty

Xin Chen, Adjunct Faculty

Lori Claus, Special Faculty

Erica Cochran Hameen, Assistant Professor & Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Donald Coffelt, Affiliated Faculty, AVP Facilities

Management & CEE Adjunct Professor

Douglas Cooper, Andrew Mellon Professor of Architecture

Stuart Coppedge, Adjunct Faculty

Dana Cupkova, Associate Professor

Gerard Damiani, Associate Professor

Stefani Danes, Adjunct Professor

Asli S. Darga, Adjunct Faculty

Jeffrey Davis, Adjunct Faculty

Jeremy Ficca, Associate Professor, Director dFAB

Susan Finger, Affiliated Faculty, CEE Professor & IDeATe Associate Dean

John Folan, Affiliated Faculty, Department Head & Professor

Laura Garófalo, Associate Professor

Sinan Goral, Adjunct Faculty

Stefan Gruber, Associate Professor

Kai Gutschow, Associate Professor & Associate Head for Design Ethics

Najeeb Hameen, Adjunct Faculty

Hal Hayes, Studio Professor

Jon Holmes, Shop Director

Matthew Huber, Special Faculty

Theodossis (Theo) Issaias, Special Faculty

Lynn Kawaratani, Liaison Librarian to the School of Architecture

Omar Khan, Professor & Head

Jeff King, Adjunct Faculty

Jonathan Kline, Associate Studio Professor

Ramesh Krishnamurti, Professor Emeritus

Matthew Krissel, Adjunct Faculty

Kristen Kurland, Teaching Professor

Jongwan Kwon, Assistant Teaching Professor

Khee Poh Lam, Professor Emeritus

Berangere Lartigue, Visiting Researcher

Joshua D. Lee, Assistant Professor

Juney Lee, T. David Fitz-Gibbon Assistant Professor of Architecture

Steve Lee, Professor and former Head of Carnegie Mellon Architecture (B.Arch ‘75, M.Arch ‘77), retiresafter43yearswiththeschool

Golan Levin, Affiliated Faculty & Professor of Art

Suzy Li, Graduate Instructor

Vivian Loftness, University Professor, Paul Mellon Professor

Tonya Markiewicz, Adjunct Faculty

Jackie Joseph Paul McFarland, Visiting Special Faculty

Christine Mondor, Special Faculty

Destenie Nock, Affiliated Faculty & CEE Assistant Professor

Vernelle A. A. Noel, Lucian and Rita Caste Assistant Professor in Architecture

Paul Ostergaard, Adjunct Faculty

Paul Pangaro, Visiting Scholar in Computational Design

Misri Patel, Ann Kalla Visiting Professor

Stephen Quick, Adjunct Faculty; Research Fellow, Remaking Cities Institute

Sarah Rafson, Special Faculty; Curator of Public Programs and Director of EX-CHANGE UnderSarahRafson’sdirection,public programsbecameacriticalpartofour teachingandameanstoaddress pedagogicalchallenges.Sarahwillbe muchmissedasshemovesintoasimilar positionatHarvard’sGraduateSchool ofDesign.

Faculty, Staff & Graduate Instructors

Nida Rehman, Assistant Professor

Manuel Rodríguez Ladrón de Guevara, Studio Instructor

Elizabeth Saleh, Adjunct Faculty

Azadeh Sawyer, Assistant Professor

AzadehSawyerwilltakeontheroleoftrack chairintheMSandPhDprogramsinBuilding Performance&Diagnostics(BPD).

Nathan Sawyer, Special Faculty

Edward Segal, Adjunct Faculty

Charlie Schmidt, Adjunct Faculty

Diane Shaw, Associate Professor

Tuliza Sindi, Ann Kalla Visiting Professor

Steven Sontag, Assistant Shop Director

Louis Suarez, Adjunct Faculty

Pingbo Tang, Affiliated Faculty & CEE Associate Professor

Ala Tannir, Adjunct Faculty

Nazia Tarannum, Adjunct Faculty

Ensar Temizel, Adjunct Faculty & Code Lab Visiting Scholar

Francesca Torello, Special Faculty

Valentina Vavasis, Special Faculty

Foradecade,ValentinaVavasishastaught ourEthicsandRealEstatecoursesandledthe school’spedagogicalfocusonDesignEthics.Valentinahasprovidedourstudentswith astrongfoundationinvalue-baseddecision making.Herteachingandcareforherstudents isunparalleled,andshewillbesorelymissed.

Alicia Volcy, Adjunct Faculty

Heather Workinger Midgley, Senior Academic Advisor for Undergraduate Studies

Tommy CheeMou Yang, Visiting Special Faculty

Robert J. Armitage, Computing Administrator

Alycia Barney, Financial Assistant

Lori Claus, Director for Career Development Opportunity

Christi Danner, Marketing and Outreach Manager

Kristen Frambes, Assistant to the Head, Director of Alumni & Professional Relationships

Jon Holmes, Shop Director

Terry L. Hritz, dFAB Lab Manager

Mark Jovanovich, Computing Support

David Koltas, Business Manager and Assistant Head

Todd Luckey, Office Assistant

Meredith Marsh, Marketing and Communications Manager

Alexis McCune Secosky, Director of Recruitment and Enrollment

Ana L. Montes Pena, Special Projects Coordinator

Erica Oman, Academic Advisor

Alison Petrucci, Graduate Academic Advisor

Sarah Rafson, Curator of Public Programs, Director of EX-CHANGE

Leanne Rosso, Outreach Associate

Nathan Sawyer, Facilities Director

Steven Sontag, Assistant Shop Director

Heather Workinger Midgley, Senior Academic Advisor for Undergraduate Studies

Graduate Instructors

Suzy Li, PhD-BPD candidate

Tian Li, PhD-BPD candidate

Emek Erdolu, PhD-CD candidate

Wei Liang, PhD-BPD candidate

Morgan Newman, PhD-Arch candidate

Nihar Pathak, PhD-AECM candidate

Kushagra Varma, PhD-AECM candidate

Carnegie

Center for Architecture Explorations

The Center for Architecture Explorations (CAE) supports architecture education for all ages. Building on Carnegie Mellon Architecture’s experience with youth education, university service learning projects, engagement with architectural practice and academic research, CAE creates dynamic architectural education pedagogy with an emphasis on building equity and diversity within the design professions.

The mission of CAE is to facilitate links between architecture organizations, K-12 educators and K-12 students, particularly in underserved neighborhoods; to provide scalable training courses, workshops and mentorship opportunities for professionals and undergraduate/graduate students to better prepare them to teach in K-12 and higher education contexts as well as better communicate with the communities they serve as designers; and to conduct research into STEM and design pedagogy to develop innovative educational materials and curricula.

CAE youth programs are a collection of architecture-based extracurricular and academic enrichment programs for students in kindergarten through high school. Through its programs, CAE aims to foster knowledge of and appreciation for the built environment, encourage creative expression and critical thought, and inspire civic responsibility. CAE’s programs include the K-6 Saturday Sequence program, which emphasizes problem-solving skills central to the architectural design process by guiding students through an architectural project; the Saturday Studio program, a series of workshops for students in grades 7-12 that provides a studio-like experience with a focus on hands-on model-making and digital design; and summer day camps offered in partnership with fellow arts organizations in Pittsburgh.

CAE is supported in kind through partnership with CMU’s UDream program, and its Benefactor Sponsor, Perkins Eastman.

The CAE is an Allegheny Partners for Out-of-School Time (APOST) Quality Campaign Member and all youth programs are part of the Architecture Learning Network (ALN). The CAE oversees Pittsburgh’s ALN, a collaboration among more than 10 nonprofits in the region, and is advised by an education committee composed of architects, architecture students, parents, faculty and educators.

CAE Partners

ACE Mentor Program

Architecture Learning Network

Assemble

Carnegie Museum of Art

CAE Sponsors

The Grable Foundation

The Pittsburgh Foundation

Remake Learning

The Sprout Fund

United Way

Pre-College Architecture

Pre-College Architecture is an intensive and immersive summer program at Carnegie Mellon Architecture that engages high school students in the creative energy and speculative culture of the college-level experience in studying the discipline of architecture. In these changing times, Pre-College Architecture responds to challenges regarding practice, communication and our relationship with the built environment by utilizing a diverse set of tools and techniques, guided by the leadership of the school’s faculty.

Pre-College Architecture introduces design practice, creative problem solving and critical thinking to young designers through a matrix of programming, celebrating curiosity and providing a strong foundation for architectural education. Pre-College students navigate complex design problems that encourage growth through the development of skills and prepare them for future undergraduate studies in architecture.

Heather Bizon, Director of Pre-College

2024 Pre-College Faculty

Design Studio Instructors: Jared Abraham, Vicki Achnani, Tuliza Sindi, Tommy CheeMou Yang

Digital Media Instructor: Rebecca Cunningham

Fabrication Media Instructor: Siddhant Salvi

Teaching Fellows: Ben Hao, Claire Laux

Teaching Assistants: Bina Guo, Shreeja Harisrikanth, Esha Shaw, Jerry Xu

UDream is a zero-cost academic and workforce development program that admits an annual cohort of up to 15 candidates. By eliminating cost as a barrier, UDream seeks to recruit individuals from underrepresented or under-resourced backgrounds. The program provides a 22-week post-graduate experience, including a six-week academic intensive module, two one-week community-engagement modules and a 14-week paid internship with Pittsburgh-based organizations.

Recognizing the barrier to participation in a five-month intensive program, UDream is a fully funded program that includes a monthly stipend. The program emphasizes mentorship and leadership development for candidates both entering the workforce and pursuing advanced degrees, with the goal of retaining diverse talent in Pittsburgh through job placement, professional development and expanded scholarship opportunities. Additional support is provided for each UDream cohort including housing, travel and registration for architectural events, regional site visits and architectural tours, and team activities offered over the duration of the sixmonth program. UDream participants are also instrumental in the growth of the K-12 educational pipeline in the Pittsburgh region by engaging as community educators and serving K-12 minority students enrolled in summer youth architecture programs, inspiring their path towards a career in the built environment.

Following the six-week summer academic intensive on CMU’s campus, participants match with regional architecture and construction firms, community nonprofits and civic development corporations to complete a paid internship over three months in the fall. The fall internship period overlaps with the graduate school application cycle. UDream participants receive support for their applications to programs including, but not limited to, the seven graduate programs at Carnegie Mellon Architecture. Participants also have the opportunity to apply for the GEM Fellowship, an invaluable opportunity that allows participants to enroll in graduate school at zero cost, with full tuition, stipend, application fees and overhead costs assumed by CMU and supplemented through the GEM sponsors consortium.

The UDream program first ran from 2009 to 2018 as an academic and job placement program through the School of Architecture and resumed as an annual zero-cost program in the summer of 2023.

2023-24 UDream Fellows and Internships

Teara Banks (Aequo), Ja’Nai Ferguson (IKM Architecture), Justyn Grant (Perkins Eastman), Niles Hattaway (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson), Jaden McMillian (GBBN), Kevin Owen-Robinson (SmithGroup), Cornelius Pace (LGA Partners + Neighborhood Allies), David Rico-Gomez (Pfaffmann + Associates), Jada Robinson (Rothschild Doyno Collaborative), Alycia White (City of Pittsburgh Planning)

“It is gratifying to work on a project empowering young girls and women who look just like me! It is extremely important to design their dream facility while encouraging the girls to lead productive lives and open the door for their continuous growth.”

Jada Robinson, part of the design team for the new Gwen’s Girls facility in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania

“I’ve been working on a number of historic preservation projects, and it feels great to learn the process that goes into reusing existing buildings. I’ve been able to dive into these projects and contribute to meaningful architectural work.”

David Rico-Gomez, working with Pfaffmann + Associates

DELBERT HIGHLANDS

Professor Delbert Highlands earned his master’s degree in architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and was a faculty member for many years, retiring in 2000 as Professor Emeritus. Professor Highlands served as head of the Department of Architecture from 1969 until 1975. A native of Pittsburgh, he was self-employed as an architect. Following the passing of Professor Highlands in July 2023, Carnegie Mellon Architecture collected remembrances from members of the Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship committee and Steve Lee, former School Head.

Delbert Highlands had just stepped down as Department Head when I began teaching at CMU in the fall of 1976. He was still teaching the first year course “Introduction to Architecture,” a course that he had initiated in 1968 as an alternative to the Basic Design courses that had been prevalent in architecture schools since the end of World War II. The course was focused on the protoacts of architecture: “walling,” “flooring” and “roofing.” I remember students in those years puzzling over what constituted “wallness,” “floorness,” “insideness,” etc. To say Delbert’s teaching was challenging and at the same time confounding barely touches the truth. It remains a singular accomplishment in the pedagogy of our field.

— Douglas Cooper, Andrew Mellon Professor of Architecture

I was fortunate to be able to take a number of classes taught by Delbert Highlands and also attend a summer abroad program with him in Turkey in 1996. When I was selected as the first recipient of the Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship, it was a special moment and a unique opportunity to utilize the knowledge from the Highlands lectures. Many years later, I am fortunate to be part of the selection committee for this award, which encourages applicants to “study collections belonging to locales,” in keeping with Professor Highlands’ thinking. As we review the proposals for this award, I inevitably ask myself: “What would Delbert think?” We may think that we know the answer to that question, but we never will. And that is how Delbert would have preferred it.

— Can Tiryaki, B.Arch. ’98, 2010 awardee of the Delbert Highlands Travel Fellowship

250 In Memoriam: Delbert Highlands

I had the unusual experience of having Delbert as an instructor and, much later, of teaching with him in the design studios. His teaching methods were beyond competent, and we all tried to learn from them. After providing general guidance, Delbert didn’t tell students what to do. Instead, his method was to artfully point out this or that aspect of their work that would benefit from more consideration. He would offer comments through allegorical references that sometimes left students puzzled but thinking, and he would consistently encourage students’ structured consideration of alternatives. He would answer questions directly when needed, but he much preferred to pose questions. To their delight, many students found that they were carrying the development of their projects farther than they’d ever expected, and you could watch their enthusiasm grow as the semester progressed. I’ve always thought that from a single one-semester studio, somewhat buried at the midpoint of a five-year curriculum, he was instrumental in setting the course for some very fine careers, and that’s really something.

— Sheldon Goettel, B.Arch ’79

“√–” Say what? As a first-year student in Delbert’s studio in 1971 I had never seen a grade like that in K–12, but I inherently knew that I had not quite understood the prompt. Thus began my 40-year relationship with an inspiring, imposing and intense professor, colleague and mentor. … I realized that what I had learned from Delbert as a student and in my interactions with him as a colleague was — find my own path. Upon reflection, I now understand that Delbert’s approach — not telling us what to do but instead posing thought provoking questions and challenging us to investigate on our own — was akin to the proverb of teaching one to fish rather than giving fish. He taught me to question the question, to comprehend the people with whom I was working, to understand the place in which I was situated and to articulate the intentions of the endeavor.

— Steve Lee, AIA, LEED AP, Professor and former School Head

Delbert Highlands taught the “Introduction to Architecture 101” course … when I attended Carnegie Mellon in the fall of 1975. … His legacy wasn’t his work or publications, rather it was his students. By compelling our curiosity and encouraging us to continually form, test and refine our own seeing, Highlands offered us a wondrous experience. I am grateful for Delbert not because I see the world as he did but because he gave me the opportunity and confidence to find and build my own. While I lament his passing, I celebrate his teaching — and my learning.

— Dan Garber, FAIA, B.Arch ’79

Findmorememoriesandarecordingofa gatheringinhonorofProfessorHighlands at architecture.cmu.edu/news. Note: These remembrances have been edited forbrevity.

IMAGES

The historical photographs and drawings which illustrate this book were provided by the University Archives, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Mellon University Architecture Archives, Carnegie Mellon University Libraries. Captions are listed in order of appearance; on pages with multiple images, captions proceed clockwise from top left.

005 Seal of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1912; 006 Unidentified student circa 1975; CMU steam tunnel, undated; College of Fine Arts, Dean’s office, undated; 007 Doug Cooper, The Approach, 1979. 96 x 96 in, carbon pencil on paper; CMU steam tunnel digital map, 1988; 008 Student pin-up, undated; 026 Pittsburgh buildings, from Department of Applied Design prospectus, 1912; 027 CFA 200 interior, circa 1915; Loge drafting room, 1914; 046 The Charrette, cover, Building for the Atomic Age, July 1951; 047 “Buckminster Fuller Comes to CMU, The Tartan, 20 February 1979; installation in the College of Fine Arts, The Thistle, 1953; 066 Freehand drawing studio, 1914; A.H. Good, work in freehand drawing, 1914; 067 W.H. Crosby, work in freehand drawing, 1914; 090 Installation views, Magdelena Jetelova, Translocation, 1999; “Czech artist unveils underground installation,” The Tartan, 29 September 1999; 091 View of the College of Fine Arts from Doherty Hall, undated; 111 Student at work in CFA 200, The Thistle, 1952; student at work, undated; 129 Construction of the Kraus Campo, Mel Bochner and Michael Van Valkenburgh, 2003; detail view, Kraus Campo; 137 Digital rendering of the Intelligent Workplace, Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, Pierre Zoelly with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, 1994; 138 Student presentation, undated; 139 Staging area with roof framework during construction of the Intelligent Workplace; 140 Lifting roof truss during construction of the Intelligent Workplace; 141 Faculty celebrate topping out of the Intelligent Workplace; Professor Volker Hartkopf at center, accompanied by, among others, Azizan Aziz, Vivian Loftness, and Steve Lee; interior of the Intelligent Workplace; 158 Faculty of the Department of Architecture, The Thistle, 1949; View of the Parthenon, preparatory panel for the CFA Great Hall mural, oil on board, 1911-15; 159 Students of Margaret Morrison Carnegie College in the rotunda, 14 June 1910; Graduating class of the Department of Applied Design, Night School, 1908; 166 Sketch by Hans Vetter, ink on paper, undated; 168 Construction of the College of Fine Arts, 16 April 1912; Portrait of Henry Hornbostel, 1911; “Applied Design Notes,” The Tartan, 26 October 1911; 169 Construction of the College of Fine Arts, 23 July 1912; 183 Troy West with Hill District Map, 1972; Hill District Map, drawing; 185 Library, College of Fine Arts, 1945; 187 Cornice work during construction of the College of Fine Arts, 1911; 191 Hall of Architecture, Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, 1907; Sue Ebbert Watson, graduate of the School of Applied Design, The Thistle, 1911; 193 View of CFA 200, Department of Architecture Bulletin, 1976; 196 Piazza del Duomo, Milano, anamorphic perspective drawing by an unknown artist, undated; 198 Student installation on the Cut, undated; 200 Carved wood capital, from renovation of the Kresge Theatre, circa 1975; 203 Aerial view of the Carnegie Institute of Technology campus, undated; view of “The Hut,” the first library building on the Carnegie Institute of Technology campus, 1920; 206 The Women’s Athletics Council, portrait taken in a niche of the College of Fine Arts, The Thistle, 1929; 207 Installation in the CFA Great Hall, The Thistle, 1954; 210 inter·punct, inter·view, published 2016; 215 Students in costume, cornerstone-laying ceremony for the College of Fine Arts, 1912; 225 Detail view of façade, Top Notch Art Supply, South Craig Street, designed by Art Lubetz and Jill Watson, 1989; 243 Students gather around drafting board in CFA 200, circa 1941-45; student work, undated; 253 View of the College of Fine Arts from Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall rotunda, undated; 255 Student resting on drafting board in CFA 200, undated

PHILLIP DENNY

B.Arch ’14

Every year, the EX-CHANGE book and exhibition illuminate the school’s research and pedagogy; this edition focuses on encountering the past. Founded in 1905 as the Department of Applied Design, Carnegie Mellon Architecture now occupies two buildings: the College of Fine Arts and Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall, both designed by the school’s founder, Henry Hornbostel (1867–1961). Here, the lessons of the past are set in stone: the plans of architectural monuments are embedded in the marble floor of the Great Hall, and the murals on the Hall’s ceiling present a panoramic view of a historical canon. While these structures have hardly changed over the last hundred years, the school has been shaped and reshaped by generations of students and faculty. Every member of this community has occupied these spaces, helping to carry the school forward into the present. This project attempts to connect then and now.

Over the past several months, the EX-CHANGE team has delved into the history of the school — both its recent past and its earliest moments. With the assistance of CMU librarians and staff, we have combed through archives to collect evidence left by previous generations of students and faculty. Much of what we found is contained in these pages; ultimately, this selection represents only a minute fraction of what remains to be unearthed.

Our search introduced us to personalities from the past. In some cases, their names were familiar, while their legacies were largely unknown. One such figure was Hans Vetter (1897–1963), an Austrian architect who joined the faculty in 1948. (I delivered the 2024 Hans Vetter Memorial Lecture in Kresge Theatre.) Vetter studied in Vienna 1913–1920. After graduation, he lived in Paris and worked for modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. In 1932, he designed a small house for the Werkbund Exhibition in Vienna, and that same year, he became the first editor of profil, a journal of modern architecture. Vetter emigrated to England in 1938; on March 13 of that year, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. He arrived in Pittsburgh ten years later. Among his last contributions was to found the architecture seminar at the Salzburg Summer Academy of Fine Arts in 1952, a program that remains active today. The CMU Architecture Archives contains a small group of materials in its Hans Vetter Collection, including sketches, correspondence, notes, articles and unpublished poems; some of these materials are presented here.

Vetter’s influence is reflected in the typography of this publication. The typeface at the top of this page is drawn from the masthead of profil. Known as Fette Bauersche Antiqua, this “fat face” was first cast in 1850 by the Bauer type foundry in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Helvetica Now Text, a contemporary redrawing of the famous sans serif typeface Helvetica, is used throughout. Created in 1957 by Swiss designer Max Miedinger, the typeface was intended to be a neutral, modern font with letterforms reduced to their simplest expression. Here, the modern typeface is slightly stretched for the sake of efficiency on the page.

EX-CHANGE

Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture

2023-24

DESIGN

Phillip Denny (B.Arch ’14)

DIRECTOR

Sarah Rafson

STUDENT TEAM

Spring: Clara Jiao, Maia Kamenova, Zara Song, Jiaxi Wu; Summer: Jason Asiedu, Nadia Cho, Violet Chu, Maia Kamenova, Silvia Kim, Grace Kolosek, Nakshatra Menon, Zara Song, Starr Wasler, Jiaxi Wu

STAFF ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Meredith Marsh, Christi Danner, Tuliza Sindi, Nathan Sawyer, Aaron Martin, Terry Hritz, Jon Holmes, David Koltas, Alycia Barney

EX-CHANGE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Heather Bizon, Violet Chu, Gerard Damiani, Christi Danner, Theodossis Issaias, Graana Khan, Suzy Li, Lizzy MacWillie (B.Arch ’07), Meredith Marsh, Ala Tannir

EX—

Special thanks to Mark Ferguson (A ’78) and Natalie Jacobs (A ’79) for their generous sponsorship of this publication.

Additional thanks to these donors:

Lauren Ascencios (P’CFA’28)

David Burson (CFA’71)

Nicholas Colello (CFA’00, CFA’03, H&SS’03)

Chip Desmone (CFA’87)

Ian Friedman (CFA’18, CFA’20)

Kristin Froling (P’CFA’26)

Lisa and Jim Halpern (CFA’81)

Cassie Howard (HC’22)

Stefan Hurray (CFA’03)

Naim Jabbour (CFA’09, CFA’22)

Melinda Johnson (CMU’00, HNZ’01, Staff)

Adam Kor (CFA’18)

Suzan Lami (CFA’80)

Norman Larson (CFA’89)

Anne Riggs (CFA’09)

Front Studio (Yen Ha) (CFA’96)

Eric Warfel (P’CFA’25)

Frederick Watts (CFA’68)

Jiaxi Wu (CFA’25)

Yumiko Yamada (CFA’99)

Rachel Zsembery (CFA’01)