Studio: Arch 402b, SP13 Faculty: Guida, Lagreco, Morland, Noble, Paige
Coordinator: Alice Kimm
COMPREHENSIVE STUDIO EXERCISE:
Historical Traditions and Global Culture
Each graduate of a NAAB-accredited architectural program across the country must successfully complete a comprehensive design studio. At USC, we have two distinct comprehensive design studios: Arch 402bcL for our B.Arch students, and Arch 605a for our M.Arch +2 students. The comprehensive studio is unique relative to all other studios (core or topic), in that it is both a critical test as well as an opportunity for each student to demonstrate his or her ability to produce a comprehensive architectural project that unequivocally demonstrates the capacity to make design decisions across scales. Conceptually, this studio may be viewed as the equivalent of a fifteen-week open-book exam. Each student who is enrolled in the comprehensive studio has already completed the core studios and technical courses and therefore possesses the knowledge necessary to successfully pass the Comprehensive Design Studio. In addition, the Comprehensive Design Studio Faculty is present to assist in focusing (and at times limiting) the design process to best accommodate the full integration of Comprehensive Studio Requirements within the 15-week semester. As such, the USC School of Architecture has created a set of exercises to be completed in cadence with the design process itself. These exercises are worded to specifically address NAAB criteria, and are timed to occur at points during the semester that will best provoke an enriched architectural design solution. They concentrate on the following Student Performance Criteria (SPC): Design Thinking Skills, Ordering Systems, Historical Traditions/Global Culture, Investigative Skills, Sustainability, Site Design, Life Safety, Accessibility, Environmental Systems, Structural Design, and Technical Documentation (see full narrative descriptions of these SPC Criteria at: http://www.naab.org/accreditation/2009_Conditions.aspx, starting at page 21). Importantly, when selecting sites, programs, and conceptual approaches this term, students must pace themselves to successfully complete these requirements, regardless of the level of difficulty each design solution might suggest. Each and every particular criterion must be met in full in order to pass the Comprehensive Studio, regardless of the relative challenges posed by the given design problems. Ultimately, each student is expected to complete all exercises independently as required, but to then demonstrate their collective integration into the final design, and their representation into the final boards and models, at the end of the term. Grading: As the work completed for these exercises in this special studio is directly demonstrative of each student’s professional training within a degree program that leads to licensure, each student must pass this course in order to move on to complete his or her remaining degree requirements. To pass the Comprehensive Studio, a student must complete every exercise to a passing level. Failure to turn in an exercise, to complete to a passing level, or to integrate the exercises sufficiently into the final design solution will result in a failing grade for the entire studio (with a resultant a C- or below final grade), triggering a repeat of the studio when next available. If any student hands in the work late but the work is of a passing level, the student will not be able to receive a grade higher than the low pass level, regardless of the quality of work demonstrated. In addition, if a student fails an exercise at the first attempt, the highest grade that the student may receive for that exercise upon turning it in a second (or third) time shall be a low pass.