Arch 454/554 Studio Request

Idaho Design Build is a critical exploration of architectural design through the lens of design-build methodologies. The primary exercise is a real-time project from inception through construction, complete with budget development and management, specifications, permitting, scheduling, internal and external coordination, multiple client/ community presentations and collaboration sessions, design documentation, fabrication and construction. Students will join a team working on the Vandal Healing Garden and Memorial project, as well as working on the development of other projects to be announced.

Involvement in the Idaho Design Build Studio requires in-person attendance on the Moscow Campus, regular travel to the project site during the semester, including an extended build period, with all students potentially working on-site for the duration of construction. All work in the course will be completed collaboratively and in-studio, under tight schedule constraints, with design progressing via open critical input, consensus of the full group, and feedback from project stakeholders. Prospective students should be aware of the fast-paced, physically demanding, and time-consuming nature of this course, but also the benefits of working directly with clients, vendors, and consultants, expanding on skills developed in traditional studios, and seeing a project through from inception to its reality as a benefit to the community.

In preferencing for the 6-credit Spring 2024 Idaho Design Build Studio, students acknowledge they will be required to enroll in a Summer 2024 ARCH 504 build seminar (3 credits).

Studio Description >>

By imagining two worlds nested one inside the other, the collective studio and individual student projects will interrogate not only the threshold between the building and the world, but the many thresholds that reside within the architectural object itself. We will move through a series of exploratory exercises at the beginning of the semester. This will include using the micro-scale of an artifact as a means to trace and gather macro-scale narratives, as well as experimentations with nested forms. Students will then develop individual studio projects that reflect their research interests and agendas, such as an ecological, social, or technological focus.

Each project will learn from the complex local conditions of a chosen site to speculate on new spatial futures. The ultimate goal is to produce speculative but ground responses to contemporary problems by developing spatial imaginaries that afford a more expansive understanding of entangled world space.

Studio Description >>

Idaho has about 200 fire lookout towers, making it the state with the highest number of surviving towers of this type. 

A century ago, these towers, tucked away in the wilds of the mountains, played a vital role in spotting and preventing forest fires. Today, they represent heritage sites that hold the stories of those who lived there; facing solitude and enduring challenging conditions.

Extreme weather, isolation and logistical obstacles will be the focal points of our investigation in this studio. 

Fire lookout towers will serve as precedents of a design exploration aimed at creating new architectural typologies that can relate to contemporary and future mountain dwellers in Idaho.

This studio will be a dual exploration, both inward and outward, navigating through different scales. We'll examine the broad view of the lookout area using maps and diagrams, comparing it continuously with the minute details of the actual shelters - employing sketches, construction methods and operating guidelines. 

As the ice melts, design ideas will be eventually landed in the actual locations of the Idaho mountains. 

Studio Description >>