Terraced Pathways - UO 2020 Arch 423/523

Instructors:    Mary Polites, Ignacio Lopez Buson
Students:       Grace Hart, Isais Lawrence

For the entirety of the 20th century, the fields of architecture and landscape architecture have developed as detached disciplines despite its obvious adjacency. Today, in an age of environmental crisis, we are obliged to rethink how both the natural and built environment are designed. If we want to start facing the challenges of climate change, landscape and architecture need to be understood as intrinsic parts of a holistic system that merges environmental, social and economic logics. In such a challenging scenario, digital technologies have proved to be a critical means to achieve efficiency (a 20th century paradigm) and to articulate complexity (a 21st century paradigm). The use of computational tools in the architectural industry is already establishing the foundations for a new design model where functionality, beauty and ecological responsibility are not mutually exclusive. 

This course aims to blur the boundaries between the urban and the natural, and explore the potential of digital tools and techniques in the conceptualization, development, visualization and fabrication of innovative architecture-landscape hybrids.

ISSUU Publication