How do we design in contexts that are foreign to us? Our neighborhoods, towns, and cities continue evolving, forcing architecture to keep up. Designing architecture to “fit-in” to a specific environment is a framework from the sophomore design studio titled, “Fitting-In.” Second-year architecture students from this studio drew inspiration from a series of neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.

How can we represent an “everyday environment” through drawing? Drawing what we see is a routine practice for architects and artists alike. Documenting our surroundings provides person-specific perspectives marked by individuality. "Ethnographic lens," in this course, was understood to be a deliberately constructed framework to learn about and accurately describe the customs of individuals and communities. 

How can one drawing represent a city’s culture, programmatic complexity, and architecture? The summer study abroad experience titled, "Building Berlin,"  placed students in a context characterized by radical political and urban transformation. As a city once ravaged by war, Berlin offers a rich setting few other European cities could match, immersing students in the layered histories of landscape, urbanism, and architecture. Embedded in another culture, both through lifestyle and architecturally, students developed a deep familiarity with key works of historic and contemporary architecture in Berlin.