The integrated design studio in the B.S. in Architecture program allows students to focus on the development and refinement of an architectural design in greater detail. This design studio is driven by several spatial qualifiers such as context, structure, building systems and energy performance in response to Buffalo’s climate. Students work on the ability to make design decisions with architectural projects while demonstrating synthesis of user requirements, technical requirements, regulatory requirements, site conditions and accessible design. The students began their semester constructing buoyant vessels or boats. The Fall 2021 agenda required each studio to produce two boats, both built to suit the criteria of speed, maneuverability and stability. Students worked collaboratively to design, construct and float a vessel at the School’s annual regatta at Buffalo’s Gallagher Pier. Constructing a 1:1 wooden vessel allowed students to gain a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of structure and skin, and how certain geometric forms  work more efficiently than others when the human body and the natural force of water are design constraints. A portion of the building process involved learning and developing an intuitive appreciation for the physical laws of nature, including density, weight, gravity and buoyancy. Working through these principles as a group exemplifies the amount of communication, labor and coordination involved in executing such a collaborative project. To further their investigation of the human-to-water relationship, students designed a Riverboat Museum and Boathouse located along the entrance to the Erie Canal in North Tonawanda, New York. The relationship between land and water became a pivotal threshold in their designs. Looking to their vessels for inspiration, the fundamental qualities of structure, skin and envelope all resulted in different ways of enclosing space. By beginning the semester at a hands-on scale, students were able to focus on the interaction of skin to structure before applying their system to a building. 

Students

Delaram Haghdel, Mariella Hirschoff

Faculty

Kenneth MacKay (coordinator), Elaine Chow, Julia Jamrozik, Jon Spielman, Seth Amman

Term

ARC 301, Spring 2021

Program

BS Arch