COURSE DESCRIPTION FOR THE AY 2025-2026
A POETIC interpretation of function
“We chose a place which, although it was without gentleness and humanity, permitted us to experiment with a new way of living [model of life], in regard to the relationship between a man and his own house. The variety of a house and the process to the final form of a building can come about in a thousand ways.
I shall describe mine. My wife [Leo’s first wife] and I did not reason this way, for example: that we needed so many bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, two baths, etc. We started from something different. We asked ourselves what it meant to awaken. How we would wish to open ourselves to the world each morning, to the life of a day. We asked ourselves what it meant to go to sleep, that is, to close our day. What it meant to eat, to be among ourselves or with friends. How to give the children their own private place to develop their own natures, and also a collective place so that they would learn to be with other, even if for now only among themselves.“
Leonardo RiccI
Excerpt from Anonymous (20 Century)
Housing block in Berlin by BFStudio-architekten
Between dream and reality, an aesthetic experience of daily life…
The ambition of the design studio will focus on a series of open-ended questions surrounding the “design of space” and “the setting in space of ideas” within the discipline of architecture. As both individuals and as a collective group, we will explore how ideas, concepts, and themes can help conceive architectural spaces and places. Most importantly we will focus on how to give them physicality, which has been one of the most important ways to legitimize our role as leaders within the built environment.
During these two semesters, we will embark on studying the discipline of architecture as a process that involves an acute sense of creativity both at the intuitive and rational levels of design. Hence, the education of an architect will be framed as part of a larger series of questions surrounding concepts pertaining to the body of history and theory, abstract and real context, structure and construction, art and urbanism from which key design strategies can be extracted, understood and redirected toward the creation of your own work.
Your second-year design experience constitutes the basis for introducing the fundamentals of architecture, a journey that will balance tradition and innovation, theory and pragmatics, design and construction. A number of suggested design projects and punctual charrettes will test your creative energy.
“Your teaching has had a profound impact on me not just in the studio, but outside as well. Through your instruction, I’ve learned to push the boundaries of design, to think critically about what makes something work, and to question what is conventional in order to discover what’s possible. You’ve helped me understand how to present and sell my ideas, and more importantly, how to believe in them. I felt like I was doing something that I truly loved and not some random assignment that someone had just assigned me.”
2024-2025 Design studio student
Fall 2025: tentative projects
This fall will offer a new approach in learning about representation and conceptualizing. This will be conducted through an increased number of charettes and quick project. And yet the pedagogical intentions remain similar as proposed below under points 1-4.
- How do you see and express yourself? The drawing of space
- How do you see and understand? Measuring and drawing to learn the basic system of notations
- How to you see and interpret? Series of punctual charettes
- How do you see and design? the window/light project in Blacksburg (design) AND a cafe on campus which incorporates all above topics.
Spring 2026: tentative project
How do you see the past and present? Two projects. The first one is TBD and the second one is the more robust urban loft renovation (urban design); interspersed by multiple charette interludes. The final project (urban loft renovation) will be presented in large format as a presentation board that are up to the choice of the students to be digital or analog. Digitals examples are below.
The broader intention of this lab is not only to fulfill a series of curricular requirements but most importantly to pursue an architecture in search of poetry and spatial delight. Past second year visual archives are to be found under: Academic year 2019-2020; Academic year 2020-2021; and Academic year 2021-2022.
Student learning outcomes
By the end of the academic year, students will have acquired the following:
- Awareness of the potential of an architecture in search of poetry, differentiating building from architecture;
- Understanding what constitutes an idea, a concept, a partie, and a design strategy;
- Ability to distinguish between what appears to be real and its representation, what is essential and what is exceptional;
- Ability to attribute to a project a clear set of theoretical premises and defined strategies;
- Understanding the filiation of the five basics 20th century spatial configurations of architecture,
- And an appreciation that research leads to the coherence and authenticity of any design project –YOUR project in particular.
I invite students interested in this pedagogy to read select blogs of your interest (see below links). Many of them were created in response to the past years student cohorts and feature fundamental design themes, often accompanied by work conducted directly in the studio context by my students: https://atelierdehahn.com/blog/
Materials to purchase for this year’s design studio
Please CLICK view the requested materials that will need to be purchased by the first week of class.
Conclusion
I very much look forward introducing you to a complex world of architecture, one that is nothing less than fascinating, ambitious and visionary. You will progress immensely and be called in contributing to our future, one that is full of promises. To achieve your goals, you will need to be creative, innovative, persistent, open-minded, and above all hard working and diligent in your endeavors. Those are major components to become a extremely successful student during your tenure with us at VT.
Suggested blogs of interest
I have selected a number of blogs that you may wish to read to understand some of the the skills that you will master upon the conclusion of your year with me. These blogs highlight process and pedagogy offered in any of my second year design studios.
NEW: Student critiques in architecture
Architecture thesis, Part 3
Architecture thesis, Part 2
Architecture thesis, Part 1
Architecture Education: Some thoughts on teaching. Part 2
Architectural Education: Some thoughts on teaching. Part 1
Architectural Education: First steps in a student’s design process
Architectural Education: the nature of being-Shaker architecture, Rainer Marie Rilke, and Louis I Kahn
Important links
At the end of the year, students will be able to design and present visually and orally a complex architectural project as demonstrated by previous design studios.