ARCH 750G DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO

Architects have a long history of assuming the role of visionaries in imagining the future setting for their building designs. This architectural visioning is done in the artistic realm without the benefit of future studies. These futuristic designs while interesting and creative are often off the mark and do not provide useful future buildings as proven in time. The more cities develop, the greater their exposure to upcoming changes in governance, the environment, energy use, economy, population, technology and culture increases. Alternate futures of lower campus at UHM are interrogated in the process of designing a football performance center.

Arch 750G Design Research Studio is to offer an opportunity for students to 1) build up theoretical frameworks on alternate futures of the lower campus of UHM with the design of a football performance center, and 2) make practical engagement in the process of design decision making on the futures with developing an optimized architectural solution for the performance center. This Design Research Studio is a hybrid method, a colloquium module and practical engagement module, for developing substantive theoretical understanding and design strategies in the decision-making process of the alternate futures. This studio provides new route assumptions on resilience issues with introducing its evolutionary paradigm (robustness, recovery, and adaptation) and underlying regional practices.

Students are expected to integrate emerging scientific knowledge and instrumental vocabularies on the resilience of natural and human systems with the planning, design, engineering, and management of the alternate futures of the lower campus including a proposed football performance center within this interdisciplinary setting between the school of architecture and department of athletics at UHM. It is a team project, but each individual student is encouraged to refine and integrate his/her own research component into the part of this team project.