333: Architecture Summer Studio

3 critics for 3 projects in 3 weeks
Instructors: Benjamin Rice + Kathy Velikov and Geoffrey Thün
SF / 15 sessions
Undergraduate: ARCHT–444
Graduate: MARCH–604
Prerequisite: Undergraduate: completion of at least one year of Architectural studies; Graduate: permission of graduate department chair
July 29–August 16, Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.–5 p.m.

333 is an intensive architecture design studio that brings leaders in the field to work with students in a laboratory–like environment at CCA. 333 emphasizes exploration and innovation with cutting–edge methods, materials and technology. 333 capitalizes on the rich geographical, social and cultural features of the San Francisco Bay Area as resources and catalysts for experiments in architecture and urban design. The model shop will be available to students Monday–Thursday, 1–8:30 p.m.

This course fulfills 3 units of Advanced studio or a studio elective.

Kathy Velikov
Kathy Velikov is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan where she teaches design studio and courses in ecology and technology. She is a licensed architect and a partner in the research-based practice RVTR, which serves as a platform for exploration and experimentation in the agency of architecture and urban design within the context of dynamic ecological systems, infrastructures, technologically mediated environments, and emerging social organizations. The highly collaborative research and work ranges in scale from that of the regional territory and the city, to high performance buildings, to full-scale installation-based works that explore responsive and kinetic envelopes that mediate energy, atmosphere, and social space. These operational scales are tied together through a methodology that entails an ecological approach; one that assembles around each project a multiplicity of agents, forces, and contexts and actively uses these multivalent and sometimes contradictory agents to drive new potentials for the work.

Velikov's work has been highly awarded and published widely. Awards include a 2012 ACSA Faculty Design Award, a Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Award of Excellence for Innovation in The Practice of Architecture (2011), a Special Jury Prize from EcoStructure Magazine (2011), an R&D Award from Architecture Magazine (2010), a Young Architects Forum Award from the Architecture League of New York (2008), and a Canadian Architect Award of Excellence (2005). In 2009, Kathy and RVTR partners Geoffrey Thün, and Colin Ripley were recipients of the Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture from the Canada Council for the Arts, and they used the travel award to explore sustainable communities in the circumpolar regions of Europe, as well as mass-custom zero energy housing manufacturing in Japan. Critical writing and projects have been published in Bracket [Goes Soft], MONU, New Geographies Journal, Journal of Architectural Education, in books by MIT Press, Princeton Architectural Press, and Jovis Verlag, as well as upcoming chapters in a Routledge publication on High Performance Homes and a Taylor and Francis book on Sustainable Energy Landscapes.

Geoffrey Thün
Geoffrey Thün is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Taubman College at the University of Michigan. He also holds an Adjunct Professor position at the University of Waterloo and Ryerson University in Canada. In 2011 he will be a Visiting Professor to the International Summer University in Renewable Energy hosted by Freie Universität Berlin and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fur Materialien und Energie, where he will lecture on architectural integration of renewable energy systems. At Taubman College, he currently teaches graduate level Site Planning and Operations and a graduate elective seminar in Landscape Infrastructure that applies action research principles to complex problems linking industrial ecology to emerging formats of urbanism, and is an M.Arch Thesis Advisor. He was a faculty lead for the 2010 University of Michigan's Campus Sustainability Integrated Assessment, undertaken to assist in shaping U-M's commitment to institutional sustainability practices and policies.

His research pursues the integration of complex systems theory in design practice and ranges across scales from examination of regional ecologies and infrastructures to the development of high-performance prefabricated building systems and interactive responsive architectures. He holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario, B. Environmental Studies and a professional B.Arch. from the University of Waterloo, and a Master's of Urban Design from the University of Toronto. He has received external funding from the U.S. Department of Energy / National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NRCan, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). Internal support for this work has been received from the Research Through Making program, The University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.

Thün is a founding partner with Kathy Velikov and Colin Ripley in RVTR Inc., a research-based practice with studios in both Toronto and Ann Arbor. Velikov and Thün were recipients of a 2008 Young Architects Forum Award for their portfolio of design from the Architecture League of New York, and a 2005 Canadian Architect Award of Excellence for SWAMP House, a prefabricated solar vacation home. The firm was awarded the 2009 Canadian Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture for their work in the field of Mass-Customized housing for Northern climates. Thün was the faculty lead for North House, an inter-institutional trans-disciplinary project to develop a net-energy producing residential prototype for the near north. North House has been recognized with a 2010 OAA Award of Design Excellence and a 2010 R&D Award of Excellence from Architect Magazine.

The following summer study abroad courses also satisfy Architecture Studio Requirements:

• Argentina/Chile: Tropic of Capricorn
• Berlin_Formations of Urban Space