The School of the Arts · visual, musical & performing arts
Architecture & Interior Design
Why buildings stand and please, and how a room is measured, drawn, and argued before it is built.
Pyramid to skyscraper: how structure, material, and belief shaped buildings era by era.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~24 hours
Unit I — Building Before Engineers
Post and lintel to arch and dome · Egyptian and Greek temples · Rome: concrete and the Pantheon
Unit II — Sacred Heights
Hagia Sophia's floating dome · Gothic structure as skeleton · Mosques, pagodas, and stupas compared
Unit III — Order and Ambition
Renaissance proportion and Palladio · Baroque cities and their axes · The industrial materials: iron, glass, steel
Unit IV — The Modern Century
Skyscrapers and the elevator · Modernism: less, argued more · After modernism: the present argument
Plan, section, elevation: the drawing conventions architects use to think and to be understood.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~26 hours
Unit I — The Language of Drawings
Plan, section, elevation, defined · Scale and line weight · Symbols and conventions
Unit II — Drafting by Hand
Tools and sheet setup · Drawing a measured room · Lettering that reads
Unit III — CAD Foundations
Layers and precision input · From sketch to CAD plan · Printing to scale
Unit IV — Communicating a Design
Axonometric and perspective sketches · A small drawing set: plan, section, elevation · Reading real construction documents
Site, program, parti: a first design project carried from sketch to model to review.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~40 hours
Unit I — Site and Program
Reading a site: sun, slope, neighbors · Writing a program: who, what, how big · Precedent studies done honestly
Unit II — Form Finding
Parti: the big idea in one sketch · Massing studies in card and foam · Circulation: how bodies move through
Unit III — Development
Structure and light in the scheme · Materials chosen for reasons · Drawing the design at scale
Unit IV — The Review
Model and presentation drawings · Speaking about your own work · Critique: taking it and using it
Zones, clearances, color, and light: redesigning a real room so it works as well as it looks.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~18 hours
Unit I — How Rooms Function
Zones, circulation, and clearances · Scale and proportion in furnishing · Function first: writing a room brief
Unit II — The Elements
Color in rooms: light changes everything · Texture and pattern in balance · Furniture arrangement that serves conversation
Unit III — A Room, Redesigned
Measuring and drawing the existing room · Mood boards with discipline · The plan, the palette, the budget
Wood, stone, textile, and the three layers of light — specifying interiors with reasons.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~16 hours
Unit I — Materials Up Close
Wood, stone, tile, textile: where each belongs · Durability and maintenance, honestly · Sustainability and healthier interiors
Unit II — Lighting Design
Ambient, task, accent: the three layers · Color temperature and rendering · Daylight: borrowing and controlling it
Unit III — Specifying
Reading samples and finishes · A materials-and-lighting schedule for one room · Costing and substitutions