The Class

An examination of the architectural potentialities of the video game medium as it allows an active occupation of the digital realm. Students will explore the limits and possibilities of the medium as a vehicle for the development, articulation, and dissemination of architectural concept. Furthermore, the enabling technologies will be critically approached with respect to integration into the physical environment and the process of constructing the physical environment.

Class objectives

• To critically examine culture and society as influence to architectural progression
• To investigate new technologies and how they are influencing architecture
• To develop an understanding of new forms of organizational and relational logic.
• To learn techniques for creating interactive 3d worlds
• To learn new modes of digital presentation
• To learn how to teach yourself

Class structure

Class will be broken into 2 parts. 1.Lecture + Discussion 2.Technical Workshop The structure of the class has been built around the schedule and needs of the associated advanced studio class. The first third of the class devoted to digital environments and the last two thirds devoted to physical computing.

Exploring Your Tools – Training oneself to experiment with menu options, parameter changes, and buttons in order to gain a further understanding and expanded skill set within an application. If you don’t completely know what a function of a program is for, and you notice or pass it frequently, use it, see if you can figure out what it is for. Chances are, if it made it through the development process it performs a useful function. Who knows, it could become one of your most frequently used functions.

Finding Help – Each week key words will be provided for navigating appropriate software package help offerings and online keyword searches. This will serve as the foundation “support” material, with tutorial references, descriptions + definitions or examples of work. These pointers replace the need for any purchased reference material. The reality is, most of the software we will be using has been around for many years, and as a result very thorough documentation has been developed by the maker to educate users in how to take advantage of their product. In fact, most of the literature available at a bookstore is a simple regurgitation of descriptions, tutorials, etc (available for free to registered users) with a thin, often poorly written commentary. Advanced users must be able to teach themselves if they wish to take their skills further.

Progress + Evaluation

Projects + Assignments There will be two projects developed over the first 10 weeks of the semester, the final weeks of the semester will be spent continuing development of one of the two projects. Each week there will be a set of tasks structured in a formal assignment. Time permitting, there will be 15 such assignments. Each assignment will be evaluated for completion and quality with total of 30 points available.

Grades Letter Grades will be administered based on the percentage points from completed assignments.

Attendance The professor will take attendance at the beginning of every class. If you are late for the class without a legitimate excuse (see student handbook) this will count as half an absence. 2 unexcused absences will cause your final grade to be reduced by one letter grade, 3 unexcused absences will result in failure of the course.

Backup All students will be required to keep a backup copy of their work on Zip Disk, CD/DVD, or Micro drive. In the event that the server goes down or work is lost due to some computer failure the student will be expected to produce a backup copy of the work. Failure to produce a backup copy will result in a failing grade for the assignment. There will be no exceptions to these rules.