Architecture, Health and Design, M.S.
Curriculum
Major Requirements
| Term One | Credits: | |
| ARCH 701C | Health and Design Studio I: Healthcare Facilities Design | 6 |
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Prerequisite: Corequisites: ARCH 751 This is the first Advanced Architecture Design Studio, ARCH 701C, in the Master of Science in Architecture, Health and Design program. The studio will be supported by a network of academics and practitioners in design and health fields in the New York City region. Some of these people, from companies and institutions, will be integrated into the teaching activities of this studio. Students will be introduced to case studies in healthcare spaces, to base reflections and interdisciplinary design approaches mobilized as alternatives to conventional practices in the field. Existing systems of medical principles, systems and organization will be analyzed in case studies, and, through transformation and recombination, new spatial and environmental qualities will be generated in design proposals. The objective of the studio is to learn the skills, sensibilities and methods by which to make pertinent alternative design schemes for the healthcare industry, professionals and patients. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 2-6-6 |
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| ARCH 753 | Seminar I: History and Theory of Design for Health | 3 |
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This core course, ARCH 753, focuses on the history and theory related to designing for health, at the intersection of methodologies, design commonalities and specificities, between healthiness of our bodies, minds and the mutually reciprocal relationship to the healthiness of our interior architectural environments. Principles of holistic design for health, as well as some of the key tools and design approaches are introduced in this course. Aiming to introduce a history of health institutions and their associated spaces, the course will develop expertise with which to address challenges faced by ageing, injured or disabled subjects with diminished mobility, the embedding of universal and inclusive design, confronting the notion of a perfect, healthy and idealized body. A contemporary human-centered approach to designing spaces for wellness, challenges the standardization of architectural and interior spaces, and also the uniformity of healthcare. Architectural spaces are conventionally designed for normative bodies, generally dismissing illness and disability as limiting factors in how some people use and move through spaces. Architecture, medical products, and clothing are all dimensions to the measurements of averaged, and often idealized bodies. There persists an ableist bias, as opposed to disabled or, extraordinary, based on standardized, normative body features, dimensions and capacities. In turn, designing spaces for people with disabilities brings challenges to deviate from the standardization and regulation of architectural space. Students examine the major preventative health issues, and their spatial consequences, affecting the design of spaces with health and wellness today. The ways in which architectural and interior spaces have contributed throughout history to our well-being, forms the overall focus of this core course. The course surveys the disciplinary domains of the design of institutional design, architectural and interior spaces, mobility schemes and devices, medical products, interfaces, fabrics, wearables and clothing, material systems, and smart systems. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| ARCH 754 | Seminar II: Body, Mind, and Built Environments | 3 |
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In this core seminar course, ARCH 754, students learn new approaches to environmental and material organizations in architectural space, with an emphasis on the emotional and physical effects of architectural space on our health and wellness. In a series of lectures, case studies, student-led seminar presentations on case studies and weekly readings, the fresh arena of augmented and intelligent materials, spaces and interfaces will experiment with the physical bodily and cognitive effects, to enable designed environments to have more positively impacting effects upon our bodies and minds. This course introduces eastern medical and spatial philosophies which reveal well-being as an affect of architectural space. The consequences of these medical philosophies for spatial environments will be shaped by a participatory approach to design, in which design outcomes are shaped through co-design between architectural designers, industrial designers, material scientists, and medical professionals. The customization of environments, spaces and products, can be aimed to target a greater extent of universalization, through modularity, which can be a recombinant strategy to achieve a universal design language. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| ARCH 757 | Materials | 3 |
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This course, ARCH 757, is offered to satisfy the Focus Area II of the Master of Science of Architecture, Health and Design program. In the seminar students will learn, analyze, research, displace and investigate new paradigms in materiality applied to architecture. This seminar will focus on material properties, behavior and characteristics through environmental simulation and optimization, structural simulation and optimization, studies the properties of material composites, hybrid materials, and polymers. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| Total: 15 Credits | ||
| Term Two | Credits: | |
| ARCH 702C | Health and Design Studio II: Health Prototypes | 6 |
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Prerequisite: Prerequisites: ARCH 701C
Corequisites: ARCH 752 This is the second Advanced Architecture Design Studio, ARCH 702C, in the Master of Science in Architecture, Health and Design program. This studio focuses on prototyping innovative configurations and material assemblages of spaces for health and wellness. This studio will be briefed by medical and design partners within other Schools and Colleges in NYIT, other academic partners in the New York City region, and industry collaborators with specific expertise to plug into the studio. Benefiting from introductory Lab workshops on alternative approaches to materiality, multidisciplinary design, computational and electronic augmentation, students will acquire further skills for a series of experimental design products in this semester. Knowledge gained in core seminars will be folded into the methodologies and products worked on in this semester. Informed by a complex set of briefing agencies, to prototype spaces, design work in this studio will be generated in relation to dynamic environmental qualities at various scales. This Second design studio is concerned with how spaces aligned to the constraints of disability, and confronting ableist biases for standard, normative body types, and the capacity for mobility and access. The outcomes of this studio will be a series of smaller scale design outcomes, as ergonomic and kinesiologic formations, leading to spatial networks, and ultimately, configured as a new institutional diagram. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 2-6-6 |
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| ARCH 752 | Studio Workshop: Multidisciplinary Design | 3 |
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Prerequisite: Corequisites: ARCH 702C This studio workshop, ARCH 752, will focus on the deep influence of the environmental qualities of our designed spaces upon the health, wellness and fitness of our bodies and minds. Students will acquire advanced skills required for use in design studios, including tools for analysis, simulation, 3D modeling in Rhinoceros software and plugins, fabrication technologies, and visualization. The objective of this required course is for students to learn and apply computational skills towards design problems. This lab will also introduce principles and practices of collaborative design, across design and health, including architecture, interior design, industrial design and product design, and other disciplinary arenas. Experimenting on a co-design mode of crossing disciplinary practices will be built into the ethos of the program, with a goal to achieve design solutions, made possible by multiple contributors with diverse disciplinary expertise. In a series of intensive lecture, seminar and lab sessions, this workshop will also deliver a set of key readings and case studies. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| ARCH 755 | Seminar III: Environmental Behavior and Design Intelligence | 3 |
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This course, ARCH 755, introduces concepts and computational tools in the area of environmental qualities. Students will be introduced to a toolbox which can be applied to the measurement of problem-based environmental attributes of daylight and artificial light, color, temperature, air quality and flow, and other environmental attributes and their qualities, as well as a set of skills which simulate environmental behaviors in space. In a series of technical software tutorials, methods will be introduced, for the automating the generation of vast quantities options in relation to varying criteria and constraining parameters – or, optioneering – to map out a solution space of possibilities, rather than a single optimal solution. Introducing student to environmental qualities and their impact on human well-being, these notions are key concepts to base innovations in the architecture and design of healthcare spaces. In addition to learning simulation software applied to environmental qualities, this course is pedagogically organized to include seminar discussions around particular themes and readings, including nature, environments, atmosphere and design intelligence, as well as problem-based short design exercises, on a case study prototype, worked on in groups of students. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| ARCH 756 | Medical and Mobility Prototypes | 3 |
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In this course, ARCH 756, students are introduced to the latest advancements in material research and development in applications for medical products, spaces and devices. Today’s maker culture, reliant on collaborative design, is creating alternative medical devices by democratized prototyping, working closely with patients, with their best interest in mind. Appropriating knowledge from various sources, and transferring it to another application, the bottomup, on-site making of medical products is a tendency which is at the intersection of design, health and technology. Material research in the area of medical products, spaces and devices, are making advances in design arenas, which enlist, fabrics and textiles, embedding smart systems into textiles and other hard surface materials, actuated by illumination and other effects. Processes of design and end devices can be made more accessible through collaboration between diverse actors and agents. Communities of practice can come together to collaborate on the design of spaces, with the aim to personalize medicine, and to empower the patient. Classroom Hours - Laboratory and/or Studio Hours – Course Credits: 3-0-3 |
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| Total: 15 Credits | ||
| Total Program Credits = 30 |