Architecture Program Report Tulane University New Orleans ...

The faculty, and more specifically the Curriculum Committee, met on a
regular two-week basis during the months before Katrina, and on a twice
weekly basis after, in order to revise the entire curriculum to reflect these
(Comprehensive Design, Representation), and other important concerns,
mainly the shift to the five-year Masters of Architecture curriculum. The
curricular model will now reflect a more integrated goal and outcome
approach to studio and course work, with a comprehensive 'curricular
strategic plan' to be put in place for the upcoming year (2007-08). This
plan will cascade through not only upcoming classes, but will be reflected
in modifications in the curricula of current students—thus achieving a
current and coherent resonance across the entirety of the program from
the Fall of 2006 forward.
Per the first concern, that of Comprehensive Design, the curricular
overhaul will specifically address the goals and outcomes for
Comprehensive Design (and Building Systems Integration). Rather than
see these criteria as isolated measures (as was the case in the past), the
issue of comprehensive design has become a 'steering column' for the
revision of the curriculum. To this end, the entire second semester third
year will be dedicated to a comprehensive studio where students will be
in class four days per week, eight hours per day, during which all aspects
of the curriculum—history/theory, structures, technology, and
professional concerns—will be taught as one course. This internal
comprehensiveness will be followed by external 'courses' taught during
the fourth year, where students will spend one semester dedicated to the
new Tulane City Center and one semester in a study-abroad program.
The second concern, the issue of Representation--particularly as it
concerns digital media (as noted in the immediate past VTR)--is a
current preoccupation of curricular revisions. Greatly aided by the
requirement of laptops for every incoming first-year student, the use of
digital media is now introduced in the first year. Significant development
of digital media skills will be continued in the second- through fifth-years,
with a requirement that all projects be developed and represented in
computational form. Second year studios, in particular will concentrate
on the development of digital literacy so that students will be better
prepared to face the challenges of upper division studios. There will be a
four-semester addition to the curriculum that will entail the development
of computational skills specifically, thus furthering the saturation of
computer use across the curriculum. In addition, forms of representation
that include both visual and verbal skills will be part of this
communications skills module.
To reflect the enhanced five-year Masters of Architecture curriculum,
thesis year has been dramatically revamped. There are now four options
that students may take leading to the development of their thesis, all of
which entail a one-year (fifth-year) commitment.
The recent reorganization of thesis year has also allowed for the
enhancement of computational skills, since all students are now required
to organize the development of their thesis idea and project in terms of
analysis and synthesis. This is done not only by means of final
representation, but by using the computer as a research and formulaic
device. New courses that will further aid and abet the thesis year in these
terms are slated to be woven into the curriculum within the next year,