Robots may soon be an architect’s newest hammer and nails.
Two large blue robotic arms perch on tracks in the back of a local industrial building leased by UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design. The 330-pound machines – the largest industrial robots used by an American college – can be found in the newly-relocated IDEAS research satellite campus for A.UD graduate students.
A.UD, which was founded 52 years ago, has launched multiple academic programs within the last 10 years, including IDEAS. The platform, created in 2013, provides project space to students pursuing Master of Architecture degrees. On main campus, the school’s 10-year-old bachelor’s program aims to build the framework of a career related to architecture or design.
No longer an isolated discipline, A.UD curriculum draws influence from the fine arts, engineering and global studies. Alumni have found work in technology startups, education and movie production.
The Master of Architecture II program seeks to reinforce connections with industry business partners, said Julia Koerner, a lecturer in architecture and urban design.
“In the architecture profession, you always need to be on the cutting edge of design in order to stay relevant,” Koerner said. “This isn’t a job where you keep on doing whatever you’re doing on a daily basis. You always have to reinvent yourself.”
Reconstructing boundaries
Though IDEAS settled into its current location last month, the long work tables are already populated with hand-drawn renderings and laser-cut skeletons of structures yet to be built.
The Master of Architecture II program immerses students in one of four SUPRASTUDIOS, applied research courses that focus on topics such as sustainable design and building in extreme environments. Each SUPRASTUDIO collaborates with industry business partners such as Boeing, an aerospace company, giving students real-world problems to solve in studio.
Students in the machine vision SUPRASTUDIO apply computational and urban design skills to architectural challenges, Koerner said. This year, some SUPRASTUDIO students fabricated wall panels without using a traditional mold, instead programming robotic arms to twist a pack of fiberglass and resin into its desired shape.
Master of Architecture II student Ruolin Xu is working individually on a project from Boeing, using digital hologram technology to simulate the takeoff and landing of airplanes in her design for a port.
Instructors rarely shoot down students’ ideas, Xu said.
“(Our professors) believe in what we decided as a designer, and they want us to realize it,” she said. “It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about making the best decisions you can.”
Working across disciplines is unique in today’s time, Koerner said. In 2013, for example, she worked with fashion designer Iris van Herpen to design the world’s first 3D-printed dress in flexible material.
“The software I use in designing these 3D-printed dresses is the same we use in architectural design,” she said. “What we teach the students now is going to be relevant in 10 years. If the technology becomes available, how are we as architects going to integrate it into architecture?”
Laying foundations
Gabriel Fries-Briggs, an architecture and urban design visiting assistant professor, leads a technology seminar in Perloff Hall for students in A.UD’s two-year bachelor’s program.
Black-and-white sketches plaster the walls of his classroom, where students are modeling three-dimensional objects on their laptops. The seminar expands upon the interdependent and contingent relationships between architect, labor and materialization, Fries-Briggs said.
“There’s no imperative to teach architecture just to be practiced,” he said. “We’re teaching the larger way architecture engages with the world – urban, visual, graphic and social issues as well.”
The curriculum of the bachelor’s program does not satisfy everyone, however. Third-year architecture student Rayan Itani said she’d like to see more case studies and practical application in her classes.
“UCLA doesn’t really prepare you for the real world because it’s very theoretical,” said Itani. “They’re big on reading and writing. The only functional project we did was (designing an) office building last quarter.”
Colette Aro, a third-year architecture and world arts and cultures student, also said she wishes architectural history courses were more rigorous.
However, she said the major’s breadth exposes her to options in other fields and allows her work to be critiqued. For example, she’s looking forward to this month’s RUMBLE – A.UD’s weeklong, schoolwide exposition.
Fries-Briggs said the bachelor’s curriculum thinks holistically about the changing nature of the profession, producing not just practitioners of architecture but people interested in research or education. Like master of architecture students, undergraduates apply multidisciplinary ideas and concepts to their coursework.
“I encourage students to bring things they’re interested in … to the studio environment, and they do a great job of that,” he added. “I think there’s a lot of cross-pollination of ideas across the university.”