First Year Studio Instruction

​Spring 2022 - ARC 108 - Ongoing

Teaching Team: Profs. Eversole, Frolet, Godlewski, Miller, Pearson, Ragazzo, Rodriguez, Wu

Fall 2021 - ARC 107

Teaching Team: Profs. Guimaraes, Gagliardi, Miller, Nowicki, Pearson, Ragazzo, and Rodriguez

This section of ARC 107 was conducted in-person, during the Fall semester. This page will be updated with work from the final review

Spring 2021 - ARC 107

Teaching Team: Profs. Ted Brown, Tara Pearson, and Francisco Sanin

This section of ARC 107 was conducted during the Spring via hybrid instruction, due to the location of students in both the US and abroad. Under normal conditions, this course is only offered in the Fall Semester, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic its availability was expanded to accommodate those who could not travel to Syracuse in the fall.

Course Description

The first-year undergraduate studio course (taught over two semesters) encourages students to engage with foundational elements of architectural design by means of various pedagogical methods and technical tools. Students learn to think critically about space from both abstract and literal perspectives, and to apply this knowledge throughout the creative and productive processes. Short exercises and long-term projects offer students various opportunities for experimentation and growth, while simultaneously teaching them the technical tools they will use throughout their careers. Some of these include hand drawing, physical modeling, digital modeling, and rendering techniques. All students are expected to engage in discussions so they may not only produce thoughtful designs, but confidently speak about their work.

With these goals in mind, the faculty coordinators design a course-wide curriculum, and the individual instructors work to ensure students gain an understanding of the material and are being adequately challenged. Students come into the architecture program with different levels of ability (e.g., drawing, modeling, theoretical knowledge, etc.); understanding each student's unique set of skills is critical to guiding them through the curriculum and helping them achieve a strong grasp of design fundamentals.

Teaching Assistant Positions

Fall 2020
ARC 107 - Prof. Debbie Chen

Studio Coordinators: Profs. David Shanks and Kyle Miller

This semester of the first-year design studio began with a hybrid-form of instruction. As the assistant for this section, I remained available for all classes via Zoom - this entailed participating in weekly design critiques for small groups and individual students, as well as providing rendering tutorials to all students across the entire freshmen class (100+). Though the COVID-19-related restrictions creating significant challenges for teaching design studios, Prof. Chen and I felt that our students performed quite admirably, surpassing any expectations we could have dreamed of. Their final projects were thoughtful and well-executed!

Spring 2020
ARC 108 - Prof. Britt Eversole

Studio Coordinators: Profs. Kyle Miller and Anne Munly

This section of ARC108 began with in-person instruction at Syracuse University, but due to COVID-19 finished online.