PROFESSORS
Lisa Sauvé + John Wagner
STUDIO THEME
“Studio Un-code”
From fundamental building regulations like the IBC 2015 in Michigan, to urban regulations like the Detroit City Code, even to the ordinal system of the 1785 Jeffersonian land survey grid pixelating the American landscape to this day, codes govern, specify, and organize the arrangement, design, and usage of all spaces. Un-code interrogates these rules of the game, dissect their spatial limits, and conceive of new arrangements and design possibilities. The goal is to reveal the possibilities of renovation reformation, and in some cases, rectification, of regulating rules that have shaped or inhibited the growth of the built environment.
The forensics of code can be traced through policy, social prejudice, economic power, tragedy, and failed prototypes. While over time codes have been expanded, rarely have requirements been removed or inherent assumptions interrogated. These compounding requirements, in land use; through planning codes, and construction; through building codes, become governors of design. Codes become deterministic of projects being actualized; perfect becomes the enemy of good.
The studio interrogates current land use code through its origins, application, and impact. Teams establishe project values to meet chosen urban community goals such as walkability, affordability, transit access. From this foundation, new land use districts are crafted by minimizing code restrictions and imagining new urban neighborhood futures through scenarios and systems.
The forensics of code can be traced through policy, social prejudice, economic power, tragedy, and failed prototypes. While over time codes have been expanded, rarely have requirements been removed or inherent assumptions interrogated. These compounding requirements, in land use; through planning codes, and construction; through building codes, become governors of design. Codes become deterministic of projects being actualized; perfect becomes the enemy of good.
The studio interrogates current land use code through its origins, application, and impact. Teams establishe project values to meet chosen urban community goals such as walkability, affordability, transit access. From this foundation, new land use districts are crafted by minimizing code restrictions and imagining new urban neighborhood futures through scenarios and systems.