learning from new orleans
ARCH 585: Research Methods in Architecture
Fall 2011
Instructor: Arijit Sen;
Contact: senA@uwm.edu, office hours: by appt.
Course Content
The course engages students in a humanistic understanding of social, material, cultural, political, economic
and environmental circumstances of human settlements. This process will require students to look for
patterns and systems that underpin the ecological, physical and social reality of the Lower Ninth Ward and
surrounding impacted areas of New Orleans.
1. The research methods class (3-credits) shows students how to analyze and make sense of information
gathered from census, cartographic, archival, ethnographic, architectural and environmental sources.
2. Students will learn how to read and analyze the built environment as a cultural artifact.
3. They will examine how histories and voices of citizens can be incorporated into their design process and
how contested histories, traditions and identities can be represented.
4. They will learn to use material culture history, public history and environmental history in their design
process.
Additional Workshops and Field Work
Mark these days in your calendar. These are days when we will have special workshops and symposia.
November 3-4, 2011 Critical Refugee Studies Conference, All Day. Attendance required
November 11, 2011 Wes Janz Workshop, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
SKYPE workshops tba
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Teaching Methods
This class follows a teaching strategy called Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) where resolving real life
problems are planned into the curriculum in ways that promote higher-level cognitive learning. PBL is a
teaching method that is best applied in the study of complex knowledge domains such as culture and
architectural design where there is no single scientific answer or resolution. Problems based learning
principles also allow students to apply and evaluate complex information that they encounter during
research directly into their design.
Learning Objectives
On completion of this class students will gain the following skills.
1. An ability to collect empirical data and do fieldwork.
2. An awareness of ethnographic, archival, architectural, observational, and ecological data collection
strategies and an understanding of interpretive, qualitative and correlational analysis. An ability to
collect, analyze, synthesize and evaluate material and social data.
3. An ability to craft a thesis statement and produce an appropriate program of inquiry.
4. An ability to evaluate and apply information.
5. An ability to take an informed position on the politics of urban rebuilding, sustainability, and social
engagement.
NAAB Criteria Addressed
Speaking and Writing Skills
Human Behavior
Critical Thinking Skills
Human Diversity
Graphics Skills
Sustainable Design/ Social Equity and Public
History
Research Skills
Program Preparation
Fundamental Design Skills
Site Conditions
Collaborative Skills
Client Role in Architecture
National and Regional Traditions
Ethics and Professional Judgment
Texts:
Required
Ernest T. Stringer, Action Research, (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc., 2007)
Phil Steinberg and Rob Shields, What is a City: Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane Katrina, (Athens:
University of Georgia Press, 2008)
Eugenie Ladner Birch and Susan M. Wachter. Rebuilding Urban Places after Disaster: Lessons from
Hurricane Katrina. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)
Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift, Cities: Reimagining the Urban, (New York: Polity, 2002)
Nora Neale Hurston, "Their Eyes Were Watching God," (New York: Harper Perennial Books, 1996)
Recommended:
The following books are held on reserve in the Resource Center and/or in the Library (do not buy)
Ila Berman and Mona El Khafif, Urban/Build Local/Global, (California: William Stout, 2009)
Emily Talen, Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods, (Architectural Press, 2008);
Eve Blau and Ivan Rupnik, Project Zagreb: Transition as Condition, Strategy, Practice, (New York: Actar
D, 2007)
This is a Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Course (www.blcprogram.org) 2
Jeff Hou, Jeff Hou, (ed), Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and The Remaking of Contemporary
Cities (Kentucky: Taylor and Francis Group, 2010)
Charles Waldheim, ed. The Landscape Urbanism Reader, (New York: Princeton University Press, 2006)
Strategies
This semester we will look at the New Orleans case study via three “systems.” These are strategies that will
help us understand the situation on the ground better. These systems include a) infrastructural system, b)
ecological system, c) the lived system. Students are first required to analyze and document each of these
systems separately. In addition to the systemic lenses we test 5 ordering strategies viz. transect or cross
sections, thick edge, sequential procession, layering, material assemblage in our design process. Unlike
other studios students will have create their own project/program statement and carefully reflect on the
design process/methods.
Roles
In addition to being designers, students will also play the role of research specialists that will allow them to
focus on specific skills of information collection and knowledge domains. These roles include a) historian,
b) ethnographer, and c) Ecologist. These roles will be further explained in class.
Schedule
Friday mornings are group workshops on research methods (except November 4 and 11)
Grades and Grading
Readings and discussions
The course is a collective endeavor. Your participation in class discussion is paramount: essential and
expected. As such, you need to read all of the assigned readings and critically think about the issues posed
in them before each class. Class sessions should have a constructive and reflective atmosphere in which all
participate, discussing their thoughts and concerns, and providing useful, constructive feedback. The
instructor’s role is as facilitator, discussant, resource, devil's advocate, occasional protagonist, and eventual
evaluator.
Class discussions will be judged by the flexibility and critical ability of a student to evaluate and value the
different perspective intentions, positions, and purposes of the area of study. In that respect it is important
for students to display the ability to questions perspectives that they are more comfortable with and apply
positions they are less familiar with. The discussions should display that the discussant is ready to question,
reconsider, reaffirm, or reconstruct their evolving positions. Students will be called upon to direct
discussion every week.
2. Grades
Grades are based on the following categories:
20%
In class participation
Regular attendance
Completing assigned readings
Leading discussions and sharing ideas
Flexibility and critical ability of a student to evaluate and value the different perspective
intentions, positions, and purposes of the area of study.
Intellectual curiosity, taking intellectual risks, suspending disbelief and trying out ideas that are
different
20%
New Orleans on site Assignments
20%
Reviews and Workshops
40%
Projects and assignments, Final Documentation
University Policies
3
In this course, university policies and procedures will be followed for academic misconduct, accommodation for disability
and religious observation, discriminatory conduct, sexual harassment, and other matters. These are briefly described below.
The university has a responsibility to promote academic honesty and integrity and to develop procedures to deal effectively
with instances of academic dishonesty. Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work, for the
appropriate citation of sources, and for respect of others' academic endeavors.
A student may appeal a grade on the grounds that it is based on a capricious or arbitrary decision of the course instructor.
Such an appeal shall follow the established procedures adopted by the department and school. These procedures are available in
writing from the department chair.
If you need special accommodations in order to meet any of the requirements of this course, please contact me as soon as
possible. Also, please see me if you anticipate a conflict in attending a class because of a religious observation.
Sexual harassment will not be tolerated by the university. It subverts the university's mission and threatens the careers,
educational experience, and well-being of students, faculty and staff. The university will not tolerate behavior between or among
members of the university community which creates an unacceptable working environment.
All projects shall be designed to engage the environment in a way that dramatically reduces or eliminates the need for
fossil fuels, and to convey an ethical position in regard to the use of non-renewable materials and materials that pose a threat to human
and environmental health.
Bibliography
Here is a detailed list of books and articles that may be useful during the semester. Majority of them are
under reserve in the Main Library under NOI: New Orleans Initiative.
Go to https://millib.wisconsin.edu/vwebv/enterCourseReserve.do
Under the course pull-down menu choose NOI: New Orleans Initiative and find the books and readings.
New Orleans Books and Articles
All New Orleans related books are on reserve at the Golda Meir Library under New Orleans Initiative
(Go to the Reserves Page)
Demographic and Cultural Diversity, politics of citizenship and belonging
1. Emily Talen, Design for Diversity: Exploring Socially Mixed Neighborhoods (UK, London:
Architectural Press, 2008)
2. Emily Talen, Urban Design Reclaimed: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for Planners (California:
Amer Planning Assn, 2009)
3. Emily Talen, Diversity as if it Mattered, http://www.terrain.org/essays/17/talen.htm
4. Ali Madanipour, Ali Madanipour, ed, Whose Public Space: International Case Studies in Urban
Design (Kentucky: Taylor and Francis Group, 2010)
5. Jeff Hou, Jeff Hou, ed, Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and The Remaking of
Contemporary Cities (Kentucky: Taylor and Francis Group, 2010)
6. Nan Elin, Integral Urbanism (New York: CRC Press, 2006)
7. Henry Jenkins, “People from that part of the world”: The Politics of Dislocation Cultural
Anthropology, Volume 21, Issue 3 (August 2006), pp 469-486
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.2006.21.3.469/abstract
8. George Lipsitz, “Learning from New Orleans: The Social Warrant of Hostile Privatism and
Competitive Consumer Citizenship” Cultural Anthropology, Volume 21, Issue 3 (August 2006), pp
451-468 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.2006.21.3.451/abstract
9. Michael K. J. Fischer, “Introduction to Culture at Large Forum with George Lipsitz: Social Warrants
and Rethinking American Culture” Cultural Anthropology, Volume 21, Issue 3 (August 2006), pp 447450 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.2006.21.3.447/abstract
10. Kim Forth, “Cultural Critique in and of American Culture” Cultural Anthropology, Volume 21, Issue 3
(August 2006), pp 496-500 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.2006.21.3.496/abstract
11. Eran Ben –Joseph, The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making (MA:
MIT Press, 2005)
12. Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens, Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens, ed, Loose Space: Possibility
and Diversity in Urban Life (New York: Routledge, 2007)
13. Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities (Vintage Books, the University of Michigan,
1992)
This is a Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Course (www.blcprogram.org) 4
14. Iain Borden, Iain Borden, Joe Kerr, Jane Rendell and Alicia Pivaro, ed, The Unknown City: Contesting
Architecture and Social Space (MA: MIT Press, 2002)
15. Setha M Low, Plaza’s: The Politics of Public Space and Culture (Texas: University of Texas Press,
16.
17.
18.
2000)
Peirce Fee Lewis, New Orleans: the Making of an Urban Landscape (Columbia College Chicago:
Center for American Places, 2003)
Richard Campanella, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm (Center for
Louisiana Studies: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2006)
Richard Campanella, , “Ethnic Geographies of New Orleans”, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban
Fabrics Before the Storm (Center for Louisiana Studies: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2006)
History Culture and Memory
19. Dell Upton, “The Urban Cemetery and the Urban Community: The Origin of the New Orleans
Cemetery.” in Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular. Architecture VII, ed.
Annmarie Adams and Sally McMurry (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997), pp.131-45.
20. Dolores Hayden, Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (MA: MIT Press, 1997)
Ecological and infrastructural Patterns
21. Craig E. Colten, An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature (Louisiana: Louisiana
State University Press, 2006)
22. Dell Upton, “The Master Street of the World: The Levee.” in Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public
Space, ed. Zeynep Celik, Diane Favro and Richard Ingersoll (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996), pp. 277-88.
23. Ari Kelman, A River and Its City (CA: University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2003)
24. Till, Karen E. In Press. “Greening the City? Artistic Re-Visions of Sustainability in Bogota” emisferica, 2009-2010, http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-71/till (August 22, 2010).
25. All Issues, e-misférica , Hemispheric Institute of the Americas
http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/all-issues, (August 22, 2010)
26. Gisela Canepa Koch, “The Public Sphere and Cultural Rights: Culture as Action,” Pontificia
Universidad Catolica del Peru, 2009-2010, http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica62/canepa-koch, (August 22, 2010)
27. Carol Burns and Andrea Kahn, Site Matters (New York: Routledge, 2005)
28. Georgia Daskalakis, Charles Waldheim and Jason Young, Stalking Detroit (Actar, 2001)
29. Charles Waldheim and Charles Waldheim, ed, Case: Lafayette Park Detroit (New York: Prestel, 2004)
30. Peter Shedd Reed, Groundswell: Constructing the Contemporary Landscape (New York: The Museum
of Modern Art, 2005)
31. Mohsen Mostafavi, Harvard University, Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty, ed, Ecological
Urbanism (Lars Muller Publisher, 2010)
Spatial, geographical, and architectural Patterns
32. Anita Drever, “New Orleans: a Re-emerging Latino Destination City” in Journal of Cultural
Geography, 2008, 287-303
33. Stephen Verderber, Delirious New Orleans: Manifesto for an Extraordinary American City (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2009)
34. Richard Campanella, Time and Place in New Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day
(Louisiana: Pelican publishing company, 2002)
35. Richard Campanella, Marina Campanella, New Orleans Then and Now (Louisiana: Pelican publishing
company, 1999)
36. Richard Campanella, Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans (Center for
Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2008)
37. Richard Campanella, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm (Center for
Louisiana Studies: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2006)
5
38. Richard Campanella, , “Ethnic Geographies of New Orleans,” Geographies of New Orleans: Urban
Fabrics Before the Storm (Center for Louisiana Studies: University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2006)
39. Peirce Fee Lewis, New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape (Urban Landscape (Columbia
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
college Chicago: Center for American Places, 2003)
Li Wei, Airriess Christopher, Chen Angela Chia-Chen, Leong Karen J, Keith Verna M, Adams Karen
L, “Surviving Katrina and its aftermath: evacuation and community mobilization by Vietnamese
Americans and African Americans, Journal of Cultural Geography, October 01, 2008.
Dell Upton, “Grid as Design Method: The Spatial Imagination in Early New Orleans.” in Architecture
–Design Methods –Inca Structures: Festschrift for Jean-Pierre Protzen, ed. Hans Dehlinger and
Johanna Dehlinger (Kassel: Kassel University Press, 2009), pp. 174-81.
Dell Upton, “Understanding New Orleans’ Architectural Ecology,” in Rebuilding Urban Places After
Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina, ed. Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), pp. 275-87
Dell Upton, “New Orleans: Domestic Social Space,” and “Philadelphia: Health, Reform, Control.”
Contributions to Mark P.Leone and Neil Asher Silberman, in Invisible America: Unearthing Our
Hidden History (New York: Henry Holt, 1995), pp. 136-49.
Ila Berman and Mona El Khafif, Urban/Build Local/Global, (California: William Stout, 009)
Eve Blau and Ivan Rupnik, Project Zagreb: Transition as Condition, Strategy, Practice, (New York:
Actar D, 2007)
Clyde Woods, ed, “In the Wake of Katrina: New Paradigms and Social Visions,” American Quarterly,
Volume 61, Number 3 (September 2009)
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/toc/aq.61.3.html
Rebeca Antoine, Voices Rising: Stories from the Katrina Narrative Project, (New Orleans: The
University of New Orleans Press, 2008)
Peter Marcuse, “From Critical Urban Theory to the Right to the City,” City 13 (June 2009), p. 185 197
All Articles, City 13 (June 2009)
“Cities and Diversity: Should We Want It? Can We Plan For It?” In Urban Affairs Review 41
(September 2005), p. 3-19
Electronic Readings Under NOI
Antoine, ed. / Voices Rising: Stories from The Katrina Narrative Project / Editor's Introduction & We
Thought We Made the Right Decision: The Lozanos: As Told to Caroline Skinner
Birch & Wachter, eds. / Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina / Preface:
"The Wound" [by Amy Gutman] & Introduction: Rebuilding Urban Places After Disaster [by Eugenie L.
Birch & Susan M. Wachter
Bolding / Before and After North Dorgenois: Growing Up in the Sixth Ward / Introduction & Part I: My
Family
Brinkley / The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast / Author's
Note & Chapter 1: Ignoring the Inevitable
Chase / Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children, and Other Other Streets of New Orleans / Foreword: But First - Detour! & Chapter 1: Wilderness -- and a Street
Dennis / Palmyra Street / Part I: My Family (Dyson / Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the
Color of Disaster / Preface: Pompeii and 8/29 & Chapter 1: Race and Poverty
Gaillard et al. / In the Path of the Storms: Bayou La Batre, Coden, and the Alabama Coast / Preface &
Introduction
Gessler / Very New Orleans: A Celebration of History, Culture, and Cajun Country Charm / Chapter 1:
French Quarter
Hartman & Squires, eds. / There Is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane
Katrina / Chapter 1: Pre-Katrina, Post-Katrina
Horne / Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City / Preface &
Chapter 1: A Camille on Betsy's Track
Jackson / What Would the World Be Without Women?: Stories from the Ninth Ward? / Introduction & Part
I: Women in My Family
This is a Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Course (www.blcprogram.org) 6
Lewis, P.F. / New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape [1st edition: 1976] / Foreword, Apologia
and Acknowledgments & Chapter 1: The Eccentric City
Lewis, P.F. / New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape [2nd edition: 2003] / Preface and
Acknowledgments to Book Two & Chapter 1: The Eccentric City
Lewis, R. W. / The House of Dance & Feathers: A Museum by Ronald W. Lewis / Breunlin & Lewis /
Introduction: The Making of a Museum and Its Catalogue
Montana-Leblanc / Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina / Forword:
Spirits Won't Be Broken & Chapter 1
Moyer / Katrina: Stories of Rescue, Recovery and Rebuilding in the Eye of the Storm / Publisher's Note &
Gulf Coast Braces for Onslaught of Hurricane Katrina [by The Associated Press]
Nelson / The Combination / Introduction & Part I: Family (File size=3221K)
Piazza / Why New Orleans Matters / Introduction & Chapter 1
Potter, ed. / Racing the Storm: Racial Implications and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina /
Introduction & Chapter 1: Making Sense of a Hurricane: Social Identity and Attribution Explanations of
Race-Related Differences in Katrina Disaster Response [by Angela P. Cole et al.]
Schneider / African Americans in the Jazz Age: A Decade of Struggle and Promise / Introduction: What the
World War Wrought
South End Press Collective, eds. / What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation / Preface:
Up from the Depths & Introduction: Below the Water Line [by Kalamu Ya Salaam]
Steinberg & Shields / What Is a City?: Rethinking the Urban After Hurricane Katrina / Chapter 1: What Is a
City?: Katrina's Answers [by Phil Steinberg]
Sublette / The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square / Chapter 1: Rock
The City
TIME Staff Members / TIME: Hurricane Katrina: The Storm That Changed America / Introduction:
Hurricane Katrina: The Storm That Changed America & Images
Toledano & Christovich / New Orleans Architecture: Volume VI: Faubourg Tremé and the Bayou Road /
Foreword & Introduction
Toledano et al. / New Orleans Architecture: Volume IV: The Creole Faubourgs / Foreword & Introduction
Troutt, ed. After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina / Foreword &
Introduction
van Heerden & Bryan / The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina: The Inside
Story from One Louisiana Scientist / Introduction: Disaster, Tragedy, Failure -- and Hope
Ward / The Katrina Papers: A Journal of Trauma and Recovery / Katrina: A Matrix of Stories & Early
September Preludes
Wylie & Wylie / Between Piety and Desire / Introduction & Part I: Growing Up Inside
Websites
http://www.preservationnation.org/resources/technical-assistance/disaster-recovery/
http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/gulf-coast-recovery/multimedia/recovery-timeline.html
Weekly Reading and Schedule
(Instruction begins September 6, Thanksgiving recess November 23-37, Last day of
classes December 14, 2011)
Research Methods Class and Studio (Arijit’s Section) integration chart
Week Dates
Topic
Studio
Research Methods
7
1
9/ 6, 8, 9
MEMORY, PLACE AND
DISPLACEMENT
Memorial Project Mapping Systems and
Library searches
2
9/13, 15, 16 Methods of data collection and
application
Research and
documentation
Observation and
sketching systems
3
9/20, 22, 23
Charrettes
Ethnography and
interviewing,
4
9/27, 29, 30
Project work
Ecology workshop,
Numbers in
demographic databases
Human Subjects
10/4
REVIEW
5
10/ 4, 6, 7
New Orleans Field Trip
6
10/11, 13,
14
7
10/18, 20,
21
Human Subjects
Systems
Documentation
documentation due
and final drawing
printouts
Field work, mapping,
interviews, charrettes,
report writing,
HOUSING POPULATIONS
Housing Project
+ Charrettes
Quantitative data
collection and Program
development
Housing Project part 1
8
10/25, 27,
28
Programming and application of
research information
Charrettes
Building systems and
details
9
11/1, 3, 4
CRITCAL REFUGEE STUDIES
CONFERENCE
Studio work and
conference
attendance
Conference attendance
10
11/8, 10, 11 Shifting Scales – Housing Project
part 2
Charrette and
work
Student presentation
and Wes Janz
Workshop
This is a Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Course (www.blcprogram.org) 8
11
11/15, 17,
18
REVIEW
12
11/22, 24,
25
Thanksgiving recess
13
11/29, 12/ 1, POLICY AND
2
DOCUMENTATION
14
12/ 6, 8, 9
15
12/ 13
16
12/20
Studio Review by Student Presentation
architecture
and Review by non
professionals
architects
Urban Scale
Project
Defending informed positions on the Urban Scale
politics of urban rebuilding,
Project
sustainability, and social
engagement.
Drawings due
REVIEW
Thesis statement
Studio documentation
No research methods
class
Documentation due
9