2012-2013
Diploma 8
Eugene Han
Outline and Structure 2012/13
Corporate Domain
The role of the corporation in the city had originated as an agent of urban form, yet has evolved to
become the primary problematic for a contemporary understanding of the various formats of polis.
Throughout this evolution, the relationship of architecture and building has become confused,
dormant and marginalised as an esoteric praxis. As such, Diploma Unit 8 is concerned with how
architecture can reclaim relevance in the dialectic between form and the complexity of the city.
Corporate Campus
The brief for yearlong proposals will be in a revival and redefinition of the corporate campus within a
fragmented urban condition. Beginning our research with the history of the corporation and the city,
we will first examine urban precedents of the early twentieth century. We will then continue on to
more global contemporary trends ranging from a general desire to reintroduce production within
urban agglomerations, and the more recent compromise of trends that seek to encapsulate
particular urban phenomena in peripheral and polycentric cores. Students will formulate and
demonstrate their positions through architectural speculations, founded on a site and context of
their own determination.
Common Form
The focus on this year’s approach to the architectural ‘object’ will address fissures inherent in the
historical distinction between building and architecture. For students to both demonstrate and
extrapolate their developing proposals, the methodology of form development will be integral in the
elaboration of associated technical and theoretical concepts. Inherent in this process is the
development of an architectural syntax focusing on the model of reductive elements, presupposing
an urban concept of paradigm and syntagma, or classes and the links among them. Students will be
accountable for both the development of a general order of architectural elements, its structure of
possibilities, and the implementation of types critical to their propositions.
2012-2013
Reading List (non-exhaustive list)
*Publications and Essays will be updated as the year progresses
Abalos, Inaki & Herreros, Juan. Tower and Office: From Modernist Theory to Contemporary Practice. MIT Press.
2005.
Alexander, Christopher. Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Harvard University Press, 1964.
Banham, Reyner. The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment. The University of Chicago Press, 1969,
1984.
Banham, Reyner. Silicon Style. The Architectural Review, 1981: 285.
Colquhoun, Alan. Essays in Architectural Criticism. MIT Press. 1985.
DeLanda, Manuel. Philosophy and Simulation. Continuum Publishing Corporation. 2011.
Drexler, Arthur, and Axel Menges. SOM: Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1963-1973. The Monacelli
Press, 2009.
Durand, Jean-Nicolas-Louis. Precis of the Lectures of Architecture: With Graphic Portions of the Lectures on
Architecture. Getty Research Institute. 2000.
Easterling, Keller. "The Corporate City is the Zone." In Power: Producing the Contemporary City, by Lieven de
Cauter, Michiel Dehaene and Saskia Sassen. NAi Publishers, 2007: 75-85.
Eisenman, Peter. Houses of Cards. Oxford University Press Inc. 1987.
Eisenman, Peter. Eisenman Inside Out: Selected Writings 1963-1988. Yale University Press. 2004.
Hays, Michael. Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal for Ideas and Criticism in Architecture
1973-1984. Princeton Architectural Press. 1999.
Hays, Michael. Hejduk’s Chronotope. Princeton Architectural Press. 1996.
Hays, Michael. Architecture Theory Since 1968. MIT Press. 2000.
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, and Ernst Danz. SOM: Architecture of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1950-1962. The
Monacelli Press, 1999.
Hookway, Branden. Pandemonium: The Rise of Predatory Locales in the Postwar World. Princeton
Architectural Press, 1999.
Koolhaas, Rem & Mau, Bruce. S, M, L, XL. Monacelli Press. 1995.
Krier, Rob. Stadtraum. Umbau-Verlag. 2009.
Krier, Rob. Town Spaces: Contemporary Interpretations in Traditional Urbanism. Birkhauser GmbH. 2006.
Lupen, Bernard. Frame and Generic Space. 010 Publishers, Rotterdam. 2006
Martin, Reinhold. The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space. The MIT Press, 2005.
Mozingo, Louise. Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Urban and Industrial
Environments). MIT Press. 2011.
2012-2013
Nesbitt, Kate. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: Anthology of Architectural Theory, 1965-95.
Princeton Architectural Press. 1996.
Rossi, Aldo. The Architecture of the City. MIT Press. 1984.
Rowe, Colin. The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays. The MIT Press, 1976: 89-117.
Rowe, Colin & Koetter, Fred. Collage City. MIT Press. 1978.
Weisfeld, Matt. The Object-Oriented Thought Process. Addison-Wesley, 2009.
Ungers, Oswald Matthias, Vieths, Stefan. Ungers. Skira Editore, 1997.
Van der Heuvel, Dirk, Risselada, Max. Team 10: In Search of a Utopia of the Present. NAI Publishers. 2005.
Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1966.
Visionary Power, Producing the Contemporary City. Eelco van Welie (NAi Publishers), 2007.
2012-2013
Architectural Precedence (non-exhaustive list)
City Centres
-Rockefeller Center (Associated Architects. NYC, NY. 1928-1940)
-Lever House (SOM. NYC, NY. 1952)
-Peachtree Center (John Portman & Associates. Atlanta, GA. 1956-65)
-Inland Steel Building (SOM. Chicago, IL. 1958)
-Chase Manhattan Bank HQ (SOM. NYC, NY. 1961)
-Seagram Building (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig. NYC, NY. 1960)
-Union Carbide Building (SOM. NYC, NY. 1960)
-Exxon Building (XYZ Buildings) (Wallace Harrison & Max Abramoviz. NYC, NY. 1972)
-Citicorp Center (Hugh Stubbings & Associates. NYC, NY. 1977)
-Embarcadero Center (John Portman & Associates. San Francisco, CA. 1982)
-University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) (SOM), Chicago, IL. Various.
-Larkin Administration Building (Wright, Frank Lloyd. Buffalo, New York. 1904)
Suburban/Exurban/Rural
-Johnson Wax (Frank Lloyd Wright. Racine, WI. 1936-39)
-General Motors Technical Center (Eero Saarinen. Warren, Michigan. 1945-56)
-Connecticut General Life Insurance (SOM. Bloomfield, CT. 1957)
-Upjohn Headquarters (SOM. Kalamazoo, MI. 1961)
-IBM Rochester (Eero Saarinen. Rochester, MN. 1961)
-John Deere Headquarters (SOM. Moline, IL. 1964)
-Bell Telephone Laboratories (Eero Saarinen. Holmdel, NJ. 1962-66)
-Willis Faber and Dumas Headquarters (Norman Foster. Ipswich, UK. 1971-75)
-Union Carbide Corporation World Headquarters (Kevin Roche & John Dinkeloo. Danbury, CT. 1983)
-Kluczynski Federal Building (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig. Chicago, IL. 1974)
-Lafayette Park (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, Hilberseimer, Ludwig. Detroit, MI. 1961-65)
Contemporary Cases
-Silicon Valley (Various architects/corporations)
-Googleplex (Mountain View, CA. 1997)
-Facebook Headquarters (Palo Alto, CA. 2009)
-Microsoft Headquarters (Redmond, WA. 1986)
-General Mills Headquarters (SOM. Golden Valley, MN. 2008)
-Nike (Beaverton – Unincorporated Washington County, WA)
-Neuss Hammfeld (Ungers, Oswald Mathias. 1994)
-Potsdamer Platz Leipziger Platz (Ungers, Oswald Mathias. 1991)
Other Precedence
-Orphanage (Aldo Van Eyck, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 1960-61)
-Centraal Beheer (Hermann Hertzberger, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. 1967-72)
-Salk Institute (Louis Kahn, La Jolla, USA. 1959-66)
-Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (Foster + Partners, Norwich, UK. 1987)
-Plan Obus (Le Corbusier, Algiers)
-Buikslotermeer Urban Study (Van den Broek and Bakema and Aldo van Eyck, Amsterdam, 1962-63)
-Free University Competition, Candilis-Josic-Woods, Berlin. 1963-73
-New Draught Beer Department for Greene King Brewery (Michael Hopkins Architects, Bury St. Edmunds. 1979)
-The Republic Newspaper Plant (SOM, Columbus, Indiana)
-Inter-Action Centre (Cedric Price, Kentish Town – London)
-IBM UK Ltd at Northern Road (Foster + Associates, Cosham – UK)
-Inmos Microprocessor Factory (Richard Rogers & Partners, South Wales – UK)
-Stansted Airport (Foster + Partners, Stansted – London)
-Stuttgart Airport (Von Gerkan Marg, Stuttgart – Germany. 1991)
2012-2013
TERM 1
The unit’s first term will be organised within 2 major halves. The first half will focus on introducing
students to common and significant topics that will influence the course of work for all student projects
throughout the year.
Included within this first half is a series of seminars, covering the theoretical and historical basis of the
corporation and architecture. From historic works of urban architecture from such cities as Chicago and New
York City, the seminar will progress to the migration and evolution of such architectures into logistics-centred
exurbias, recent examples and writings on contemporary architecture/corporate strategies primarily focusing
on North America, Europe, and the Far East, and finally a series of discussions on the definition of the campus
as an operative urban type. This seminar will conclude with a series of discussions and writings that will set the
tone for students to introduce their own architectural agendas within the yearlong brief.
Concurrently, the tutor will lead a series of workshops that investigate structural and fabrication
strategies used in large scale buildings and infrastructures. Focusing on examples such as structural
frameworks and component detailing, these workshops will make use of both physical models in conjunction
with digital analysis using Finite Element Analysis. The final seminar will focus on the nature of contemporary
computational frameworks and their relevance to the architectural design process. Using Object-Oriented
paradigms as a model, this seminar will use such notational standards as UML to introduce students in
documenting complex object-system relationships. We will introduce students to particular members from the
Technical Studies department as well with staff from other related parts of the school. By the end of the term,
logistic, conceptual, intellectual, and intermediary design solutions shall be fully worked out, and scrutinised
for the end of term jury. By this stage, students should be well within control to continue detailing their
physical structures and collecting/documenting corollary information to support their architectural claims
throughout the break and during Term 2.
The aims for this term is that students set up a precise framework of architectural elements that
define their architectural propositions, clarify the type and characteristics of their chosen corporate client, and
finally clarify the grammar of elements within their proposals that address a range of operative scales of
spaces. Such grammar would need to addresses magnitudes of design that address the contextual situation of
the project to the design of interior spaces, as well as constrain levels of organisational domains from the
prescribe to the indeterminate plan. The term will conclude with a jury in which students will propose their
architectural ambitions alongside their working version of their design ‘manual’ of elements and operation for
a corporate complex.
As a project site assessment is required by the beginning of the second term, students will be
encouraged to make any trips during the Winter Break if they have yet to visit their sites.
The schedule provided to outline the structure for Terms 1, 2, and 3 should be taken as a general
reference only, as dates for events and the nature of the curriculum may be modified to best suit the incoming
body of students and the aspects of their developing projects throughout the year.
2012-2013
SCHEDULING
*Teaching sessions will usually take place during Tuesday or Fridays. This will depend largely on the progression
of student projects, scheduling of seminar leaders, and the availability of facilities.
Term 1, Week 1
Monday 24th Sep
-Diploma Unit 8 brief Presentation
Tuesday 25th Sep
-Interviews
-Distribution of brief (first reading assignment, precedent research)
Friday 28th Sep
-Internal review of past student projects
-Presentation and discussion of yearlong brief
-Discussion of work carried out in the 2011/12 academic year
Term 1, Week 2
Tuesday 2nd Oct
-Seminar, Discussion:
Friday 7th Oct
-Seminar Review
-Unit Tutorials
-Workshop:
Term 1, Week 3
Tuesday 9th Oct
-Seminar, Discussion:
-Unit Tutorials
Friday 12th Oct
-Seminar Review
-Unit Tutorials
-Workshop:
Term 1, Week 4
Tuesday 16th Oct
-Seminar, Discussion:
-Unit Pinup:
Friday 19th Oct
-Seminar Review
-Unit Tutorials
Term 1, Week 5
Tuesday 23rd Oct
-Workshop:
-Seminar, Discussion:
-Unit Pinup
Cases: History of Seminal Precedents
Standards for file sharing
Cases: The City and the Campus
Imaging/Representation
Cases: Form
Presentation of student proposals
The Frame
Cases: Emerging Roles of the Corporate Domain
Candidate Site/Client/Case Studies
Thesis
Friday 26th Oct
-Unit Tutorials
-Seminar Review
Term 1, Week 6
Tuesday 30th Oct
-Workshop:
The Frame
-Group Tutorials
Friday 2nd Nov
-Submission of Case Study Books
-Group Tutorials
2012-2013
Term 1, Week 7
Tuesday 6th Nov
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 9th Nov
-Midterm Jury (Internal)
Term 1, Week 8
Tuesday 13th Nov
-Group Tutorials
Friday 16th Nov
-Submission of Books (Common Form Precedents)
Term 1, Week 9
Tuesday 20th Nov
-Group Tutorials
Friday 23rd Nov
-Unit Pinup
Project Proposals
5th Year TS proposals
-Group Tutorials
Term 1, Week 10
Tuesday 27th Nov
-Group Tutorials
Friday 30th Nov
-Technical Studies Pinup
Term 1, Week 11
Tuesday 4th Dec
-Group Tutorials
Friday 7th Dec
-Term 1 Jury (External)
Term 1, Week 12
Wednesday 14th Dec (TBC)
-Group Tutorials
Friday 16th Dec
-Unit Pinup
-Discussion and Summary of Projects
2012-2013
TERM 2
The second term will commence with a presentation and site review from each student, detailing
progress made during the Winter Break. We will be carrying through the concepts taken from Term 1, using
project design development as a medium for discussion. By the beginning of Term 2, students should arrive to
the new term with developed work over the break, whereby the project’s design stage should include a
concrete organisational proposal, a breadth of research regarding the functional processes of the chosen client,
prototypical structural details relevant to the current design at hand, and the general structure of their
Technical Studies submission (5th and 4th year students).
Relative to Term 1, the second term’s structure will be based on much more regularly-scheduled
tutorials, pinups, and discussions, rather than the inclusion of seminars and group site visits. It is intended that
a few outside contributors will participate in discussing student interests and their proposals from perspectives
yet to be discussed. Term 2 will conclude with a final jury of invited guests.
SCHEDULING
Term 2, Week 1
Tuesday 8th Jan
-Unit Pinup:
Comprehensive project status
5th Year Technical Studies statements and roadmap
th
Friday 11 Jan
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 2
Tuesday 15th Jan
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 18th Jan
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 3
Tuesday 22nd Jan
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 25th Jan
-Unit Pinup
: Additional Emphasis on TS5 for 5th Year Students
Term 2, Week 4
Tuesday 31st Jan
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 3rd Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 5
Tuesday 5th Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 8th Feb
-Unit Pinup
: Additional Emphasis on TS5 for 5th Year Students
Term 2, Week 6
Tuesday 12th Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 15th Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 7
Tuesday 19th Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 22nd Feb
-Term 2 Jury (TBC)
2012-2013
Term 2, Week 8
Tuesday 26th Feb
-Individual Tutorials
Friday 1st Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 9
Tuesday 5th Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Wednesday 6th Mar
-TS5 Interim Jury (TBC)
Friday 8th Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 10
Monday 11th Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Tuesday 12th Mar
-4th Year Interim Table Reviews
Wednesday 13th Mar
-4th Year Interim Table Reviews
Friday 15th Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Term 2, Week 11
Monday 18th Mar
-Individual Tutorials
Wednesday 20th Mar
-5th Year Interim Table Reviews
Thursday 21st Mar
-5th Year Interim Table Reviews
Friday 22nd Mar
-Group Tutorials
2012-2013
TERM 3
The majority of time and effort during the final term will focus on finishing production of architectural
proposals, detail drawings, representation, and portfolio design. At this stage, students should have a strong
grasp of the conceptual foundation of their proposals. At the very beginning of the term, it is critical that
students already have strong and clear documentation regarding the physical designs of their building
proposal, as well any other corollary documentation finished such as their precedent ‘case books’. The latter
half of the term will be primarily invested in preparing students for their final tables and examinations.
SCHEDULING
Term 3, Week 1
Tuesday 23rd Apr
-Individual tutorials
Friday 26th Apr
-TS5 Final Submission (TBC)
Term 3, Week 2
Tuesday 30th Apr
-Individual tutorials
Thursday 2nd May
-TS5 High Pass Panel
Friday 3rd May
-Individual tutorials
Term 3, Week 3
Tuesday 7th May
-Individual tutorials
Friday 10th May
-Unit Presentation
Term 3, Week 4
Tuesday 14th May
-Individual tutorials
Friday 17th May
-Individual tutorials
Term 3, Week 5
Tuesday 21st May
-Individual tutorials
Friday 24th May
-Diploma 8 Final Jury
Term 3, Week 6
Tuesday 28th May
-Individual tutorials
Friday 31st May
-Individual tutorials
Term 3, Week 7
Tuesday 4th June
-4th Year Final Table Reviews
Wednesday 5th June
-4th Year Final Table Reviews
Friday 8th Jun
-Individual tutorials
2012-2013
Term 3, Week 8
Monday 10th June
-Individual Tutorials
Wednesday 12th June
-Diploma Committee
Thursday 13th June
-Diploma Committee
Friday 14th June
-Diploma Honours Presentations
Term 3, Week 9
Work shall be carried out by all students on the Projects Review Exhibition space
Monday 17th Jun
-Tutorials as needed
Wednesday 19th Jun
-External Examinations for RIBA/ARB Part II
Friday 21st Jun
-Graduation
-Opening of Projects Review Exhibition
2012-2013
TECHNICAL STUDIES IN DIPLOMA 8
All 5th year students must produce a technical studies portfolio that will be assessed independently
from their design unit project, as outlined by Technical Studies requirements. As the production of this
portfolio is heavily valued as an integral part of Diploma 8’s curriculum, work on the TS5-relevant material will
commence towards the beginning of Term 1, through to the early part of Term 3 (Option 2), and will resonate
in the final production material even after the TS5 hand-in date. It is expected that 5th Year students develop
an integrated conceptual and technical understanding of their architectural thesis. As it is the ambition of the
unit to introduce students to an intellectual discourse of architectural form, it is understood that a critical
discussion of such a discourse cannot be achieved without a relevant inclusion of at least an intermediary
knowledge of the technical execution of form. The domain of such execution may include matters of
construction, material technology, or environmental conditioning, however it is expected that students
develop a hierarchy of technical concerns in relation to their developing architectural projects, rather than
following a general hierarchy dictated a priori by the unit brief. Students will be expected to have regular
tutorials with relevant TS tutors, and should be able to discuss technical considerations in relation to their
thesis with their unit master and peers.