Overview
Totalization sees the architect as the negotiator at the center of a diverse team of collaborators. Projects are understood to be contingent and evolving – a totaling up that is never fixed or finite.
Our Totalization semester coordinates all of our advanced fall studios in order to emphasize design’s intrinsic relationship to other fields, ranging from finance to fabrication. Nationally-recognized consultants (Robert Heintges, Nat Oppenheimer, Mark Malekshahi, among others) are embedded in our Totalization studios, advising students on facades, structure, MEP, and other factors.
Each studio focuses in depth upon a single, fundamental, research topic engaging materials, techniques, technologies, elements, or markets. For example, what is the structural and symbolic role of the roof today? Exposure to additional critical realms takes place in required seminars and lectures attended by all Totalization studios and addressing further considerations, such as accessibility, fire safety, environmental controls, construction document delivery, and development financing.
Depth and breadth: Totalization’s unique organization, which coordinates and synthesizes its multiple studios and multiple consultants, means that the specific research topic in question is developed within architecture’s broader scope.
