Programs
USF Study Abroad Program
Summer Studio in Italy:Summer Studio in Japan:
Introduction:
The Summer Studio in Japan will give students the opportunity to study one of the world’s most important architectural traditions and unique cultures. Japanese Architecture evolved over centuries from a combination of foreign and domestic influences into a tradition that is uniquely Japanese. Today Japan continues to be on the cutting edge of architectural design and technology and many contemporary Japanese architects are recognized as leaders in the field. The program will take place in Kyoto, the Kansai region, and Tokyo giving students exposure to a variety of Modern and Traditional building types and their gardens and landscapes. Ample time will be given at each site for students to reflect, write journals, sketch and take photographs.
Eligibility:
The program is open to all students in the USF school of Architecture and community design who have completed the following coursework; Arc 5363 (Design III), Arc 5588 (Structures II), Arc 5467 (Materials and Methods). Some knowledge of the Japanese language will enrich the experience abroad but is not required.
Scholarships:
Compass study abroad scholarships for partial funding are available from the Study Abroad Office. For more information please visit their website at http://global.usf,edu/
Faculty:
Stanley R. Russell is an assistant professor in the School of Architecture and Community Design at the University of South Florida where he teaches graduate courses in Design and Japanese Architecture. He worked in Japan as an architect for 14 years and has also done study abroad programs to Japan from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Summer Studio in China
China Summer Studies Abroad-Beijing, Shanghai and Rural location
Architecture and Urbanism Studio
Shannon Bassett, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urbanism
Program Brochure
This program is open to students studying architecture and urban design but will also accept any students interested in obtaining architectural credits. Students can take this for Advanced Design A or Design C credit (6 credit hours), in addition to as a Thesis One Studio at the permission of the instructor (5 credit hours) Students can also do this for six (6) design elective All students will do this program for an elective/workshop (3 credit hours) in addition to their studio.
China is currently undergoing a rapid process of urban transformation that is historically unprecedented. Additionally, it is experiencing an economic and building boom unlike anywhere else in the world. It is estimated that in the next 30 years this country with the largest population in the world will also be stepping on the global stage as the largest world superpower.
These exceptional happenings in China have been significant for contemporary Chinese architecture and urbanism as there is often a symbiotic relationship between economics, politics, the social phenomena and architecture and urbanism. Some of the most innovative and provocative new architecture being built in the entire world is happening right now in China. The top architects and projects in the world currently all have a presence on the contemporary Chinese architecture scene, including, to name a few, Rem Koolhaas’ CCTV building, Steven Holl’s linked Hybrid project, and Paul Andreu’s Beijing Opera house or “the Egg”.
Likewise, the recent 2008 Beijing Olympic Games produced significant legacy pieces of architecture such as Herzog DeMeuron’s National Olympic stadium, the Birds Nest, the National Aquatics Center-the Water Cube, and the competition and master plan for Olympic Park and Olympic Ecological Forest by Sasaki. Additionally, the entire city of Beijing has undergone a massive transformation including the implementation of an entire new infrastructural system for the city that was put in place to accommodate for the Olympics. Shanghai, with its layered history as once the City of Sin and Treaty port after the Opium Wars at the end of the 19th century, and then a ground for the birth of the Communist Party, is once again a cosmopolitan and dynamic city. Pudong, a whole new that has been constructed across the Huangpu River from Shanghai and the historic bund, was a series of cow fields in the eighties, and is now a futuristic city with significant projects and ambitious master plans by both foreign and Chinese architects.
Without a doubt, for the student of architecture and urban design, there is perhaps no other more exciting, dynamic, or significant place to be right now than China. The top architecture firms in the world have set up practice there and now young architects are stepping onto this world stage. Here they are realizing, in a few years’ time, significant projects that their counterparts in the US and the West might not ever realize in an entire career.
The Summer 2009 Studies Abroad Architecture and Urbanism program in China promises to change the student’s life, open their eyes and expose them first hand to this special moment in China’s history with its provocative architecture and urbanism scene. For no where else in the world is there the opportunity to study history being made in architecture and urban design, and to begin to understand its significant impact on the country and the rest of the world.
The China Program will be a ten-week long program abroad based principally in Beijing. Students will be working in a dedicated studio space that is shared with Cross boundaries Architects, and is within the second ring road of Beijing in close-proximity to all of the major historical sites including the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Students will live, study and work within the traditional urban fabric of the hutongs, the traditional city alleyways that run in between the lines created by the courtyard residences. This will give the students an opportunity to live and learn within the culture that they are studying as opposed to being a tourist who flies in and out. Students will undertake three projects. The first principal project will be to complete a design for the Post-Olympic City. This project will be in collaboration with Cross boundaries architects who are currently working on and actual project for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) which they hope will provide lessons for the City of London in terms of learning from the Beijing experience with regards for the design and interventions for the city for the Olympics as they begin to prepare for the 2012 Olympics to be held in London. There will be a traveling exhibit of the student’s work, in addition to a publication.
The second project will be working with a developer, EBD (Ecological Business District) in collaboration with the Central Communist government, on an actual project for the design of an eco-tourism village, Miyun, in the rural countryside to the North east of Beijing, with the possibility of student’s projects being built as part of the government’s New Socialist Village policy. The final project will take place while the students are in Shanghai for two weeks, and will involve the collaboration with students at Tongji University. This project will focus on a reconstruction project for Sichuan province, where a devastating earthquake occurred last May. Students will also have the opportunity to visit the construction site of the Shanghai 2010 Expo and meet with those designers who are working on it from the Tongji Design Institute. While in Shanghai, students will also make an overnight trip to the world famous traditional Chinese gardens of Suzhou. Studios will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be reserved for field visits and day trips such as to the Great Wall of China, the Summer Palace and the Commune by the Wall, which is a veritable museum of the work of all of the top architects in Asia. Weekends will have no scheduled activities. This program is principally open to students studying architecture and urban design but will also accept any students interested in obtaining architectural credits. It is also open to students who wish to take this a Thesis One Studio. Students will do this program for a Studio (6 credit hours) and elective/workshop (3 credit hours).
Enrollment will be capped at 12 students.
STUDENTS STILL BEING ACCEPTED
Summer Studio in India
The USF SACD Education Abroad India program will give students the opportunity to study one of the world’s most rich architectural traditions while immersed in the culture that helped to produce it. India is one of the oldest civilizations and second most populated country in the world. It is the seventh largest in area that extends from the snow-capped Himalayas in the north, the fertile plains of central peninsula, the desert of the west, to the tropical rainforests of the south. Such an ancient, varied and expansive landscape has supported a wide variety of cultures that can be experienced in the architecture, arts, crafts, rituals, beliefs and everyday lifestyles of the diverse people. The variety in the vernacular architecture across the country wonderfully reflects the change in landscape through the changing use of local materials and techniques. The building crafts and traditions naturally use sustainable materials and ingenious methods to create a unique an indigenous architecture.
A student of architecture will find drastically contrasted typologies and forms of buildings and whole settlements based on its location and context. Much of the architecture and building crafts of India have been influenced by the people that invaded and finally assimilated and settled in the country. In this way Indian Architecture evolved from a combination of foreign and domestic influences into a tradition that is uniquely Indian.
Western architects started taking interest in the traditional architecture of India in the early 20th century. Well-known architects such as Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn have done significant projects in India. Other architects such as Laurie Baker, J. A. Stein, and Antonin Raymond have created remarkable works of Modern sustainable architecture that address the local context. Contemporary architecture of India may be best defined as one that has adopted and transformed the Modern movement to the local vernacular – a Regional Modernism.
The USF SACD Education Abroad India program will introduce students to the historical progression of contemporary architecture in India as it developed with the influences from Modern architecture and the International Style. Students will conduct design studio work in an exciting urban context that is ripe with current and relevant global and local issues of urbanity and sustainability. The Program will also take students through a journey spanning over five centuries and will introduce them to the architecture of the Indus valley civilization, the Hindu and Buddhist architecture, the Sultanate and Mughal architecture introduced to the Indian subcontinent by the Muslim dynasties that came to India as invaders and eventually assimilated to create a unique culture, and the Indo-Sarcenic architecture that developed during the British rule. As a part of the Program we will travel to several cities and locales in India including New Delhi, Agra, Chandigarh, Jaipur and other historic areas - over 30 architecturally significant sites.