The reading seminar examines the practice of theming in architecture through the lens of Disney. The corporation has not only entertained global publics through film, media, and theme parks, but also disseminated ideas about race, gender, and class. Natural and built environments have contributed to grounding these systemic structures, creating literal foundations in concrete and steel. However, Disney’s material magic is not restricted to Disney properties alone—the corporation has successfully repackaged and exported its approach to architectural design well beyond its gates, shaping the design of university campuses, corporate parks, and even city downtowns. Class discussions will cover critical theoretical approaches to media, culture, and architecture. Assignments, from readings presentations to a collaborative video project, will examine Disney’s broader and often overlooked material legacies in current design debates. 

Urban ghost ships, haunted houses, dead zones, pencil towers. Zombies are no longer limited to popular culture alone but have shifted shape and infiltrated architectural design and urban development. Architects now design ultra-thin towers as investment property for the one percenters, developers engineer neighborhoods to accommodate tourist interests but not local residential needs, municipalities transform public spaces into advertising and marketing venues, all in the name of profit and capital accumulation. How does the specter of the living dead help us understand the development of architecture and urban form in the last century? How does it shed light on familiar developments like suburbanization and urban decline? What does the zombie figure reveal about the relationship between capitalism and the built environment? To answer such questions, this seminar will track the zombie in environments like Haitian sugar plantations and Midwestern shopping malls as well as in popular outlets, from The Walking Dead to Dawn of the Dead. 

How do we think about diversity in architectural history? Whose voices do we listen to when narrating the built environment? What types of built environments do we highlight in architectural education and how might we work toward expanding this list? By delving into various methodological lenses, students will gain insights into the past, present, and future trajectories of architectural history. They will learn about marginalized spatial experiences and narratives, including those of women, racialized groups, queer, and working-class peoples. Simultaneously, we will introduce new analytical lenses such as intersectional, transnational, and environmental perspectives, to expand what counts as architectural history. 

We rely on infrastructure yet rarely see it. Only when infrastructure breaks down do we begin to ask what it is, who makes it, and who has access to it. Nevertheless, in the end, we are still eager to make infrastructure disappear again. But what and where are the politics of infrastructure? If we have the right to the city, do we also have the right to infrastructure? And what types of infrastructures are necessary for human and non-human vitality? How has history shaped and conditioned our relationship to different types of infrastructure? To engage with these questions, we will discuss highways, parks, buildings, pipelines, the power grid, 3D printers, sustainability, smart sidewalks, social and environmental justice, urban politics in the Global North and the Global South, unpleasant design, concrete, water, thing theory, the Whole Earth Catalog, maintenance, and crafting. 

This course presents design research processes fundamental to defining clear problems and architectural proposals. Through a series of exercises, presentations and conversations, students will learn to articulate and defend their interests and positions. Exercises will include literature research, precedent analysis, statement writing, site documentation, programming and diagramming. These avenues of inquiry will serve to provide both historical and critical context to students’ interests, connect them to relevant discourse, and help them clarify their own visions. This work will be presented in a juried review and collected as a booklet.