Sophomore Workshop: Representation

Andrea Melgarejo de Berry and David Emmons, Spring 2019

This course is intended for students to develop an understanding of the representation of ideas, values, and meaning in the built environment. It focuses on three topic areas: analysis, technical communication, and modeling. The course emphasizes exposure to multiple software tools and mastery of basic skills in each.

The course is structured into a series of lectures and labs that provide an interactive environment of learning about what it means to “represent” something in today’s society, using the tools and information readily available. Through lectures, tutorials, exercises, readings, and quizzes, students will be immersed into an intensive semester-long excursion into understanding how and why we represent ideas relating to people, places, and objects. In general, the course is organized into exercises regarding topics that range in scale, beginning with the more broad (Representation & Information) to the specific (Representation & Environments). In between these two extremities are introductions to topics of place (Representation & Site) and the smaller or more personal topics (Representation & Ideas).