For my building, I chose The Mountain which is an apartment building designed by Bjarke Ingels. Apart from the professional design of the building, many other professional techniques were used to comprehend and construct the building. Some of the fields of study I think were necessary in the entire process of conceiving and constructing this building are computer science, environmental science, materials science, structural physics, advanced geometry, anthropology, business relations, and basic industrial construction. These different fields of study are all necessary to be able to create a building from start to finish. While architecture focuses mainly on the design of the building, these other fields can be just as important to architects, as they have to design the building around other principles rather than just aesthetics. These different fields (some of which are required for a proper education in architecture) help provide a more well rounded curriculum for architects to be able to understand what they are designing.
I think that an environmental structures course within the architecture curriculum would be extremely beneficial especially for modern architects to be environmentally conscious through joining the natural world and the artificial world in which we create buildings and infrastructure. With climate change becoming more and more of a world problem. Architects need to be able to adapt to a changing world while also preserving some of the traditional values in architecture such as space and structure. The course would mainly consist of looking at how different organisms are able to build structures as well as how we can limit the ecological impact of those structures. Additionally, the course should look at the aesthetics of nature and how that can be integrated into modern architecture.
Brian's 212 Understanding Architecture Section 