Community Design/Build

Instructors: Steve Badanes, Bill Bialosky, Jim Adamson

Maximum: 12 students

Credits: 3 (minimum of 80 total hours, minimum of 24 hours of formal lectures and 56 hours of workshop instruction)

Guided by Jersey Devil co-founder Steve Badanes, students will engage in the hands-on process of designing and building a full-scale public project. Past projects include a public playground structure, a village green bandshell, a bus shelter for school children, and a park pavilion. The class will begin its work by meeting with the various community members and groups who requested or will be affected or served by the project. By way of these preliminary meetings, the design criteria [program] and budget for the project will be determined. The students will then undertake the process of proposing and developing the design appropriate to the programmatic, budgetary, and time constraints. Once a final design is reached through a consensus process, the students will schedule the work, order materials, and construct the project.

In each phase of the design/build process, attention will be given to making the architecture as expressive as possible within the context of the given design program and a conscience commitment to sustainable building practices. Students will gain first-hand experience of how a community-based, consensus approach to a project can build a sense of community as it creates a work of architecture. Evening lectures will focus on examples of individual and team processes as illustrated by the work of Jersey Devil Design/Build and William Bialosky, Architect.

Student performance will be assessed based on participation, attitude, etc.

Instructors will write letters of evaluation upon request.

Recommended readings:

Connell, John. Homing Instinct

Piedmont-Palladino, Susan et al. Devil's Workshop: 25 years of Jersey Devil Architecture

Dean, Andrea Oppenheimer. Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency

Tentative Course Schedule:

Week 1

Sunday: Orient students to Yestermorrow campus; introductions; welcome dinner

Monday: Meet with client and relevant community members to discuss program and budget; visit site; initial design discussion

Tuesday: Discussion of consensus process, followed by the creation of decision procedures for the class; formal design charrette; introduction to model-making; building design consensus

Wednesday: Continue building design consensus; presentation of design to client; further detailed design work; evening lecture by guest speaker

Thursday: Creation of construction drawings; cost estimating and budget analysis

Friday: Procure materials for project; begin site work

Saturday: Site preparation and begin construction

Sunday: Free day

Week 2

Monday: through Thursday, August 3: Construction in progress during the day; evening slide show presentations by instructors and guests

Friday: Completion of project/installation/unveiling; presentation to client; graduation dinner