Advanced Synthesis Option Studios — CMU School of Architecture

The Advanced Synthesis Option Studios (ASOS) are vertically-integrated advanced studios that encourage interdisciplinary collaboration from the arts and technology, research and design, large scale urban and ecological thinking, to detailed investigations of materials, fabrication strategies, and form strategies – the heart of the CMU and SoA experience.

The ASOS are a set of advanced studios offered every semester on various topics chosen by studio faculty based on their research and design interests. Topics vary from year to year and are constantly evolving to keep pace with the rapidly changing profession and global scene. An ASOS booklet is created each year (see below) listing the likely topics of ASOS studios for the next two years. Students are encouraged to work with their advisors to plan ahead to create a course of study suited to their particular interests and ambitions. Since not every studio is available every semester, strategic planning is necessary. Students may focus or specialize on particular themes such as robotics, urbanism, or sustainable systems for several semesters, or they may connect different studios to satisfy more diverse interests. The theater design and global studios include travel abroad to visit a site.

The ASOS encourage the integration and exchange of ideas of students from various programs at the highest levels. The ASOS include masters students from the MUD, MAAD, MSAECM, MSSD, and M.Arch programs, and students from departments outside of the SoA such as Drama and Emerging Media, as well as upper level B.Arch students.

Advanced SyNthesis Option Studios Catalogs

Fall 2023 ASOS

The overarching theme for the Fall 2023 semester will be announced soon. Each studio will take a different attitude to the intersection of related issues to their studio agenda. We plan discussions within the studios and a colloquy after final reviews to gather positions/findings/oppositions in response to the semester’s theme. In addition, the theme will be reflected in the Public Programs and other workshops/lectures and symposia will support the discourse.

Featured

48-500/48-650: Builder’s Bodies

Instructor: Mary-Lou Arscott
TR • 1:00-4:50pm • In-Person • 18 units

Using narrative forms of drawn, modeled and cinematic media the design work will disrupt contemporary expectations with a new set of paradigms. The aim is to expand gender definitions, particularly in relation to workers engaged in construction and to bring new insights to the production of the built environment.

Instructor: Jeremy Ficca
TR • 1:00-4:50pm • In-Person • 18 units

This studio examines a defining feature of the American landscape, the house, to explore alternative materializations, spatial configurations, and models of living in the face of climate change and economic inequality.

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48-500/48-650: Data Dump

Instructor: Daragh Byrne
TR • 1:00-4:50pm • In-Person • 18 units

This studio examines how we might { break down; undo; rethink; dismantle; discard } the { visions; systems; objects; infrastructures; landscapes; junk; detritus } of { smart; connected; intelligent } technology. Using a design research approach, we'll examine and unpack the wasteful, material and resource intensive, cycles of innovation found within modern technology.

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48-500/48-650: Common Imaginaries

Instructor: Tommy CheeMou Yang
TR • 1:00-4:50pm • In-Person • 18 units

This studio explores the possibilities for an architecture for and of the people, using Chiang Mai, Thailand to contextualize and co-speculate through on-site fieldwork, film, and visual storytelling.

Instructor: Anne Chen
TR • 1:00-4:50pm • In-Person • 18 units

The studio proposes to design and model a city creating an imagined urban landscape of geographic features, plots and circulation pathways, with experimental zoning rules to guide the placement of structures and spaces.

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