Housing Studio III: Fall 1997 Instructor: Keller Easterling The built artifacts of housing development systems, are often described geometrically or scrutinized aesthetically. They are also evaluated in social and political terms or for the discrepancy between the persuasions used to promote them and the product delivered. But the dominant architecture might be described not by geometry or aesthetics, but by the process - by the procedures and constraints governing timing , organization and interactively within the economy of its component parts. For instance, the process of assembling residential fabric often resembles that of agricultural production, where large numbers of houses are executed simultaneously in uniform fields. And it is the architecture of that process which may be the chief determinant of spatial and material consequences. Architects are typically fluent in descriptions of process which are very determinate, such as those which can be described by form or expressed by geometry. Even when attempting to address the complexity of a larger environment, architects and planners often look for the same control which geometry provides. And while it maybe difficult to articulate an environment in terms of the architecture of its protocols, it is harder still to articulate the protocols of adjustment and timing which potentially act as agents to differentiate the system. Received programs from the 60's contribute to the notion of housing as a monolithic program - - a pattern of thoughtfully designed buildings, theme and variation, surrounded by a cluster of condescending social theory and rolled out over a site. These old programs still serve as templates for urban political organizations and are even part of the culture of housing pedagogy. We will experiment with alternatives to the typical requirements of a housing project by proposing not a single comprehensive strategy of building, but rather a number of very detailed tactics for the different conditions within the site. We will experiment with an architecture whose construction details format, calibrate or adjust the space for a number of flexible protocols. Some kind of network or ecological thinking will be part of this discussion as a means of mapping interplay and understanding organizational protocols as an adjustable architecture. The kinds of economies for which the large site is programmed are also integral to the more intimate scale of activity on which we will concentrate a portion of our energies. House with their multiple terms of duration and occupation challenge and encourage architecture's potential as an intensely experiential and variable medium . The simplest and perhaps most sensual building materials - those which are kinetic, ephemeral and at times invisible (i.e. the changing conditions of light, the movements of the eye, and the space made by duration), release the discipline from some of its orthodoxy's. Yet they are discovered by privileging experience over aesthetic. Initially, I will provide a lecture and database containing pertinent housing projects in the hopes that a broad comparative framework will help you purse alternative methods of precedent analysis. We will analyze selected examples by renovating them for new programs and hybridizing them with buildings of various, not necessarily domestic, structure, construction and use. I will probably encourage a long contemplation of site than the schedule now indicates. You will also be challenged to invent methods for this site analysis segment, and throughout, to maximize your ability to demonstrate both optic and haptic experience, light movement, and interiority.