The notion of program in graphic design is inherently vague, and the functions demanded of it are multivalent and often contradictory; graphic designers sell something while appearing not to, demand conformity while promising freedom, etc. But whatever the programmatic demand, the graphic answer is almost invariably narrative. Graphic design, in that it shapes texts, organizes information flow, structures hierarchies, navigates spaces, and is doled out in chunks that find their completion in an imagined public.

This class examined the friction generated when graphic design and architecture overlap (or when graphic design is injected into or spread onto architecture). How is the episodic aspect of designed space changed, intensified, undermined, or reinterpreted by the graphic design that coexists within it? How can the designer investigate and critique the notion of the "visitor experience" and try to understand the way in which graphic design is often the first filter through which a public understands a building?

Students worked specifically on a proposal for the design of a space programmed as a tourist destination within a new building in Beijing. Part 1 concentrated on the manner of graphic narratives that unfold within architecture and how designers conspire to affect an unseen and unknown audience. What kind of stories can be told in public space? How are they parsed? And how can they both be motivated by, and interpret, the essential sequence of the architecture that frames them? Part 2 built on the proposals developed in Part I and moved into the area of form and media: once a story has been identified, what are the devices by which it is delivered, how do those devices change the content, and how can they be deployed within a given architectural space?