What is folly:

The folly is an architectural form that grew out of well-manicured landscapes in 18th-century Europe. 

Typically, follies were created primarily as forms of decoration, and often served no functional purpose. A lot of their designs were purely sculptural, or even out of place within their context; their scale and proportions were arbitrary. Yet despite classicizing and orientalizing themes, despite attempts to make these structures appear to be from “other” places or “other” realities, traditional vegetated follies were symptomatic of the time and place in which they were made. Many of these structures evoked architecture of the past, while many suggested could suggest timeless origins. Some could also be designed to appear as though miraculously preserved, others were built as ruins.

Ironically, these idiosyncratic structures have become referents for contemporary follies. Yet the role of follies has transformed along with the philosophies held by those who create them.

In this Design Studio, we will create a project taking on different approaches towards this folly legacy, with varying degrees of loyalty towards tradition. All will take inspiration from individual aesthetics within a garden or urban landscape, yet some projects may deny the possibility of a structure with purely a decorative role. Collectively, they will embrace the ability of architecture to create, so the discussions of beauty, grotesque, whimsy, and parametric can be placed in a contemporary architectural setting.

This class will be organized into two combined parts: tutorials and theory lectures. By mixing the highly specific realm of software tutorials and the more expansive cultural framework, students will be asked to articulate their design processes in both manners, by achieving high expertise in the tools and by understanding the role of those tools within the culture of architecture at large.

In current times it is expected that contemporary architects have the highest degree of expertise in a large array of tools and technologies, there is no doubt that technology has revolutionized the way we design nowadays, but at the same time, students must engage both technology and theory in a way that coherent thinking goes through all design processes, instead of merely relying on rule-based systems that only follow steps instead of ideas.

• Objective 1: To investigate novel forms of tectonics by means of 3D computational design modeling.
• Objective 2: To expand on the notion of color beyond the metaphoric or banal.
• Objective 3: To develop advanced technical skills within contemporary software (Autodesk MAYA & RHINO).
• Objective 4: To understand the genealogy of an architectural problem.