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WSOA In-Flux

WSOA In-Flux

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WSOA In-Flux is a publishing platform for student work launched by Woodbury School of Architecture in 2020.




Woodbury School of Architecture is distinguished by its multiple locations at the heart of the Southern California creative industries: Los Angeles, Hollywood and San Diego. Together, these sites form a critical infrastructure for architectural investigations.

Our undergraduate and graduate programs prepare students to effect positive change in the built environment, to tackle theoretical debates, and to take on architecture and interior design as critical practices. We educate our students as entrepreneurs, citizen architects, and cultural builders equally committed to professional practice, theoretical discourse, social equity and to formal and technological inquiry.

Our faculty are architects, designers, academics and policy makers practicing in Los Angeles, San Diego and Tijuana. This internationally recognized and award-winning group works closely with students to teach the skills required to push the limits of practice.



Mission

Good design is a human right. Woodbury School of Architecture produces graduates who affirm the power of design to improve the built environment and the lives of others by addressing the pressing issues of our time. We transform our students into ethical, articulate and innovative design professionals prepared to lead in a world of accelerating technological change.


Vision

The future belongs to Woodbury. Woodbury School of Architecture creates an environment that empowers our students to impact the future of the profession through meaningful built work. We imagine a world in which there are no disciplinary rights or wrongs, where diverse and sometimes contradictory values collide to generate new ideas, design innovation, unexpected practices, and the means to expand the influence of our discipline.


Woodbury School of Architecture offers a welcoming environment for students to develop their own unique design voice.  We approach the design disciplines multi-dimensionally, teaching a range of pedagogies and design methodologies. Our students leave Woodbury with the confidence to engage in local and global discourse.

Through engaged faculty-student interaction, we transform our students into innovative professionals with a commitment to the power of good design. Our students and faculty share a commitment to sustainable practices, community outreach and civic engagement.

Our School of Architecture is among the first 14 accredited architectural programs to be accepted for participation in the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) Integrated Path to Architectural Licensure (IPAL) initiative. Successful students will have the opportunity to have an architectural license upon graduation.

We believe that our school is a role model for the direction in which the profession is heading – improving gender parity and ethnic diversity among its members, and reaffirming the importance of ethical conduct and social responsibility. Ours is a welcoming community for every race and orientation, and we resist acts of intolerance in favor of thoughtfulness, generosity and kindness. The economic, ethnic, and academic backgrounds of our students reflect Southern California itself. We are determined to provide a place for open debate, the respectful airing of differences, and for rich forms of expression and imagination.


Site running on Cargo. 




Drawings, Models, Buildings, & Text ︎ Graduate Thesis & Degree Project Studio


ARCH 692
ARCH 492
Spring 2020 ︎
Los Angeles

Instructor
Ryan Tyler Martinez



Work by M.Arch student Krishna Jadawala


The architectural thesis sets up an opportunity for students to cultivate and identify a personal way of working in relationship to an architectural project and long-term career habits and goals. The studio aimed to create a platform for students to understand and develop a thesis or degree project in relationship to current tangents of architectural practice in today’s context. Throughout the semester students were asked to participate in a series of assignments that supported conversations and theories in contemporary architecture through drawings, models, building ideas, and writing through their part to whole relationship. Students focused primarily on different ways of working, both through modes of techniques for accidental and deliberate research to help students argue and position their placement within a larger architectural discourse. The class was broken into four parts; Technique (How), Architecture Problem (What), Context (Where), and Theory (Why). These four parts were used to create a series of drawings, models, images, text, and diagrams that help support one another while simultaneously function autonomously. Each of the four parts built into one final idea or position. The ultimate aim was to create a body of work which acted in parallel with traditional architectural contingencies such as site, program, precedent, codes, budget, and politics; while also focusing on authorship, form, shape, tectonics, representation, and theory within the context of a clear thesis or degree project. As a second point of departure, students were asked to work from their research produced in the Fall 2019 semester. A site, architectural problem, and statements were already produced for the first day of class. By the end of the semester, students conceptualized a clear idea and architectural argument which was tested through the design of a building.




Work by M.Arch student Demar Matthews



Work by M.Arch student Zhanming Liu


Technique


In some ways, technique could be one of the most important subjects in architecture. It determines how one starts and works on a project. It also becomes very autobiographical towards the architect, which in the context of this studio was a very good thing. After the first digital turn in architecture, there have been many advances in technique through software development and social connectivity of awareness. This studio allowed students to become more aware of the different ways of working through the study of precedents and process. It also helped them create a technique for production. In this section the assignments and readings were looking at figures, layering, ambiguity, and translation within the architectural discourse. Students were expected to cultivate a way of working and technique to help support the production of their final project.





Work by M.Arch student Parsa Rezaee 






Work by B.Arch student Destiny Garcia


Problem

A clear architectural problem usually deals with well know historical and theoretical discussions amongst architects. We examined the difference between critical architectural problems and problems one might face in practice such as clients, codes, and regulations. Historical precedents such as the corner problem or the nine square problem have been used throughout the 20th century.  Looking at more contemporary text, students questioned and determine what other types of architectural problems we might face in the 21st century. In the recent advancement in digital productions, we looked at the translation from 2D lines to 3D models through a series of assignments and readings but also as a way to understand and identify current problems within architecture.





Work by M.Arch student Seda Petrosyan 



Work by B.Arch student Guy Blum


Context

Each student had their own context, program, and architectural problem. Students were asked to diagram and produce site research for a site that supported their architectural research. We focused on two approaches to context; first being the theoretical and overall disciplinary discussion and the second dealing with principles of site planning and design. Principles included site planning and topography, implications of design decisions, adaptive reuse of buildings and/or materials and architectural history and theory and understanding larger conversation about context like site-specificity, and site representation.




Work by M.Arch student Mher Khachikian








Work by B.Arch student Louiza Chilian



Catalog Description


ARCH 492: Through a rigorous level of clearly resolved work, students must demonstrate the application of theoretical research and positioning, plus the ability to integrate site, program, and other design issues in a self-initiated architectural design project incorporating a high degree of critical thinking, skill, and craft.

ARCH 692: The culmination of the graduate professional program, students pursue a self-directed thesis in collaboration with a faculty advisor.