2019 Reynolds Symposium: Education by Design

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Computational Design Thinking and Thinking Design Computing
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Soleimani, Arash
    In alignment with the rapid advancement of cyber-physical technologies in an information age, we are faced with complex problems that go beyond the kinds of challenges that designers had to deal with in the past. For many of these challenges we do not have established theories, methods, or tools to solve the problems. Therefore, it is critical for architects to not only have expertise in established design methods, but also to be able to rapidly and creatively develop new theories, skills, and technologies. This paper seeks to contribute to the core curriculum of architecture programs by exploring opportunities that benefit from advancements in computation as an innovative approach to teaching digital tools. The paper explores how computational thinking can be used in design as a new way of thinking, making, solving problems, and developing techniques and technologies to nurture creative processes, practices, and design outcomes. The paper presents how advancements in technology and computation may change the process of design. Intelligent Design Systems are introduced as a successful example of teaching “Computational Methods” by the author in several architecture schools’ core sequences in the United States. Computational Methods introduces students to computational thinking and fundamental concepts of computation through explorations with generative and analytical technologies. The goal of the course is to explore and elaborate the potential of computation and the role it can play as a part of one’s design process; not as a collection of specific tools, but as a way of thinking about design.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Performative Ornament: Computational and Material Logics of Repetition and Difference
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Marcus, Adam
    This paper describes a series of research seminars investigating the contemporary capacities of architectural ornamentation in the context of computational design and digital fabrication technologies. The pedagogy explores potential overlaps between ornamental systems and logics of performance-driven design, challenging students to formulate a critical agenda vis-à-vis the relationship between the two. How can material assemblies produce innovative, symbolic, or communicative visual effects while also addressing specific performance criteria? What kinds of new aesthetic, figural, representational, expressive, and spatial qualities can emerge from such a synthetic approach? The material focus of this research is on processes of casting and forming—workflows that allow for the production of difference within repetitive systems. Parallel to the material research, students develop robust digital, parametric models that enable iteration and evaluation of the work both qualitatively and quantitatively. Within this hybrid workflow, students develop wall systems of modular yet variable components that respond to specific performance criteria, such as daylighting, visibility, or acoustics. By cultivating a fluency across analog, digital, material, and virtual modes of working, the pedagogy suggests one way to meld computational thinking with architectural design. The projects demonstrate an understanding of how to correlate larger-scale performance criteria with design decisions at the scale of the individual component. The emphasis on proof-of-concept prototyping insists that students grapple with material realities of tolerance and assembly. And the positioning of the research within the historical discourse on ornament encourages students to think strategically, intentionally, and critically about how they integrate computational processes into their work.
  • ItemOpen Access
    A BIM-enabled pedagogical approach
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Ming, Hu
    Educators and practitioners have come to the consensus that Building Information Modeling (BIM) has radically transformed how the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry practices and operates. The move from using traditional Drafting-based Modeling(DM) to BIM constitutes a new methodology rather than the simple introduction of a new tool. BIM has already become mainstream in practice. But there is limited number of publications that addressed how this critical development can be used effectively in higher education. The critical research goal of this study is to document a method of using BIM as an effective pedagogy to teach a large, mixed- level technology course. A BIM-enabled pedagogy (BEP) was developed and tested in a “Building Materials and Construction Methods” (BMCM) class to compare with traditional Drafting-based Modeling pedagogy (DMP). The preliminary results demonstrated that BEP is more effective than DMP for teaching technology courses in an architecture curriculum. The aims of this research are as follows: 1) introduce an integrated, BIM-enabled pedagogy in the BMCM course; 2) identify applicable BIM-based techniques useful in architectural education; and 3) present some interesting findings regarding the effectiveness of this pedagogy for students at different levels. In the end, the pedagogical approach is discussed, and further research tasks are identified.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Building Knowledge
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Correa, David; Meyboom, AnnaLisa; Krieg, Oliver David
    Material characteristic and fabrication methodologies informing design processes are a growing focus of research and pedagogy. Bio-mimetics, morphogenetics or material computation theories have mostly been used as integrative tools within their teaching methods. The authors of this paper have observed that these pedagogical models are most successful when they are coupled with a practical understanding of the tools and processes that are engaged in architectural production. Without this exchange, a growing disconnect emerges between the concept and the crafted artifact, leading to unfounded speculative projections rather than true applied understanding. As such, experimentation with tools and materials is essential for students to build knowledge on the constraints and possibilities that exist within a material or manufacturing technology. This learning process is not meant to be singular – applying to one material and one fabrication process – but rather a process that is learned and then can further be applied to other design problems. However, the research and development processes are usually too extensive for students to gain in-depth understanding of the methodology - a learning experience that is beyond the scope of a single architecture studio. Through a set of intensive fabrication workshops, carried out by the authors, a targeted pedagogical model is aimed at knowledge creation within a compressed framework. Engaging participants to a particular point in the building process - that point at which a design is materialized through fabrication processes - provides a unique platform to shift from exploratory conceptualization to technically informed hands-on implementation.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Evaluating indoor environmental quality and energy performance of LEED certified buildings
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Mukhopadhyay, Jaya; Elliott, Duke; Sanderson, Shannon
    This paper describes the pedagogical findings of a class that was developed to evaluate the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy performance of Green buildings. The class aimed to establish a hands-on experience for students of architecture and engineering in evaluating the physical performance of the different building systems. In order to perform the evaluation, conditions were created for the students of both programs to work together and assess the performance of buildings in terms of IEQ and energy consumption. Students conducted various studies to evaluate the IEQ and energy performance of two LEED certified Green buildings on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman Montana. The performance of selected buildings was evaluated using established metrics, measurement protocols and calibrated instruments. Finally, recommendations were made to reduce energy usage and improve IEQ of these buildings. Based on the assessments of these buildings, general guidelines and recommendations were compiled in a final report for architects and engineers to design and operate Green buildings. From this experience, the students learned about the importance of, as well as the correlation between energy efficiency and IEQ in LEED certified buildings. The class was conducted in a flip classroom format, the instructional material was delivered online and the students were required to utilize this information to conduct relevant activities during class time.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Creativity, Calculation, & Curation: Research as a Framework for Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Laboy, Michelle; Fannon, David
    Challenges of building resilience and sustainability in the built environment demand collaboration across multiple disciplines in both research and practice. Traditional academic settings offer fertile but often challenging context in which research faculty can foster interdisciplinary collaboration informed by and contributing to new and more integrated knowledge. This paper presents an example of such a crosscurricular collaboration occurring through qualitative case study research, quantitative analysis, comparison, and communication design culminating in the curation of knowledge in a major public exhibit. Students studying architecture, engineering, art and design are collaborating across multiple courses and semesters to develop the intellectual content, experiential narratives, and physical artifacts that reflect the diverse opportunities and influence of education on the sustainable built environment. Emerging from the faculty’s broader inquiry into the architecture of persistence, this project posits durability of buildings as the ultimate measure of sustainability (and by extension, resilience) in architecture . Using quantitative and qualitative methods, researchers developed a theoretical framework for cultural, ecological and technological durability by analyzing interviews and projects. Six architecture students—who first engaged in the topic in a comprehensive studio—became research assistants documenting and analyzing specific precedents as material assemblies and cultural places. Using the resulting documentation, students in an environmental engineering course conducted whole-building Life Cycle Assessments. This body of quantitative and qualitative content feeds a representation course, in which design students examine the role of exhibitions in architectural discourse and develop narratives and objects that communicate material ecologies, assemblies and cultures to a disciplinary, and nondisciplinary audience.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Educating Design Leaders: The Need for Leadership Education in Schools of Architecture And Proposed Approaches to Meet the Need
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Bonnett, Erik
    There is a gap in architectural education when preparing future architects for leadership roles. To meet the needs of integrated design processes that frequently situate architects in leadership roles within interdisciplinary teams, more structured, comprehensive, and robust leadership education is needed. Fortunately, experiential leadership education can be effectively integrated into the dominant projectbased structure of architectural education using an iterative approach including strategic instruction, structured feedback, and reflection. Specific gaps in leadership education are identified including: student awareness of current leadership education, competence leading in multiple roles, goal setting and management as a leadership skill, judgement and decision-making, and knowledge of contemporary leadership theory. Strategies and curricula are proposed to support educators seeking to increase the effectiveness of leadership education in their classrooms, studios, and schools of architecture.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Environmental Design: moving towards online teaching that encourages action
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Martínez Arias, Andrea; La Roche, Pablo
    The internet not only has changed a vast spectrum of the world’s operations, but also the ways teaching can deal with information and strategies for learning. While this trend has naturally led to the flexibility of time and location, it is crucial to focus on understanding effective pedagogical strategies with the use of this technology. This paper establishes the thesis that an online setting was effective in teaching both the fundamentals of regenerative studies, while focusing on how undergraduate students learned in this online learning setting. The online coursework and its challenges are discussed along with the structure and methods set to achieve the comprehension of the contents. The urgency for the search of a clear plan and actions to address climate change was the main goal of the class, which was explained in the current political and social context. Consecutively, critical topics of energy, water, shelter, and waste were explored individually, from the main challenges to the design solutions for regeneration. The paper also explains how surveys were a vital tool and an essential instance for feedback. Lessons learned from creating a virtual learning environment that allows for both the grasp of everyone’s role in climate change and the generation of action/plans/solutions for regeneration are discussed, aiming to inform colleagues using a teaching tool that is here to stay.
  • ItemOpen Access
    When Performance Informs Design
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Stannard, Sandy
    It is clear that building energy performance plays an essential role in architecture and in architectural practice, not only for reasons of occupant comfort and energy efficiency but also for minimal code compliance. While achieving energy compliance is essential and even laudable, our current definition of “building performance” is somewhat limited.1 Energy performance analyses are often performed solely for code compliance with a minimal feedback loop during the design process. In the instances when analyses are completed as part of design, a growing array of simulation tools allow designers to make more informed decisions during the design process. There is tremendous potential in this trajectory. The use of parametric and other performance analysis tools to help design professionals simultaneously achieve superior performance as well as delightful aesthetics represents an emerging chapter in the design professions. This paper will highlight a handful of sample undergraduate thesis and design/build projects which focused on the investigation of performative material systems as part of a larger design challenge. In each of these examples, “performance” went beyond the prosaic. Instead, these projects identified a particular environmental necessity based on the project situation (the need for water, the need for cleaner air; and so on). Inspired by natural systems or by emerging materials engineering, the students used multi-modal methods to explore their design ideas (parametric digital models; physical models at multiple scales; simple as well as complex math; and so on), ultimately resulting in an enhanced performative system that in turn influenced overall building form. In each case, it was performance that informed design, while simultaneously striving to appeal to the senses through an exploration of beauty.
  • ItemOpen Access
    From Problem to Net Positive: The transformation of existing, inefficient building stock
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Srivastava, Malini
    The Net Positive studio is a 7-week studio in the penultimate year of a professional M. Arch. program at the University of Minnesota. This studio focuses on developing, assessing, documenting, and representing interaction between architectural form and environmental factors, using energy modeling tools and incorporating frequent quantitative feedback. In the context of existing-building inefficiency as a major contributor to carbon emissions and climate change, students were assigned an existing building, and were required to demonstrate that passive and active modifications of the building and its envelope could lead to an 80% reduction of its baseline energy use. Within this context, students were asked to (a) selectively modify or replace existing envelope conditions to create a responsive deep-boundary; (b) establish a dialogue between energy-modeling tools and conceptual development; (c) incorporate a Net-Positive contribution beyond energy production; and (d) understand variables that develop concinnity between form, occupancy and function, and environmental factors. These goals were established within a cooperative pedagogy, Shifting Allegiances, organized to promote cooperative collaboration and shared authorship of projects in graduate-level studios. This is achieved by collectivizing the ownership of topical subject areas, to which students variously direct their effort over the course of the studio. The paper discusses the studio’s cooperative structures, the process of establishing an ongoing dialogic between quantitative data and conceptual development, the role of energy modeling within the design process, and the emerging definition of passive and active envelope systems. The paper concludes with a discussion of the studio’s discussion-based, student-led final review.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Beyond Sustainability: Architectural Education in an Ever-Changing Climate
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Raab, Peter S.
    Within a rapidly changing climate, never have humans seen such rampant degradation of their environment. From water shortages and over-population to massive flooding and storms, we are beginning to test strategies of resilience at the urban and architectural scale. With the scientific evidence of our warming climate system being unequivocal, design professionals must be cognizant of the impact of these changes on theory, pedagogy, and practice. An integrated and resilient approach to ecological design of buildings, landscapes and communities within this changing climate is imperative. Too often we teach students to look solely at technological means as the solution to our ailing building design, however it is important to understand precise constraints of climate to produce rigorous design solutions. This starts with a knowledge of larger environmental systems. This paper will outline a three-pronged approach recently employed to ensure undergraduate design students grasp larger frameworks impacting the future of architectural practice within the Anthropocene. Using varied modes of interrogation, students are required to delve more deeply into a series of analytical exercises developed collaboratively to elicit thoughtful, appropriate and responsible massing, orientation and material strategies throughout the sequence. By designing an extensive framework beyond the simplistic, superficial separatism of modernism, the designer is enabled to understand architecture as in an open-exchange with the larger bioclimatic, social and ecological worlds.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Thermodynamic Sunblock: Learning from the 2019 Solar Decathlon Design Challenge
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Bean, Jonathan
    How might architectural education change to accommodate the opportunity of designing thermodynamic systems beyond the building scale? This paper provides an overview of a proposal for a district energy system in Tucson, Arizona originally developed for the 2019 Solar Decathlon Design Challenge. The proposal was developed over the course of one semester with students in two separate classes: a design studio with nine students and an elective with 17 students co-convened during a portion of the scheduled studio time. Teams of students developed three projects: a co-working space (a net exporter of heat), a retrofit school (with a sizable existing chiller system underutilized in summer), and a retrofit of an existing 1950's uninsulated masonry house with the option to add a small additional dwelling unit. The design intention is to use photovoltaic energy generation, air-to-water heat pumps, and an existing network of backyard utility easements to create and move excess thermal energy within a relatively lowdensity superblock in Tucson, Arizona. The long-term goal of the SunBlock project is to make the entire neighborhood net-zero or net-positive while reducing stress on the electric grid.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Comfort and Efficiency: Strategies to Develop a Climate Appropriate Affordable Home
    (University of Oregon, 2019) McGlohn, Emily M.
    Alabama’s Blackbelt counties suffer from some of the poorest economic conditions in the country. Thirtytwo percent of all people living there, live in poverty. Affordable and climate appropriate housing that contributes to the well-being of this significantly sized group is lacking, and the challenges are many. Auburn University’s Rural Studio attempts to address this need through the 20K Home Project. This paper focuses on one aspect of this fourteen-year research project: the design strategies of a climate appropriate, affordable home and ways to teach students to prioritize options. Within the larger 20K Home Project, third-year architecture students at Rural Studio build one house a year. They start with the plans of a previously designed home from the project. They inherit the strategies and details from another group of students. To understand the house, they analyze the conceptual and tangible aspects of the design. Learning how to prioritize and select from the ever-growing number of ways to structure, enclose, insulate, heat, and cool a home, while minding the climatic characteristics of hot-humid Alabama is the objective. Making informed adjustments to the existing strategies and building a house to test their selections is the goal. This paper is a case study of the 2017-18 Rural Studio third year project house and addresses the pedagogical approach for this process.
  • ItemOpen Access
    BUILDING THE CURVE: STRUCTURING STUDIO EDUCATION AS INTERACTIVE INCLUSION RATHER THAN CHARRETTE
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Koester, Robert J.
    The challenge of design-for-sustainability is to balance the need to educate about design process as an intelligent discipline while using the content of social, economic and environmental factors as the space of design decision-making. The legacy of studio education as a tutorial enterprise has for decades built upon the service delivery sequences used in professional practice; pre-design, programming, site selection and analysis, schematic design, design development, construction documentation, construction observation; with only occasional post occupancy evaluation. Design-for-sustainability, however, must operate on a less sequential delivery model; employing instead a “breathing in and breathing out” functionality of parallel processing unique to the trial and error nature of the design process itself. Fundamentally, design is an inefficient iterative process, an aspirational enterprise, and a willfully integrative act. But that integration must have multiple moorings. Moreover, we must abandon the charrette model in favor of "building the curve" of inclusion, integrating the multiplicities within the design-decision space over time by using a rhythmic sequencing of exploration and reflection; namely, the Blue Dot technique of scripting/scheduling the activity of design exploration, introduction and application; wherein every design project becomes a form of adaptive reuse. This presentation will share student work developed over a decade of application of the Blue Dot methodology to show highly integrative design-for-sustainability projects; as products of the intelligent balance of process and content education.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Mbesese Build: An Experimental Experience
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Dong, Kevin; Fowler, Thomas
    The Same’ Polytechnic College is a proposed vocational training institution in the United Republic of Tanzania to provide educational opportunities which increase human capital, with the goal of reducing severe levels of poverty. The college is the pilot project for the Mbesese Initiative for Sustainable Design (MISD). MISD has partnered with design firms and the university to develop a framework for campus development. The university team established overarching planning principles for buildings and related infrastructure to support 1,200 students. The project provided a platform for collaboration between faculty, students, and design professionals. The campus proposal encompasses architecture, planning, and a variety of engineering disciplines. Students researched topics that are requisite to building; energy usage and generation, water conservation and reclamation, natural ventilation and thermal comfort, day lighting and solar exposure, construction materials and structural systems, pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns, and, site access and maintenance. The masterplan recommendations are based on computational analysis and design, results from laboratory experiments, and feedback from design professionals. The students then developed building strategies for implementing the aforementioned concepts, while learning how those design issues are intertwined. In 2018, students, faculty, and MISD volunteers constructed a micro structure in Tanzania based on the master plan recommendations and results from laboratory experiments. The building process allowed the team to better understand how cultural, environmental, and technological considerations influence design and building in developing areas. The linkage between experimental research, design, and construction is a hallmark for the project both at the university and in Tanzania.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Academic Urban Labs: Architectural design studios to address local challenges
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Delpino-Chamy, Montserrat; Rivera, María Isabel; Alarcon, Mabel
    Considering the complexity of ecological and social challenges, universities and the teaching of architecture offer a unique opportunity to create real-life design problems from their local communities, thereby engaging their students in the learning process. On this context, this paper presents the idea of Academic Urban Laboratories as a methodology to enhancing regional development as well as to betterprepare students for professional careers, exposing them to the benefits of holistic, integrated design outcomes. This paper offers a review of the main challenges that the teaching of architecture currently faces, followed by a review of emerging frameworks to improve pedagogical methodologies in this discipline. A rubric to assess Academic Urban Labs’ experiences is presented, which has been applied to the analysis of three architecture design studios experiences, addressing the following connections: elective course and local community, studio and local government, studio and international congress. Finally, the main reflections are related to examining the link between academic and local stakeholders, assessing strategies to increase the efficiency of sustainable outcomes, and reducing the time demand on the management processes to support this methodology. From the results, it is possible to identify an increase in social responsibility, as well as a commitment among students towards more sustainable development, thus supporting the idea of designing new learning experiences connecting academia with real-life problems.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Learning from Innovative CLT Design in the United Kingdom
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Manrique, Carolina; Haglund, Bruce
    Cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction is an emerging technology in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). New CLT mills are being constructed in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. We see this use of wood as a robust alternative to concrete and steel that sequesters carbon rather than spewing it into the atmosphere. Timber can be sustainably harvested in the PNW with local mills, further reducing carbon pollution in the supply chain. In an effort to increase our Architecture Program’s capacity to deliver the highest quality courses and improve student learning, we aim to equip our students with the knowledge and skills to include CLT in buildings of all scales in their design repertoire. This goal would be accomplished by extending the learning experience of the students enrolled in our study abroad program on “Green Architecture” in the United Kingdom (UK) to include research and design in the use of CLT. This new approach to focus on CLT builds upon insights and contacts made during six previous successful versions of the UK Green Architecture course (initiated in 2006). The UK has a rich inventory of inspiring CLT projects—over 500 of which 100 are highlighted in Waugh Thistleton’s 100 Projects UK CLT (2018). Our research studio during the summer of 2019 to Edinburgh and London will explore many of these inspirational buildings, engage in interviews with the architects and engineers, and participate in a design charrette in CLT-savvy London architectural firms. This unique experience will enrich the students’ understanding and appreciation of mass timber construction.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Service-Learning Projects in Passive Solar Heating through the Sustainable City Year Program
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Rempel, Alexandra R.; Banks, Megan
    Service learning engages students with community partners in creating products for public benefit, allowing students to learn field research and design communication methods while contributing their time and expertise. From 2017-19, the University of Oregon Passive Heating Seminar has collaborated with the Sustainable City Year Program to provide schematic passive heating designs to three climatically distinct cities: Mediterranean Albany, sunny semi-arid La Pine, and coastal Dunes City, Oregon. These projects have provided specific sites, motivated clients, and authentic problems to students while promoting passive heating use in realizable, publicly-visible projects. In 2017, the City of Albany requested designs for a senior center sunspace, a community greenhouse, and park restrooms that would allow parks to remain open for events during cooler months. Schematic designs and performance estimates then allowed Albany to begin fundraising for construction. In 2018, the City of La Pine requested designs for a City Center, a community greenhouse, and a balcony sunspace prototype for multifamily housing. The City Center is currently under development, and the balcony sunspace projects supported acquisition of federal funding for further research. Dunes City, in turn, supported by a JPB Foundation grant, worked with students in 2019 to develop passive heating designs for disaster-relief shelters in the event of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. Together, these projects have allowed regional leaders to explore and develop their communities’ interests in passive solar heating as they strive to create resilient communities, while simultaneously promoting students’ awareness of their own potential as designers to support such efforts.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Design with Comfort
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Cruse, Andrew
    As anthropogenic climate change destabilizes a fixed idea of climate, it is also destabilizing a fixed idea of comfort. Comfort, like climate, can no longer be understood as a steady index of energetic balance, but is now recognized as condition of flux on which human activity has a direct impact. In this new context, design with comfort can be an effective extension of earlier directives to design with climate. Design with comfort extends architecture’s immaterial and discursive aspects to bring attention to more a flexible (in terms of temperature) and inclusive (in terms of populations) concept of comfort. Design with comfort seeks to exploit comfort’s latent potential in cultural and aesthetic dimensions. Using comfort to relate climate to construction positions it squarely within architecture culture, and suggests a shared project for a more inclusive group of academics and practitioners. Design with comfort also adds a new aesthetic dimension to creative design practice by actively designing comfort experiences. Today’s dominant comfort model holds that comfort is a static state of thermal neutrality that varies little between different locations, different seasons, and different people. In the context of an architectural studio, designing with comfort asks students to consider how comfort is entangled with more familiar elements of design such as form, materials, program and site. Directly addressing comfort as part of design process helps to demonstrate its historical legacy, establish its currency as part of today’s environmental reality, and encourage students to think creatively about its implications and possibilities.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Promoting Interdisciplinary Integrated Design Education Through Mass Timber
    (University of Oregon, 2019) Sheine, Judith; Donofrio, Mark; Gershfeld, Mikhail
    An integrated design process ideally involves close coordination among the professionals designing architectural, structural, and mechanical systems, and with the construction team and manufacturers of building products; however, this process is not universally followed in practice, nor is it a common model for design education, either in architecture or in engineering. New developments in the United States in mass timber products present a unique opportunity to advance interdisciplinary integrated design processes both in practice and in schools. As architects and engineers explore this field, they are finding that in order to understand material possibilities and limitations and better manage project delivery schedules they need to work in integrated teams from the start, including close coordination with manufacturers, fabricators and construction professionals. Faculty in the University of Oregon (UO)’s Department of Architecture have modelled this integrated practice method in a series of design studios focused on mass timber systems in which student teams either work with architecture faculty and interdisciplinary consultants or with teams of structural engineering students and architecture and engineering faculty. To further this integrated practice model, an interdisciplinary MS degree in mass timber design is being developed by UO’s Architecture Department and Oregon State University (OSU)’s Department of Wood Science and Engineering for architecture, structural engineering and construction management students with a professional undergraduate degree. The students will be working on projects in interdisciplinary teams with interdisciplinary faculty teams, preparing the next generation of professionals to be well equipped for a future of integrated design practice.