In this design studio, architecture students will conduct field research for the benefit of practicing architects and they will produce designs based upon their research findings.  Students may select an architect with whom they have worked already, or if they prefer, someone new.  Architects must be located within a reasonable drive of the University of Illinois campus so that students can meet with them face-to-face during the academic semester.  Students may select architects from Champaign-Urbana, Charleston, Mattoon, Bloomington-Normal, Decatur, Effingham, Peoria, Springfield, Chicago and vicinity, Indianapolis, or St. Louis.
 

Under Professor Anthony's supervision, teams of three to four students each will examine buildings from the inhabitants' and users' point of view.  Each team will work with one architect.  Architects will select the specific building type for study.  It can be a building type that they have designed before, a building type currently under design in the office, or a building type that they would like to work on in the future.  Together with students and their instructor, architects will suggest the nature of the design project culminating from their research.

The studio will be conducted in the following several phases that will allow research and design to take place simultaneously.
 

Phase 1:    Student teams are selected and matched with architects.  A specific building type is identified for study.

Phase 2:    Prior to conducting any research, students will produce a preliminary design of the selected building type.

Phase 3:    Students will review and provide a summary of social science literature about the buiding type the architect requests for research.  This includes books, articles, publications, and websites from environment-behavior and the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), anthropology, psychology, and sociology.  All sources must be carefully documented.

Phase 4:    Students will conduct field research on buildings selected by the architects.  Field research will include interviews, surveys, participant observation, walkthroughs, and photo-documentation from inhabitants of these buildings.

Phase 5:    After completing the research, students will produce a final design.  Comparing preliminary and final designs will allow students and architects to understand the full impact of research on the design process.

Students will meet with architects at a time and place of their convenience at least three times during the semester to present the work they request.  This studio is not an internship program for the students and architects since supervision of students is provided primarily by the instructor, students are not paid a salary, and students meet with architects for approximately only six hours throughout the semester.  By sponsoring a team of students, the architect has the opportunity to incorporate social research into design projects without risking costs for an activity whose benefit is uncertain.

All student written and graphic work will be documented on a website.  The advantages of this are three-fold: 
 

1) It allows architects to access student work from afar if they wish. 

2) It provides an archival resource to document this design studio that can be useful for future students and faculty. 

3) It allows students to market their newly-found research skills to future employers.