Scope: Rebekah Radtke: Confucius Institute Curriculum Development Grant

College of Design students enrolled in undergraduate Architecture and Interiors studios will explore hutongs as interior urban conditions and address the themes of timelessness and currency. The intent of mining this unique context is to learn from the hutong, rather than to design for a specific courtyard house typology. By understanding the hidden private layers and filters of the lived condition, the studio will better understand and interpret the implications of the social constructs that exist in hutong neighborhoods. The studio explorations will mine historical contexts, conduct material analysis, develop representation techniques, and utilize material fabrication as output related to the hutongs in Beijing. The design sudio exploration will leverage four core developmental phases with one of them including data gathering in China.