A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

On This Page

Tristan d'Estree Sterk

Associate Professor

Contact

Bio

Tristan (Canadian; 1984) is a Founder, an Associate Professor of the intelligent environment, and an awarded architect whose research contributions are central to the field of responsive architecture and the use of dynamic building forms to reduce the energy footprint of construction via endogenous savings.

Media: Economist (2011 - 2006), Discovery Science TV (2009), Wired (2006), CNN (2006), BBC World Service (2006), ABC Radio National (2006 - 1999). Awards: The Kalil Endowment for Smart Design at the Parsons School of the Constructed Environment (2012); The AIA Chicago, Dubin Family Young Architect Award (2011); The AIA Chicago Award of Design Excellence for Unbuilt Work (special recognition, 2011); The Chicago Architectural Club's Emerging Visions Award (2005); NCERC (2004); The Schiff Fellowship in Architecture (2003). Exhibitions: The Center for Architecture AIA New York (Make it Work - 22 January - 25 April 2009), Architectural League of NY (Toward the Sentient City, Open Archive: 17 September - 7 November 2009), The Art Institute of Chicago (The Schiff Foundation Fellowship for Architecture, 1989/2011: 11 February – 20 May 2012).

Personal Statement

Tristan is an American-Canadian architect who grew up in London, Ontario, Canada. He moved to Chicago in 2008 to teach, before which he worked in London, England; Vancouver, Canada (Busby Perkins + Will), Chicago (SOM); and Boston (Carlos Zapata). His early education was in architecture and its thermal performance – an area of excellence at the University of Adelaide, one of Australia's premier research universities.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Codes are examined as explicit as well as tacit instances of social values, which reflect cultural boundaries between the built environment and human behavior. Students investigate the notion of confinement and explore the possibilities, as Michael Sorkin put it, where codes, through 'acknowledging the gravity of permanence and the oppressions of extent,'seek, in their limits, 'not to restrain associations, but to free them.' While codes are a means through which society speaks to the architect, their compliment, specifications, are investigated as a vital architectural component of architectural expression. In order for an architectural vision to be manifest in the world, it must be communicated in a common manner both comprehensible and commonly valued. In courts of law, the written always trumps the drawn, even in cases where the drawing is worth a thousand words. In addition to basic proficiency in specification writing and the surrounding professional and legal processes, students also gain crucial understanding of the role of specifications in allowing the practitioner to best control the material articulation of their architectural propositions.

Class Number

2262

Credits

3

Description

Comprehensive design studio incorporates cultural and program analysis, systems analysis and principled component choice, and the design and documentation of a very complete building. Course Goals and Objectives 1) Design culture: methods of integration and information synthesis in contemporary architectural design. 2) Design practice: advanced design methods, emphasizing feasibility, and comprehension through the design of a large building with an extensive systems integration challenge. 3) Design techniques and skills: develop an advanced level of architectural representation, with an emphasis on analysis, plans, sections and elevations, and model construction. This is a comprehensive design studio focused on a complex building design and its systems. Three milestone critiques during the semester are also punctuated with nine project assignments that interface with the project development.

Class Number

1062

Credits

6