Minimum Mobile Habitat

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This workshop explores the spatial interplay of mass and light to build modular, mobile architecture at human-scale through digital fabrication and full-scale prototyping.

Participants develop essential skills in digital design/making through a fabrication-oriented investigation into ergonomics (mass) and atmosphere (light). This elemental relation informs essential questions of mobility, as prototypes are deployed and tested in the streets of New York City in the final week of the session.

From start to finish, students are exposed to a 3-week intensive of design development, fabrication, and field testing, soup to nuts. Emphasis is placed on learning through making, and students will learn the basics of CNC routing, 3D printing, and different methods of material assembly. No previous experience with digital fabrication is required. Experience with 3D modeling is helpful but not required.

Additional information can be accessed through the program catalog available for download here

Instructor : Austin Wade Smith

Program Dates and Schedule

Monday, July 30, 2018 through Monday, August 20, 2018. Classes meet Monday through Thursday 10 AM to 1 PM for the morning session and 1 PM to 5 PM for project development.

Tuition is $1,500 + material expenses.

For questions or to reserve a place in the workshop contact SUMMERARCH@COOPER.EDU. Please include "MOBILE ARCH" in the subject line to ensure the request is received.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.