48-200 Architecture Design Studio: Core 3 - Tectonics

18 units, Carnegie Mellon University

The Core 3: Tectonics studio introduces tectonics as a catalyst for architectural form, advancing the spatial literacy of the first year toward a rigorous material logic. In coordination with Materials and Assembly, students engage with construction as an intellectual pursuit, investigating how the intrinsic physical properties of materials, their structural limits, tactile qualities, and behavioral tendencies, inform the poetic and structural joining of parts. Through this lens, students explore the deep conceptual dialogue between tectonic assembly and stereotomic mass. Students are introduced to program as a cultural argument, where the demands of human occupation carry inherent structural, circulatory, and spatial implications that drive tectonic decisions.

Prerequisites: 48-105 (min C) and 48-100 and 48-120 and 48-121 and 48-126 and 48-119 and 48-025 and 48-125

Offered: Fall 2026, Fall 2025

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