Study as a Course of Practice: The Work of North Studio at Wesleyan University

Abstract

North Studio operates as a contemporary variation on the traditional Beaux-Arts atelier model of architectural practice and education initially introduced to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. Focused on developing and producing research and conceptually driven projects with real-world clients, the Studio is at once a locus for undergraduate design education within the context of Wesleyan University's liberal arts curriculum and a collaborative committed to seeing work built. Working with sites as diverse as a former commercial cranberry bog, a two thousand-square-foot-exposed partiwall, and a twenty-four-car parking lot, each project the Studio pursues has at its core a charge to challenge conventional notions of the relationship between landscape and architecture.