A departmental version of the historical role-playing First-Year Seminar by the same name, featuring games on the American Revolution and the Constitutional Convention. Course satisfies the department’s political theory requirement and is open to all levels of students.

This capstone course is required for all senior ARS majors. Students will use the framework of the course to focus, challenge and re-conceptualize their studio work in media of their choice. Critiques, readings, written assignments, presentations and discussions will support the development of an inventive and rigorous independent art practice. The semester will culminate in a group exhibition. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to Smith College Senior ARS majors.

This research-based architectural design studio utilizes digital processes to analyze and reinterpret canonical architectural precedents, linking the digital to fluid conceptual ideas which are both historic and contemporary. In particular, the studio probes the spatial qualities of the moving body—as a site of both deep interiority and hyper-connectivity.

An introduction to visual experience through a study of the basic elements of photography as an expressive medium. Each section involves either black and white or a combination of darkroom and digital processes. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 162, 172 or permission of the instructor.

In nurturing architecture’s foundational principles of visual, material and conceptual experimentation, ARS 280 lays the foundation for subsequent studios, lifelong learning and curiosity for architectural design processes. It probes the material, organizational and spatial qualities of the ground—a shared horizontal territory inhabited by plants, people and buildings—one that is as much cultural as it is natural. Through iterative and analog processes, students integrate drawing and making to construct and reconstruct lines in the ground.

Relief printing from carved woodblocks can create images that range from precise and delicate to raw and expressionistic. It is a direct and flexible process that allows for printing on a variety of materials at large and small scales. We will use both ancient and contemporary technologies to produce black and white and color prints from single and multiple blocks. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or 172, or permission of the instructor.

(1) Investigates the structure of the book as a form; (2) provides a brief history of the Latin alphabet and how it is shaped calligraphically and constructed geometrically; (3) studies traditional and non-traditional typography; and (4) practices the composition of metal type by hand and the printing of composed type on the SP-15 printing presses. A voluntary introduction to digital typography is also offered outside class. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 12.

The human figure and other natural forms. Work in modeling and plaster casting. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 163, 172, or permission of the instructor.

Various spatial and pictorial concepts are investigated through the oil medium. Prerequisite: ARS 163 or permission of the instructor. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 18.

This course builds working knowledge of multimedia digital artwork through experience with a variety of software, focusing on video and time-based media. Core studio materials are provided. Students are responsible for the purchase of additional supplies required for individual projects. Enrollment limited to 14. (No prerequisite required.)