Brief:

The concept of the “sanctuary” is rooted in the Latin word sanctum, meaning “holy / sacred” and the suffix -arium, meaning “container.” A container of the sacred. The notion of the sanctuary in the conetemporary sense comes to us from medeival Europe: churches where people seeking protection from prosecution and/or persecution fled for asylum. Law enforcement was often prohibited from stepping foot on church grounds, giving the fugitive a space and time to address accusations . In non-western cultures, sanctuaries were often spiritually significant sites defined by elements of the landscape such as a valley, a rocky outcrop, a spring, a hill top. Whether built or “natural,” western or non-western, the sanctuary historically draws its power from the human fear of the super-human: a reluctance to spill blood in the presence of something holy.

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Historical understandings of the sanctuary have been expanded in our contemporary vocabulary, including but not limited to: sanctuary cities (where municipal law limits cooperation with federal immigration agents seeking to deport undocumented immigrants); animal and plant sanctuaries (to protect native species habitats and prevent their extinction); geological sanctuaries, or “geoparks” (to protect significant continental and/or oceanic elements of the earth’s crust, mantle, or core); and more.

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This studio will investigate the Rio Grande and its watershed basin as a zone containing a multiplicity of sanctuaries with deep histories, evolving present challenges, and unknown futures. We will research the dynamics of social sanctuaries in New Mexico (including the river cities of Sante Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces) in relation to the planning and policy of Texas (with a particular emphasis on El Paso). We will explore the watershed’s diverse environmental sanctuaries preserving life in riparian, wetland, shrub, semi-arid grassland, pinon-juniper, ponderosa, and mixed confider ecosystems. We will learn from the cosmological sanctuaries of the indigenous communities that have been stewarding the land for thousands of years, including tribes of the Pueblos (Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zuni and Zia), tribes of the Apache (the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the Mescalero Apache Tribe), and the Navajo Nation.

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With an emphasis on the Rio Grande as river which both divides and connections Latin America and the United States, the south and the north, students will identify, develop, and translate 4030-level research into a design proposal for a sanctuary. It will be left to each student (or group of students) to define the scope of their sanctuary assemblages: from the material system, to architecture, to the city, to the territory.

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Field Trip:

The studio will fly to Sante Fe, New Mexico and explore sanctuaries of the Rio Grande from Sante Fe to El Paso. This 330-mile stretch of river, a 5-hr drive, offers a rich array of travel experiences, including but not limited to: Taos Pueblo UNESCO World Heritage Site, Taos ski valley, the town of Taos, the city of Sante Fe, the city of Albuquerque, the City of El Paso, Valles Caldera National Preserve, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, Bandalier National Monument, Petroglyph National Monument, Pecos National Historical Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, Gila Cliff Dwellings, White Sands National Park, Chamizal National Memorial, Carlsbad Caverns, and more.

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Parallel Courses:

Prof. Zuroweste will tentatively be offering an Arch 5280 elective seminar entitled “Assemblages of the Americas: Ancient, Indigenous, and Contemporary South-North Fabrications. This 3 cr course is designed in tandem with the 6 cr studio to offer an immersive capstone 9 cr hour learning experience. Students that enroll in the studio are strongly encouraged, but not required, to enroll in the seminar. The two courses will unfold in feedback loop of thinking and making, with the seminar serving as a hands-on workshop-style course to analyze history and theory texts, develop model making and fabrication skills using the CoD and SICTR shops, and increase digital drawing and modeling skills (Grasshopper, Rhino). The knowledge and skills acquired in the seminar will be deployed in the studio as a design research laboratory emphasizing rigorous creative experimentation.

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Course Catalog Description:

Advanced studio as incubator for examining progressive agendas within or beyond the discipline of architecture. Innovative research that is academically rigorous, critically informed, speculative, and design-led is encouraged. Projects and creative outputs vary per studio instructor.