Osman is the professor listed on the course, but Prof. Svehla was actually the class lecturer. Her lecture was very engaging and covered board topics and perspectives on many themes of architecture, for example, the grid, power, nature, and labor. I gained a unique perspective from this class that I would never regret taking; this is such a great introductory course for architecture and urban design. The course was very structured with readings, reading comments, weekly assignments, midterm, and final. However, during my quarter, the final was optional due to the TA strike. Because of a very structured class, you are expected to keep up with all the lectures and assignments. The lectures in this class were very dense, and you could miss a lot if you did not attend because the lessons were not recorded. Even though the last three weeks of the class were canceled due to the strike, I was disappointed that I could not gain the complete lessons from this course. Nevertheless, I was grateful that I decided to take this class. This is a fascinating GE with an understandable workload. I enjoyed taking this class and would recommend it to anyone interested in architecture and urban design.

definitely take this, easy and interesting. professor seemed like a genuinely good guy n wants class to get A's...take notes during class like mad..he posts all the slides that u need to know for the exams so be prepared to write on those and u'll get an A. u don't need to do the reading.

super easy A. just take really good notes and regurgitate on exam. don't need to do reading..book was def waste of 100 bucks. he's also very passionate and a fun lecturer.

It was easy to just ramble on the papers and get check plus grades on them. I had Rebecca, the Asian TA, and she always gave me check pluses on my papers and midterm. I really don't understand how people get checks and check minuses as the papers only require you to put some sort of an opinion into it to receive that check+ grade.....some people just want to be hand-held through "easy" GEs.

The second half of the course was foggy because I started to not care about the course as much after I found out how easy it was to bs the tests, but I still got an A in the end.

Yes, Osman did have his own psychological BS thing going on, but to be honest, this course seemed pretty free reined in that you could say whatever popped into your mind and as long as you could back it up, you were never really wrong.

Pros: Easy to bs, easy HW, easy material
Cons: No slides provided online (you had to take pictures of the slides shown in class), short time crunch on tests, and the reader was a waste of money

Note: Rebecca is the harder TA who will yell at you if you attempt to take photos during review sessions. Plus she likes to sit back and watch people debate in discussion.

Really good professor, passionate and enthusiastic. Class was at 8:30 am twice a week, and I went to every single one. Easy class, just make sure to pay attention in lecture and read/skim the course reader as much as possible. Had Claudia as a TA, she was really good and tried to help us understand the material. Organization of material is through themes which at first seems weird, but once he starts teaching it makes a lot of sense. Lectures usually took the full Hour and fifteen minutes, but felt much faster.
Highly recommended!

Osman is a great lecturer. He gets super excited and into his lectures, and he pulls you into them even if you aren't interested in the topic. Under another professor I would have hated this class but under Osman I loved it. Plus, 40% of your grade is based on discussion participation and 5 one-page responses, and the final isn't cumulative, so what's not to love?

The class can feel overwhelming at times because he speaks very quickly, but you'll realize that even though he's saying a lot, a lot of the time he's saying the same thing in four different ways to really drive the point home (this sounds boring but it's really not), so it's not a big deal if you only write down half of what he's saying. Also, this is NOT an architecture class: It is a HISTORY and THEORY of architecture class, so keep that in mind when enrolling.

Also, shoutout to my TA, Christina! She was awesome.

I agree with the reviewer below. I really enjoyed this class even though I didnt realize it well into the quarter. Michael is passionate about architecture and this class is like a revelation to me in that it never occurred to me that architecture could deeply change the way we conceive the space in which we live, and the way we interact with space as well as others in the same space. This class is by no means like a survey of different schools of thought in architecture history. This is more about the philosophy behind buildings, thoughts and so on. His lectures are highly organized and in fact, very dense. I went to every one of his 8am lectures and even was only late for once(which is like a miracle to me) simply because I didnt want to miss any bit of his lecture!

Easily one of the best lecturers I've had. You can tell when he's excited about something because he geeks out, jumping up and down, waving his arms and shouting in exclamation. Like the other reviewers said, go to class, take notes, and learn to discuss two juxtaposed pieces of work. The TA's will usually have a review session before the midterm and final. Tip: you don't actually have to buy the reader if you're willing to do a little digging in the libraries and online for excerpts, but it's much less of a headache to just buy it.

Some people have said this course was not what they were expecting when they read "Introduction to Architectural Studies." These people were likely those who had preconceived notions of what architecture was and refused to let go. A not-so-small hint: it's not about "buildings." Engineers can do buildings (so why do we need architects?). Architecture is more about the way we think, talk about, and represent them. Drop your preconceptions and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I'm not very good at architecture, so this class wasn't an easy A for me, but I can see how it would be okay. You have weekly reading assignments and participation in discussion, and one midterm and one final. The final isn't cumulative, which is nice, and he shows you all the slides that might be on the test in review sessions right before the tests, which is helpful too. Osman is very passionate about teaching architecture, but the subject itself is kind of wishy-washy, and your grade also depends a lot on your TA and whether or not he/she likes you.

I agreed with the review below. I thought I was getting into an introductory architecture class but I was deceived. It turned out to be a class about some abstract philosophical ideas loosely related to architecture (ex: air as an architectural material. What???) Your whole grade depends on your TA (I had the Asian TA and I think she hates some of us for no apparent reason).

Each week that I went to class I always came out thinking "What did I learn today again?" You probably don't need to go to class (even if he only shows a bunch of pictures, no notes/ words, rambles rapidly on each slide, and doesn't post anything online), just go to the review session because he (or his TAs) would show every slide that might be on the test.

As for the midterm/ final: You are given 5 pairs of slides (10 in total) and the TAs grade on 4 of them. However, the tricky part is finding the similarities and differences between each pair of slide. This can be tricky because each week the professor focuses on a particular theme (ex: Week 4 nature, week 6 air etc) but you often get 2 slides from different weeks that are paired together. The exams seemed time crunched as you only have 50 minutes to think and write.

It is not a difficult GE but I wouldn't take it. I definitely didn't care whether I remember anything from that class. There are probably betters one (such as DESMA 10 or Music 15) out there.