The curriculum for the architecture studios 301 and 302 were combined into a one-year project.   Under the heading Inhabiting Mobility, the students were engaged with the specific architectural typologies that are forefronting current social, economic and political issues facing the desert southwest of the United States.

With semester 1 having been spent introducing students to specific architectural methodologies for developing concepts, form and communication strategies, as well as three architectural conditions, ‘Density, Nomadic and Systems’, semester 2 used those methodologies and characteristics to realize a specific project.

The impetuous for the 2005/06 curriculum began with an article published in the Santa Fe news- paper the New Mexican in June 2005 . In this article staff writer Yasmin Khan described a culture of nomads using Wal-Mart parking lots across the US as free camp- sites. The article revealed that people who park their RV or camper trailer in these parking lots are attracted to the con- venience, as most Wal-Mart's are in close proximity to inter- state highways and are free of charge. As one 'over-nighter' stated, the 'security of the lot, and the proximity to public transportation and city con- veniences' was what he enjoyed most.

From this article, it was revealed that a community of road weary
travelers is creating impromptu urban hubs within the suburban
developments of the US. Set this against recent international and
national headlines — China's move to an independent currency
(possibly raising the prices of cheap imports into the US) and
interest only (non-principle reducing) home loans for US housing
(symptoms of the lack of affordable housing for many Americans),
not to mention the raise in petrol prices — one can envision new
lifestyle scenario's forming. A situation whereby the large retail
warehouse spaces of Wal-Mart are left vacated and people begin
to occupy a mobile type of high-density dwelling.

This is the scenario that introduces and supports the 301/302
studio's curriculum, as well as the rationale for research tours to
Japan and New York this past March.

Ultimately, this studio is to engage the students in a notion of
architecture as a system of design that integrally responds to
urban form and condition. The studio aim's to (re)develop the
big box and its parking lot complex of a Wal-Mart into a fluid,
'plug-in', mixed-use environment within a suburban context.