Polizzi, Jade Venus

Research

research overview

With a belief that students learn best when feel they are actively working on real life problems Jade Polizzi’s teaching is primarily about service learning. An alumnus of the Environmental Design Program, Jade has been teaching in the Environmental Design Program since 2002. Before attending graduate school Jade served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member where she had the job of assistant project manager with Habitat for Humanity, it was then that Jade discovered her talent for teaching and her dedication to affordable housing. Jade’s devotion is running design-build classes where she teaches students to produce projects that provide a need to a local or regional community partner. Jade’s research is focused on building tectonics and student confidence.

keywords

design-build, sustainability, community planning, affordable housing, residential development, micro-housing, first-year experience, architectural pedagogy

Publications

selected publications

chapter
- Illuminating History: The Moesgaard Museum, in Aarhus Denmark. 215-227. 2020
conference proceeding
- Creating a Context of Studio Culture in the Technology Age 2019
- Design-Build: A Vehicle for Self Discovery 2014

Teaching

courses taught

ARCH 3100 - Studio 2: Intermediate Architecture
Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2021 / Fall 2023
Dealing with problems at an intermediate level of complexity this architecture studio emphasizes the interaction of form, programmatic use, human behavior and context in creating structure. Studio options may include a client-based community engaged project, real world applications, and/or result in a physical product. Students work across analog and digital platforms to produce high quality and portfolio-worthy work. Recommended corequisite: ARCH 3114.
ARCH 4100 - Studio 3: Capstone in Architecture
Primary Instructor - Spring 2022
The capstone of the studio sequence, this course investigates building technology, structural systems, user experience, and environmental sustainability. Studio options may include a client-based community engaged project, real world applications, and/or result in a physical product. Outcomes include well developed structures designed with a high level of craft, resulting in sophisticated and exhibit-worthy presentations. Recommended corequisite: ARCH 4115.
ENVD 1002 - Technology 1: Applications for Environmental Design
Primary Instructor - Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 / Fall 2021 / Spring 2022 / Fall 2022 / Spring 2023 / Fall 2023
Introduces technological competencies to support studio work including design representation and presentation. Students develop fundamental competencies in sketching, graphic design, file management and 3D modeling.
ENVD 1010 - Studio 1: Introduction to Environmental Products of Design
Primary Instructor - Fall 2024
The first of four introductory studios introduces students to concepts and techniques related to the design of products at a human scale. In an immersive project-based studio environment students develop the foundation of design communication and thinking through a series of hands-on projects with physical outcomes.
ENVD 1020 - Studio 1: Introduction to Architecture
Primary Instructor - Fall 2019
The second of four introductory studios introduces students to strategies and techniques of architectural design and communication in a hands-on studio environment. Students design a small-scale architectural project that responds to environmental, contextual and programmatic needs while developing the necessary skills for iterative design processes.

ENVD 1024 - History of the Built Environment
Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2024
Develops design appreciation through the historical narratives that link people and the built environment. Explores traditions that demonstrate how design has evolved over time to respond to cultural and environmental conditions.

ENVD 1052 - Design and Communication 1
Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
Using both lectures and drawing exercises, this class extends understandings of the representational conventions used by the design professions through its introduction to the possibilities offered by emerging digital techniques for the depiction of designed artifacts and environments, allowing students to extend and enhance their understandings of advanced practices for design visualization, representation and communication. Recommended corequisites: ENVD 1004 and ENVD 2001.

ENVD 1102 - Design and Communication 2
Primary Instructor - Spring 2019
Using both lectures and drawing exercises, this class extends understandings of the representational conventions used by the design professions through its introduction to the possibilities offered by traditional techniques for the advanced practices for design visualization, representation, and communication. Recommended corequisites: ENVD 1104 and ENVD 2003.

ENVD 1104 - Introduction to Environmental Design Methods
Primary Instructor - Spring 2019
Explores the forces and conditions that interact to shape the designed environment. It does so through a lecture sequence and parallel set of design exercises introducing students to the theory and practice of environmental design. It develops student understandings of the central role design thinking plays as the unique process used to effect appropriate change in the designed environment. Recommended corequisites: ENVD 1102 and ENVD 2003.

ENVD 1120 - Studio 2: Fundamentals of Architecture
Primary Instructor - Fall 2020 / Fall 2022
Focusing on the languages of design, as well as on traditional and digital methods of visualizing architectural ideas and forms, this course builds on the skills learned in Studio 1 and begins incorporating the dynamic forces that shape our buildings.

ENVD 3100 - ENVD Interdisciplinary Design Studio
Primary Instructor - Summer 2022
This studio exposes students to a sequence of design investigations that lead to the development of design concepts for critical evaluation and discussion. Students will explore fundamental design practices that are common to the disciplines of architecture, planning, urban design, landscape architecture, and product design. Students will work on a project that provides an opportunity to integrate the various disciplines of environmental design. ENVD 3100 fulfills the Pick One studio requirement for ENVD majors. It does not fulfill the ENVD major-specific 3100 studio requirement. May be repeated up to 12 total credit hours.

ENVD 3200 - Advanced ENVD Studio
Primary Instructor - Summer 2019
Design studio dealing with problems at an intermediate level of complexity: emphasis is on the interaction of form, use, and multiple values and technologies in conjunction with issues and techniques drawn from other content area courses of the curriculum. May be repeated up to 18 total credit hours. Recommended prerequisite: ENVD 2130.

ENVD 3212 - Color Theory
Primary Instructor - Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Summer 2021 / Fall 2024
Illustrates color media techniques for the preparation, composition, and presentation of landscape and built environment drawings.

ENVD 4100 - Advanced Design Lab 1
Primary Instructor - Fall 2018
Design lab exploring new and emerging themes in design. May be repeated up to 18 total credit hours.

ENVD 4979 - Honors Thesis
Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2022
Working with an advisor, students prepare, complete, and defend an honors thesis project, either written or creative.

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Background

education and training

M.Arch., University of Colorado Denver 2003
B.A., University of Colorado Boulder 1999

Other Profiles

ORCID iD

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8747-2040

VIVO

Positions

Research Areas