Course Syllabus

Course Description

This course is about thinking and designing with code. Code is not just a technical skill but a medium of thought, speculation, and design. Each week you will learn the mechanics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, while building digital gardens: living, evolving web spaces that resist the homogeneity of platforms and reflect individual voice, curiosity, and care.

We will explore the digital garden as both design practice and cultural critique: What does it mean to publish a site that is never finished? How can architectural thinking shape pathways, nodes, and rooms of knowledge online? How might AI tools scaffold experimentation without erasing individuality?

Through lectures, readings, and hands-on coding exercises, students will create experimental web projects (“gardens”) that balance technical fluency with critical design inquiry. The goal is to reclaim the web as a medium of cultivation, not consumption—crafting websites that grow, link, and evolve like living knowledge spaces.

No prior coding experience is required—only curiosity, a willingness to experiment, and a desire to rethink what the web can be.

Course Theme

Personal Webcraft: Digital Gardens and the Future of Individuality

This semester, we explore digital gardens as a contemporary model for personalized web practices — spaces that are always evolving, interconnected, and expressive of individual voice. but to cultivate living systems of knowledge and design inquiry. We will ask:

• What does it mean to design a digital garden — a site that grows, links, and transforms over time — rather than a static portfolio?
• How do personal, evolving sites offer an alternative to platform-driven feeds and homogenized templates?
• How can AI-enabled design tools (e.g., Figma’s generative features, automation platforms) act as collaborators in experimentation without erasing individuality?
• How might architectural thinking shape digital “gardens,” “studios,” or “rooms” online, where pathways, nodes, and spaces embody ideas as much as buildings do in the physical world?

Course Schedule (subject to change)

☀️☀️☀️ 🌱🌱🌱 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌿🌿🌿 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌳🌳🌳 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌱🌱🌱 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌿🌿🌿 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌳🌳🌳 ☀️☀️☀️ 🌱🌱🌱 ☀️☀️

Grading 

• Stay informed of class plans and requirements announced via Discord, and actively communicate any concerns
• Complete all assignments to the best of your ability
• Actively participate in class discussions
  • Attendance & Participation 20%
  • Assignments 60%
  • Final Presentation 20%

Materials

This class requires the use of a computer (chromebooks and tablets will not work), a text editor (like, VS Code), and a browser (Firefox or Chrome). I would also recommend a sketchbook for off-screen thinking (greatly encouraged), note-taking, and sketching.

More details can be found in Week 01 slides.

Class Discord

Even though this course takes place in person; I’ve set up a Discord server to centralize communication and announcements for the class. I’ve found it especially useful for debugging and sharing code with one another. The Discord will also serve as a space for feedback and comments during feedback sessions.

Attendance/Presence

Attendance is mandatory. Work missed due to any type of absence or lateness is the student’s responsibility. Three or more absences will result in a failing grade. I understand that things may arise and you will need to miss a class; but please inform me beforehand so we can plan around it. That said, you are responsible for making up any missed assignments by the next class.

Use of Generative AI in this Course

In alignment with Columbia University policy, the unauthorized use of generative AI tools to complete assignments or exams is prohibited and will be treated as unauthorized assistance or plagiarism.

In this course, however, we will engage critically with AI as part of the broader cultural landscape shaping contemporary web practices. Students may use generative AI tools in limited, process-oriented ways — for example, to debug code, to translate technical concepts into different metaphors, or to generate raw material for later curation and remixing. In all such cases, students must clearly document when and how AI was used (e.g., by including screenshots, prompts, or excerpts in a process appendix).

The emphasis of this course is on personal authorship, individuality, and experimentation. Any engagement with AI should serve to amplify your own ideas and aesthetic decisions, not replace them. Final projects and assignments must reflect your own coding, design, and conceptual work.

Statement on Academic Freedom in the Classroom

Knowledge flourishes when inquiry is free and respectful. This class, which has been approved as part of the Columbia curriculum by appropriate faculty bodies, aims to advance knowledge through discussion, debate, and carefully selected readings and assignments. In accordance with principles of academic freedom promulgated by the American Association of University Professors and affirmed by many universities, including Columbia, the instructor has the authority to set the class syllabus, which may include controversial material relevant to topics being studied. While all participants and their views will be treated respectfully, no one should expect to be shielded from challenging or even upsetting ideas, since thoughtfully engaging such ideas is crucial to free inquiry and intellectual growth.