Episode #11

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Kate Orff about the role of climate change in the design of future cities, with a particular look at the role water plays in reframing urban infrastructure and networks. Orff directs Columbia GSAPP’s Urban Design Program and is founder of the landscape architecture and urban design studio SCAPE, which focuses on resiliency and has received particular attention for the natural breakwater “oyster-tecture” developed for Staten Island.

In this eleventh episode of GSAPP Conversations, Orff joins Dean Andraos to discuss what it means to think across scales and connect our human life with the geological time scale, how traveling international studios allow students to better address challenges shared by otherwise very different cities, and teaching the reciprocity of physical design and social context.

“We are teaching our students very differently now, because they need to be able to operate differently in light of not only climate change, but also in light of very different political and social systems that characterize the urban context.”
–Kate Orff

Listen on iTunes.