The studio sequence runs adjacent to a number of required and elective courses that develop skills in spatial analysis, critical thinking, research methods, and visualization techniques—and that enable students to rigorously propose urban change in any number of capacities. Elective courses, encouraged at GSAPP and other schools at the university, address the specific and varied problems, facets, and processes of urbanization—from human rights to agricultural policy to systems of finance. Throughout the interwoven studio-seminars sequence, projects emphasize a multi-scalar approach to site and program, embracing local, regional, and global scales and advancing the role of the urban designer as a thoughtful practitioner entangled with a diverse set of actors and existing conditions, and crucial to the implementation of imagined futures.
The Summer semester consists of four courses that operate intellectually and methodologically as an integrated curriculum focusing on the New York metropolitan region. All work is based on the coordinated learning of concepts, working methods, historical precedents, research protocols, and representational strategies. Faculty and associates overlap, courses and subjects mix, and design agendas are tested in various settings. This teaching model demonstrates how Urban design can weave together varied tasks of storytelling, community engagement, site survey and interpretation, filmmaking, digital visualization, mapping, and 3D modeling, all of which enable students to create urban knowledge and to iterate, represent and communicate design ideas.
The Fall Studio II expands in scope to consider the city-region, examining large scale interdependencies and interactions. Studio research addresses the particular conditions of American city-regions (currently, the Hudson Valley) in which shifting ecological, topographical, infrastructural, demographic and social conditions call for new strategies for systemic action.
The final Spring Studio III takes on problems of global urbanization, extending previous work on variously-scaled physical and social infrastructures, programmatic interventions and community partnerships. The studio typically travels to two cities, working in close cooperation with local partners and organizations.
In this eleventh episode of GSAPP Conversations, Urban Design Director Kate Orff joins Dean Amale 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.
Listen to more podcasts from the Urban Design program by following UD Sessions: The Expanded Field of Urban Design, a series of conversations with urban designers around the globe, who graduated from or taught at GSAPP’s Urban Design program. By discussing their current work and reflecting on how their experience at GSAPP shaped their thinking about design, cities, and politics, the series explores the ways in which the field of urban design expanded since its emergence. Hosted by Kaja Kühl and Grahame Shane.
Course | Semester | Title | Student Work | Instructor | Syllabus | Requirements & Sequence | Location & Time | Session & Points | Call No. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A6830‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Difference and Design
|
Justin Moore |
203 FAYERWEATHER
TU 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41489 | |||
A6832‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Toward Resilient Cities and Landscapes
|
Kate Orff |
WARE LOUNGE
TU 3 PM - 5 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41490 | |||
A6837‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Fabrics and Typologies: NY/Global
|
Richard Plunz | CAP 22 |
409 AVERY HALL
W 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41491 | ||
A6850‑1 | Fall 2019 |
The Climate Crisis—Imagining a Green New Deal in the Hudson Valley
|
Kaja Kühl | Syllabus |
206 FAYERWEATHER
M & TH 1:30 - 6:30; F 3 PM - 5 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
9 Points
|
41408 | ||
A4399‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Metropolitan Sublimes
|
Sandro Marpillero |
408 AVERY HALL
TU 1 PM - 3 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41456 | |||
A4987‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Architectural Photography: From the Models to the Built World
|
Michael Vahrenwald |
115 AVERY HALL
F 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10172 | |||
A4989‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Realtime
|
Farzin Lotfi-Jam, Greg Schleusner |
504 AVERY
TH 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
15482 | |||
A6448‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Program (Theories)
|
Enrique Walker |
300 BUELL SOUTH
F 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41561 | |||
A6857‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Measuring the Great Indoors
|
Violet Whitney, Gabrielle Brainard |
505 AVERY
TU 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10459 | |||
A6867‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Babel
|
Kyle Dugdale |
408 AVERY HALL
W 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
15294 | |||
A4892‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Data Visualization for Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities
|
Jia Zhang | All GSAPP Interdisciplinary |
408 AVERY HALL
F 9 AM -11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
15270 | ||
A6785‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Theory of City Form
|
Vishaan Chakrabarti | All GSAPP Interdisciplinary |
209 FAYERWEATHER
F 11 AM -1 PM
|
FULL SEMSTER
3 Points
|
41412 | ||
A4861‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Footprint: Carbon and Design
|
David Benjamin |
115 AVERY
TH 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
17879 | |||
A6783‑1 | Fall 2019 |
Narrative Urbanism: Strategic Storytelling For Designers and Planners
|
Cassim Shepard | All GSAPP Interdisciplinary |
115 AVERY HALL
F 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
41474 |