The Urban Design Program is a three-semester degree in the multidisciplinary study of cities, regions, infrastructures, and ecosystems. The program focuses on the city as an agent of resilient change and on the role of design in redefining the twenty-first century urban landscape, advancing new paradigms of research, practice, and pedagogy to meet the challenges of climate change, rapid urbanization, and social inequality. Students and faculty in the MSAUD program are united in their attempt to integrate and underscore the essential links between public space, social justice, and ecological systems. The program asks the venerable and necessarily shifting question: what is “the good city?”—reframing the city not as a fixed, delimited territory but as a gradient of varied landscapes supported by networks of food, energy, resources, culture, transportation, and capital.
The M.S.AUD program is a designated STEM program eligible under the CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs) Code 04.0902: Architectural and Building Sciences/Technology. Learn more about STEM designation.
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.
Professor Kate Orff, Urban Design Program Director and principal of Scape, discusses rewilding on the At a Distance podcast as one tool among many for restoring ecological infrastructure, oysters as engineering assistants in preventing coastal flooding, and other out-of-the-box solutions local and federal authorities should be considering before the next hurricane hits.
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 Faculty Kaja Kühl and Grahame Shane.
Course | Semester | Title | Student Work | Instructor | Syllabus | Requirements & Sequence | Location & Time | Session & Points | Call No. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A6820‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Urban Design Studio II
|
Emanuel Admassu, Jelisa Blumberg, Nina Cooke John, A.L. Hu, Oscar Oliver-Didier, Christin Hu |
206 FAYERWEATHER
M + TH 1:30 - 6:30 , F 9AM -11AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
9 Points
|
10084 | |||
A6832‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Toward Resilient Cities and Landscapes
|
Kate Orff |
115 AVERY
TU 9 AM -11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10085 | |||
A6888‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Climate Crisis, Housing Crisis
|
Deborah Helaine Morris |
203 FAYERWEATHER
TU 6 PM - 8 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10087 | |||
A6940‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Community Engagement Practicum
|
Kaja Kühl |
200 BUELL
TU 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10086 | |||
A4397‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Speculative City: Crisis, Turmoil, and Projections in Architecture
|
David Eugin Moon |
300 BUELL NORTH
F 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
13711 | |||
A4050‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Arch Elective Internship
|
Karen Cover |
FULL SEMESTER
1.5 Points
|
10058 | ||||
A4625‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Tensile/Compression Surfaces in Architecture: Tactile Methods for Architects
|
Robert Marino |
300 BUELL SOUTH
TU 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10080 | |||
A6932‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Embodied Research Speculative Methods
|
Jonathan González |
115 AVERY
TU 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10306 | |||
A6941‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Architectural Acoustical Ecology
|
Ethan Bourdeau |
115 AVERY
TH 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10309 | |||
A6942‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Daylight, Metabolism
|
Elliot Glassman |
115 AVERY
TU 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10311 | |||
A6947‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Designing Spaces for Children
|
409 AVERY
TU 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10313 | ||||
A6948‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Home is Where the Toxics Are
|
Marta H. Wisniewska |
408 AVERY
TU 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10350 | |||
A6958‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Modern Iran
|
Nader Vossoughian |
409 AVERY
TH 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10800 | |||
A4399‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Metropolitan Sublimes
|
Sandro Marpillero |
412 AVERY
TH 9 AM -11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10280 | |||
A4427‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Architecture Apropos Art
|
Steven Holl, Dimitra Tsachrelia |
412 AVERY
TH 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10059 | |||
A4441‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Interlaced Existence: Death, Life, Liminality
|
Karla Rothstein |
504 AVERY
TU 11 AM -1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
17974 | |||
A4715‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Re-Thinking BIM
|
Joseph Brennan |
WARE LOUNGE - 600 AVERY
TH 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10068 | |||
A4726‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Graphic Architecture Project III: Design Seminar
|
Wael Morcos |
505 AVERY
W 10 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10065 | |||
A4987‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Architectural Photography: From the Models to the Built World
|
Michael Vahrenwald |
115 AVERY
F 9 AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10066 | |||
A4988‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Coding for Spatial Practices
|
Celeste Layne |
WARE LOUNGE - 600 AVERY
TU 7 PM - 9 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10072 | |||
A6756‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Make
|
Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano |
WARE LOUNGE - 600 AVERY
F 11 AM -1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10067 | |||
A6917‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Seed Bombs: Technologies in Ecological Design
|
Emily Bauer |
323M FAYERWEATHER + 203 FAYERWEATHER
TU + TH 11 AM - 1 PM
|
SES A
3 Points
|
10082 | |||
A6886‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Building the Engine: Industry + the African Urban Agenda
|
Fatou Dieye |
323M FAYERWEATHER
TH 9 AM - 1 PM
|
SES A
3 Points
|
10081 | |||
Pla4577‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Geographic Information Systems
|
Jonathan Stiles |
UP COMPUTER LAB + 204 FAYERWEATHER
TU 10 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10157 | |||
Pla4577‑2 | Fall 2023 |
Geographic Information Systems
|
Jonathan Stiles |
UP COMPUTER LAB + 204 FAYERWEATHER
TH 5 PM - 8 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10160 | |||
A4892‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Data Visualization for Architecture, Urbanism and the Humanities
|
Jia Zhang |
409 AVERY
F 9 AM -11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10070 | |||
A4341‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Traditional American Architecture
|
Andrew Dolkart |
209 FAYERWEATHER
TU 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10091 | |||
A6830‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Difference and Design
|
Justin Moore |
412 AVERY / ONLINE
T 3 PM - 5 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10004 | |||
A6922‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Ways of Experiencing
|
Karen Wong |
209 FAYERWEATHER
F 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10352 | |||
A6927‑1 | Fall 2023 |
Science + Technology Studies
|
Albena Yaneva | Counts for AAD Vis/Tech Elective |
323M FAYERWEATHER
M 11 AM - 1PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10303 | ||
A6929‑1 | Fall 2023 |
The Reimagining of Lower Manhattan Post-Sandy
|
Michael Kimmelman |
408 AVERY
W 9AM - 11 AM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
10304 | |||
Pla4444‑1 | Fall 2023 |
The Future City: Transforming Urban Infrastructure
|
Kate Ascher |
113 AVERY
TU 1 PM - 3 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
18443 | |||
Pla6272‑1 | Fall 2023 |
New York Rising: How Real Estate Shapes a City
|
Kate Ascher |
114 AVERY
F 11 AM - 1 PM
|
FULL SEMESTER
3 Points
|
13183 |