City as Resource: Urban Repair Through Innovative Infrastructure

The “City as Resource” option studio is a research and design exercise focusing on urban adaptive reuse in the ‘already built-up city’ given the context of climate change and resource scarcity. The studio seeks to explore new paths for people-centric urban development within the bounds of the already built environment, focusing on utilizing material and non-material resources embedded in existing urban structures and fabric.

While situated in the larger global narrative, each year, we will explore the theme of urban repair through the innovative use of existing infrastructure and its transformation potentials in a different city, creating a lexicon of design solutions in post-industrial cities.

This year, Copenhagen will serve as the test site. Copenhagen’s urban identity has been characterized by constant reinvention and transformation. The Spring 2025 studio will focus on the development and transformation of Refshaleøen, projected to be one of the largest and most important urban development projects in Copenhagen. As the new center in the East Harbor, Refshaleøen stands to become a visionary pioneer project for sustainable urban development as a vibrant, creative, cultural, and green district with space for everyone in this unique and historical industrial yard.

The intent of the Studio is to engage in a larger global practice of creating more sustainable, livable, and equitable cities. While the Studio’s test site will be in Copenhagen, students will be tasked with adapting a wider lens of design thinking that is both intensely local, but also simultaneously global, particularly in the face of the current sustainability, material and resource, and climate crises.

This course has an irregular schedule and will be conducted 50% online and 50% in-person. Please see the Studio Schedule listed in the syllabus for details.