Today, more than 114 million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced–the highest number ever recorded. Over 43 million of them are refugees who have crossed international borders to escape war, persecution, or environmental disaster. Ongoing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Gaza make displacement not an episodic crisis but a defining condition of our time.

Within design and planning, professional attention to displacement has rightly focused on emergency responses such as refugee camps, temporary shelters, and humanitarian infrastructure. Far less attention has been given to the longer-term process of resettlement, particularly in the United States, where refugees build new lives not in camps but in cities and towns. Since 1975, more than 3.5 million refugees have been resettled across the U.S., forming vibrant and enduring communities. Despite a restrictive federal context–including the suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program during the second Trump administration–the everyday work of helping refugees find housing and employment, navigate cities, and adapt to daily life continues at the local level.

This project-based class invites students to work with refugee resettlement organizations and community partners to explore how design, planning, and policy can support refugee communities in building thriving lives. The studio focuses on Upstate New York’s Erie Canal corridor, linking Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo. Once the industrial heartland of the state, these cities now face population decline, aging infrastructure, and thousands of vacant or substandard housing units. At the same time, they have become some of the most welcoming places in the country, leveraging affordability, civic infrastructure, and strong community institutions to receive newcomers. Buffalo is home to more than 10,000 refugees from over twenty countries; Syracuse has sizable Bhutanese-Nepali, Congolese, and Somali communities; Utica–long known as “the city that loves refugees”–counts nearly one in four residents as foreign-born; and Albany has welcomed recent arrivals from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine.

The class unfolds in three phases. First, students will develop a foundational understanding of the U.S. refugee resettlement system, best practices for integration, and principles for ethical engagement with refugee communities. This phase situates Upstate New York within a broader geopolitical context and explores how cities along the Erie Canal function as a connected regional ecosystem of arrival. Second, students will conduct research and mapping to analyze refugee settlement patterns and everyday geographies, examining housing conditions, mobility, access to services, and environmental and social challenges. Finally, students will develop planning and design proposals at multiple scales, including housing prototypes, adaptive reuse strategies, neighborhood infill plans, corridor frameworks, public spaces, and policy interventions. The goal is to generate visionary yet implementable ideas that help Upstate New York’s arrival cities become more inclusive, resilient, and welcoming.

A regional field trip to Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany will allow students to meet with resettlement agencies, community leaders, city officials, and municipal partners; tour neighborhoods where refugees live and work; and see firsthand how physical conditions and policy frameworks shape resettlement outcomes. 
 

This course includes a trip to New York’s Erie Canal corridor. Students enrolled in the course will be term billed $100 and will be responsible for meals and incidentals.