Courses
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The Storm, the Strife, and Everyday Life: Sea Change in the Suburbs
For many Long Islanders, the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy was a wakeup call, adding urgency to a nascent discussion about Long Island\’s vulnerability to…
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The Countryside as a City
The studio is premised upon two fundamental ambitions, the recuperation of an idea of the city as a project and the pursuit of alternative forms…
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Retrofitting the (post?) Industrial Metropolis: Housing and Economic Growth in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area and the Bajío Region
Mexico’s national authorities are rethinking their housing policy frameworks, so as to connect questions of housing supply and affordability to location as well as to…
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Medellin: Urban Porosity as Social Infrastructure: A Multidisciplinary Hub for Change
This course explores the space that the architect-urban designer has in the contemporary world, and his/her role as an agent of/for social transformation through design.
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Obsolescence and Pathways to Redevelopment: The Shekou Industrial District in Shenzhen, China
A striking aspect of China’s recent modernization and urbanization has been a relatively high rate of obsolescence, variously pegged at around 30 years for many…
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Design and Politics – Managing Risks and Vulnerabilities
Contemporary spatial design faces a political paradox. To address emerging environmental challenges and the risk of climate-related disasters, it must transcend political boundaries to operate…
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Barcelona’s Grids: in Search of New Paradigms
FRAMEWORK. The construction of modern Barcelona can be seen as a laboratory of urban projects and planning strategies. This process spanning two centuries features…
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Haters Make Me Famous: The Newark Riverfront and the Post-Great Migration City
Following forty years of official urban decline narratives, the Festival Marketplace entered US cities in the 1970s as a redemptive force of planning and design.
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Networked Urbanism: Urban Waste – Urban Design
Belinda Tato, Jose Luis Vallejo
Waste is the result of bad design Networked Urbanism: Urban Waste – Urban Design Waste is the result of bad design Cities cover…
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Planning and Development on the East Boston Waterfront
Alex Krieger, Matthew Kiefer, Larry Curtis
This studio will explore the use of both private investment and public action to solve an important planning/urban design problem: how to fulfill long-standing community…
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Macau: Cross-border Cities
The studio is premised upon two fundamental ambitions, the recuperation of an idea of the city as a project and the pursuit of alternative forms…
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Territorialism 2
Paola Vigano, Chiara Cavalieri
Key issues: contemporary territories, ecological rationality, life-cycles, embodied energy, inclusion Design operations: conceptualization and scenarios construction Place: Boston Metropolitan Region/Greater Boston I the…
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Meydan: Designing the Surfaces of Public Space around Beyazit Square, Istanbul
Summary: The studio explores the architectural means by which a public space could be configured to support a variety of specific urban functions while encouraging…
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Between Geometry and Geography: Mexico City
Tenochtitlan/Mexico City Carlos Garciavelez will serve as Teaching Associate in Urban Design for this option studio. “I think, no injury to say the past…
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Utopioids / The Generic Sublime IV
Skyscraper collectives, tower agglomerations, mixed-use developments, high-rise housing developments, marinas and luxury condominiums; airport hubs, office enclaves, industrial parks, hotel complexes, conference centers, financial centers;…
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The Flexible Leviathan: Reconsidering Scale and Fixity in the Contemporary Metropolis
Mexico City is one of the most dynamic and complex metropolitan areas in the world today. With over 20.1 million inhabitants, remarkable urban…
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Urban Grafting: New Dwelling Landscapes for the Extended City
The Option Studio welcomes students from Urban Planning, Urban Design, Architecture and Landscape backgrounds with at least two previous relevant design experiences. Its aim is…
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On the Order of Objects: Mediating between Monuments, Museums, and Megaliths in the Historic Center of Istanbul
SUMMARY The studio is set in the area around the old Byzantine hippodrome in the historic center of Istanbul. Here an accumulation of buildings…
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Chicago Grid: In Search For New Paradigms
Chicago can be seen as a paradigm city for its rapid growth and transformation, its economic importance and its innovative contributions to the techniques of…
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Green-Heart Urbanism in the Pearl River Delta: The Haizhu, Guangzhou Case
Kongjian Yu, Stephen Ervin, Adrian Blackwell
The site of this studio will be the 1200 ha. Wanmu Orchard, a key resource of the planned Haizhu Ecological District, situated in the centre…
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Thermodynamic Madrid. A New Good Life
Iñaki Abalos, Matthias Schuler
This course explores new methods, tools, scales, and materials to address the renovation of historic centers outside both the radical preservationism of the protectionist theories…
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The Good Old Days: Design for the Age-Friendly Environment
Thanks to longer lifespans, lower fertility rates, and the aging of the baby boomer population, the United States is getting older. Already, there are more…
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Networked Urbanism
Belinda Tato, Jose Luis Vallejo
The boundary between public and private is shifting. The one between personal and professional is becoming increasingly blurred. This rapid evolution has led us to…
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Urban Development and Housing for Low Income Groups in the Rapidly Growing City of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
The first meeting for this studio will take place on Tuesday, September 4th. With over one million inhabitants, Ouagadougou is the largest…
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The Jaffa Road Studio, Jerusalem
The studio will focus on a key site—or two or three—along a historic street that terminates at one of the gates to the walled city…
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Territorialism: Inside a New Form of Dispersed Megalopolis
Starting from a reflection on the infrastructural system (water and iron) in the Boston region, the approach of the studio is to use design as…
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Common Frameworks: Rethinking the Developmental City
This studio works typologically. It approaches the problem of the city through the investigation and redefinition of its persistent architectures—its dominant types. Any attempt to…
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Rethinking the Manhattan Grid: Score for Designing the Future
FRAMEWORK Manhattan’s development has been based on Commissioners’ Plan which has just celebrated its second centenary. The precision of layout, the judicious definition of…
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Neokoolhisms
Skyscraper collectives, tower agglomerations, mixed-use developments, high-rise housing developments, marinas and luxury condominiums; airport hubs, office enclaves, industrial parks, hotel complexes, conference centers, financial centers;…
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Extreme Urbanisms II: Speculations and Alternative Futures for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region
Rahul Mehrotra, Gareth Doherty
The studio will engage with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) as its site for enquiry, research, and design propositions. The pedagogical thrust of…
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The School of the Year 2030 in Rio de Janeiro
In the context of the current efforts of Rio de Janeiro to reformulate and develop public policies for strategic urban development and renewal this studio…
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Thermodynamic somatisms/ Verticalscapes II
The Studio will seek to consolidate an advanced understanding of high‐rise construction in association with thermodynamics and to experiment with various somatic aspects of human…
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Peri-urban Development Alternatives for Southwest Beijing:Qinglonghu zhen
Kongjian Yu, Stephen Ervin, Adrian Blackwell
Overview. Beijing, China is one of the fastest developing urban regions in the world and among the most challenging places for the study and practice…
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A Line in the Andes: Rethinking Quito through its sub-surface
This option studio examines how the introduction of a new metro transit system can serve as the backbone for the development of more comprehensive urban…
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REDISCOVERING GLORiES
Our studio in Barcelona is an ‘atelier` which for us contains a program balancing between those existing in a professional office and those of a…
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Water Line…Chicagos Urban River Corridor
Chicago has transformed from an industrial giant that depended on the Chicago River for moving materials in and out, to an influential 21st century global…
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Istanbul: Between Contour and Silhouette
Summary: The studio explores how an architectural project could relate to the city through the manipulation of the ground line and the skyline. The practical…
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Evolutionary Infrastructure – the new mega form
Marion Weiss, Michael Manfredi
Biased toward expediting movement and inherently resistant to supporting other forms of inhabitation, transportation infrastructure is an archaic monument to mono-functional use. With ever increasing…
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Rosario Territorial Front
Juan Rois, Leire Asensio Villoria
This is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.T.S. Eliot, \”The Hollow Men\” (1925)Latin-American cities, especially those of Indian Laws foundation,…
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Mexico City and the Production of Housing
Introduction: Mexico City is one of the most dynamic and complex metropolitan areas in the world today. With over 20.1 million inhabitants, remarkable urban growth,…
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Architectural Design V – IX: Urban Design Studio “Contested Waters, Mumbai”
Option studion in Zurich, ETH.
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Detroit, Interrupted: Defining the New American Urban Geography
Andrea Hansen, Toni L. Griffin
In no other community in America has the current economic recession wreaked more dislocation than in Detroit. Over the last decade, Southeast Michigan has lost…
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EXTREME URBANISM: Reimagining Mumbai’s Back Bay
The Studio will explore the condition of extreme urbanism in the form of social, cultural and economic disparities and how these manifest themselves in the…
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Overurbanism
\”that the destiny of humanity depends upon the attainment of its highest type.\” Friedrich Nietzsche, \’The Will to Power\’Skyscraper collectives, tower agglomerations, bundles, clusters, and…
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Verticalscapes/Chicago
What is a VERTICALSCAPE?: An hybrid entity which, due to inertia, we momentarily continue to call vertical construction or \”architecture\”. This vertical \”entity\” is an…
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Beyond Paris: The Palaiseau Campus at Paris Saclay
IntroductionResearch on strategies for new campuses in the Paris region continues in this third studio on the subject. The growth of metropolitan Paris beyond its…
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What’s in Store, Baltimore?
Central Baltimore (not to be confused with Downtown Baltimore), is an area at the geographic center of the city whose high residential and commercial vacancy,…