Now Arriving: A Transit Landscape for Manhattan

“Now Arriving: A Transit Landscape for Manhattan” presents the work of the eponymous Fall 2018 option studio, led by Gary Hilderbrand—the third in a series examining technological, operational, and spatial changes to mobility and public realm patterns in Manhattan. This studio and exhibition suggest that New York’s central transit hub—today’s dreaded Penn Station—could be re-imagined as the city’s largest civic plaza. How can the arrival and departure experience for 650,000 commuters and long haul travelers produce a stimulating New York spectacle, as it once did with the grandeur of McKim, Mead & White’s original 1920 Pennsylvania Station?  

Death, Divorce, Down-sizing, Dislocation, and (Now) Display: A Self-Storage Center for a More Exhibitionist Future

Thesis project “Death, Divorce, Down-sizing, Dislocation, and (Now) Display: A Self-Storage Center for a More Exhibitionist Future” by Hyojin Kwon (MArch ’18) won the 2018 James Templeton Kelley Prize, offered by the Boston Society of Architects and awarded annually for the best final design project submitted by an MArch degree candidate. Kwon’s thesis asks: Can cabinets of curiosities trigger a new typology of architecture for the contemporary self-storage center? Can such an establishment blur the distinctions between storage space, personal collection, and cultural museum? Learn more about Kwon’s thesis on the project’s webpage. The self-storage center for a near future presents collectors with many options for storage and display, both physical and digital, accommodating a wide range of storage formats under one roof. Public exhibition of personal possessions achieves an institutional character for the self-storage center, in which objects gain an architectural importance. Constant curation of objects resists hoarder culture, instead asking what belongs in storage when the previously dark and hidden becomes bright and showcased. As the new self-storage center takes on museological presentation and develops a distinct form, it acts as a monument to collections of the tangible and intangible within its urban context.

New Student Fellowships @ the GSD

Through the Grounded Visionaries campaign, the GSD endowed 25 new fellowships—an increase of 60 percent. We are very grateful to the many individuals, corporations, and foundations that have stepped up to support financial aid for students. These fellowships help broaden the diversity of the student body and enable many of our graduates to make career choices rooted in their passions, rather than their obligations to repay student loans. All of this contributes to a robust range of ideas that our students bring to the School and to the disciplines.