Introduction

09

TRAVEL & EXCHANGE PROGRAMS & WORKSHOPS

During the academic year 2019-2020, several summer studio abroad programs, to Venice and Rome, and Japan, were planned for summer 2020, but as a consequence of Covid-19, these programs were unfortunately cancelled. Earlier during the academic year, the SoAD was fortunate to run various travel programs, including the MS.AURD trip to Shenzhen and Shanghai in China, B.Arch Thesis studios trips to Denmark, Sweeden and Finland, The Netherlands, and Brazil, and a design-build outreach project in Puerto Rico for post-hurricane Maria recovery efforts.

Associate Professor Jeffrey Raven and Adjunct Assistant Professor Andrew Hines travelled with MS.AURD students in the senior cohort to Shenzhen and Shanghai, as part of their capstone final studio. The studio participated in a competition for an Eco-city in the eastern coast of Shenzhen, and the activities included site visits, tours of Shenzhen’s urbanization and important recent buildings, and a joint studio review with Professor Guo Xin at Shenzhen University. Faculty and students later travelled to Shanghai for touring and a presentation and exchange at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University.

Associate Professor Robert Cody’s Thesis Studio travelled to Finland, Sweden and Denmark, visiting a series of cities and towns in Finland, including Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Säynätsalo and Turku, Copenhagen, and concluding the tour in Stockholm. Activities included a non-stop series of visits to important buildings ranging from neo-classical to the important era of Scandinavian modernism, by Alvar Aalto, Gunnar Asplund, Eliel Saarinen, Jørn Utzon, among others. Embedded into the studio was a workshop on three approaches to architectural design, involving phenomenological content, technical content, and the study of site relationships of a set of projects.

Associate Professor Giovanni Santamaria’s Thesis Studio traveled to Rio de Janeiro for a workshop and site visits. As part of an International Exchange Agreement between the Scuola di Architettura e Societa’ of Politecnico di Milano and NYIT-SoAD, the workshop brought together students, faculty, experts, local communities and public administrators to analyze, discuss and formulate coordinated design proposals for sites in Rio de Janeiro. Tours of Rio and the selected sites involved research on Botanical Urbanism, at the intersections of nature and culture, ecology and infrastructure, and post-industrial landscapes and processes of urban metabolic change

An interdisciplinary course, titled ‘Resiliency and Social Impact’, led by Associate Professor Farzana Gandhi (SoAD) and Professor Jaime Martinez (CAS), offered NYIT students the opportunity to help with post-hurricane Maria recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. Students from various disciplines and faculty travelled to Puerto Rico for 10 days at the start of in early 2020, to construct a “Storm Station” in a community garden maintained by CAUCE (El Centro de Acción Urbana, Comunitaria y Empresarial de Río Piedras). Students learned firsthand the challenges that continue to be faced due to unreliable infrastructures. Storm Station, designed by Professor Gandhi, is a community empowerment project meeting basic energy, water, medical, and sanitation needs immediately post-disaster, but also offering a public social space for education, mobile phone charging, and drinking water in the everyday scenario. In October 2019, Guest Professor Borja Ferreter, from the International University of Catalonia (UIC), had led a ten-day visiting workshop in the Master of Architecture program, supported by Professor David Diamond and Associate Professor Giovanni Santamaria. The workshop, titled, Revisioning Red Hook, focused on a post-industrial coastal area of Red Hook in south Brooklyn, and addressed a series of issues ranging from the adaptive reuse of derelict industrial buildings, the revitalization of the Red Hook area, and the mitigation of the urban impact of rising seas, flooding and storm surges.

Professor Tom Verebes Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Chair, Lectures and Events Committee