Please click the studio title for full descriptions of each studio.

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE

AMERICAN GOTHIC, MONUMENTS FOR SMALL-TOWN LIFE
Pier Paolo Tamburelli
At a time when recent political developments have brought attention to the small towns of the American Midwest, the studio proposes to design a public building in provincial Ohio, trying to imagine how public space and collective buildings could contribute to shaping the future of a community, and so contribute to overcoming its current fragility.

A NOVEL MUSEUM
Johannes Kuehn, Wilfried Kuehn, Simona Malvezzi
The objective of this studio is to advance design proposals for the museum of the 21st century. Acknowledging the important shifts taking place in the realm of collecting and exhibiting with the advent of time-based and performative art, the student’s task is to rethink the structure of the contemporary museum. Studio trip to Berlin, Germany.

HOW TO LIVE TOGETHER?
Iñaki Abalos
The studio aims to construct a new ecology of humans and non-humans, a modality of a New Palace centered around one of the deepest paradoxes of our time… How can we live together? Studio trip to San Francisco.

MODEL AS BUILDING – BUILDING AS MODEL 2
George L. Legendre
This is the second -and final- installment of a critical exploration of the phenomenon known as ‘model as building—building as model,’ whereby buildings of any size or purpose are designed and built anywhere -except on site—using the latest materials, information technology, fundraising models, and cultural trending. Studio trip to Scotland.

RECASTING THE OUTCASTS
Jeanne Gang, Claire Cahan
One group of architectural outcasts that are particularly vulnerable to being erased and replaced are the Brutalist structures of the 1960s and ’70s. In this studio, we will explore how these buildings might convert their specific “waste-time” into a benefit.

SETOUCHI (SETO INLAND SEA) STUDIO
Toshiko Mori
The Seto Inland Sea in western Japan has historically been an active location for trade, marine activities, fishing industries, and tourism. The government commissioned Tange to design a Gymnasium here in 1964. In this studio, we will imagine a new program for the gymnasium re-aligning it within the region’s society into the future.

THE ANAMORPHIC DOUBLE: A BRIDGE FOR DC
Grace La, James Dallman
Students in this studio will explore the creative tension and formal possibilities inherent in the resolution of the physics and aesthetics of the bridge typology, while confronting the monumental scale of the nation’s capital within the context of the nation’s most iconic civic realm, the Mall in Washington DC.

THE NEW GENERIC
Sharon Johnston
This studio will investigate new forms of ephemerality and adaptability in spaces for living and working through the design of a tall building in Miami, Florida. The studio will merge the typologies of the deep plan office building and the parking structure with scenarios of diverse working and living programs.

ZERO ENERGY RESIDENTIAL HIGH-RISE
Ali Malkawi, Gordon Gill
The studio will investigate developing a zero energy residential high-rise building design. To better understand the influence of site and environmental conditions, the focus will be on two climate conditions typical of China and the Mideast, and two separate sites, Shenzhen and Dubai.

DEPARTMENT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

SUPERBLOOM: SHELTER, DROUGHT, AND SCULPTURE IN THE CALIFORNIA DESERT
James Lord, Roderick Wyllie
This studio will focus on the Yucca Valley, CA, and its adjacent desert settlements. Students will consider the desert as a physical and metaphysical void, exploring opportunities to amplify experiences of both sublimity and reflection within the void.

FIELD WORK: BREXIT, BORDERS, AND IMAGINING A NEW CITY-REGION FOR THE IRISH NORTHWEST
Niall Kirkwood, Gareth Doherty
Focused on a cross-border area between Ireland and Northern Ireland, the studio will give form to a region (the Northwest City Region) which is arguably already in existence culturally and institutionally, but not well articulated formally through mappings and visual and spatial boundaries.

THE MONOCHROME NO-IMAGE
Rosetta S. Elkin
A 10,000-year-old barrier island formation named Captiva, Florida will be the focus of our studio research, helping to bring together otherwise disparate phenomena that settle upon it but have thus far been considered independent: the reprise of hurricanes, the mobility of sand, the impressions of concrete foundations and the salty, algal permanence of seawater.

LANDSCAPE OF TRANS-NATIONALITY: TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY (TSR) AND ALTERNATIVE NATURE
Jungyoon Kim, Yoon-Jin Park
The studio aims to propose the landscape frameworks for new, imagined stations along the existing railways between Seoul to London, and more specifically along the course of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

BUILD WITH LIFE: TRANSFORMATION + FORMATION: LANDSCAPE AND ISLAMIC CULTURE
Catherine Mosbach
The uprisings of the North African Arab Spring exposed the fragility of countries whose citizens were eager to revisit and adapt their identities in the face of a changing world. The focus of the studio is Tunisia, the country in which the uprisings first began. The purpose of the studio will be to reimagine the penitentiary infrastructure as a place of learning that promotes humanitarian behavior.

DEPARTMENT OF URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN

DESIGNING ATMOSPHERES AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION
Jose Luis Vallejo
With the arrival of the digital era, new kinds of communities have appeared. The studio will look at new opportunities in the Greater Boston area for the creation of hybrid physical-digital urban atmospheres that can enhance social interaction.

EXTREME URBANISM 6: DESIGNING SANITATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Rahul Mehrotra
This studio examines the issue of sanitation infrastructure in Mumbai, with a special focus on community toilets in the city’s informal settlements. The site is an informal settlement with an organized community group that will serve as the constituency or client group for the studio.

FUTURE OF STREETS IN LOS ANGELES
Andres Sevtsuk
This studio will investigate the impact of new mobility technologies on the built environment of LA, seeking solutions that maximize multi-modal, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable outcomes for the city.

LARGE SCALE PROJECTS TO CREATE NEW CENTRALITIES IN SHANGHAI. POTENTIALS FOR THE REGULAR CITY
Joan Busquets, Dingliang Yang
The studio focuses on a study of capacity of big urbanistic projects to direct the growth and transformation of large metropolises. It takes the example of Shanghai and its Expo 2010 to investigate their potential for creating one or several centralities in this diverse, dynamic city.

PATTERNED JUSTICE: DESIGN LANGUAGES FOR A JUST PITTSBURGH
Toni L. Griffin
This option studio will interrogate and advance socio-spatial justice through design and planning “pattern-making” in Pittsburgh, PA.

RE-THINKING A HUMANIST SKYSCRAPER CITY
Moshe Safdie, Jaron Lubin
As a whole, we architects have advanced the tall tower typology very little in the past century, beyond our ability to grow it taller and more environmentally efficient. This studio will research visions of the past, develop master plans for an active development site in Chicago, and develop a building proposal on a parcel within the larger master plan.