Andrea Kahn
Sandro Marpillero
Alex Wall
Urban Design Studio 1 is a laboratory for researching
relations between how one describes (represents), analyzes
(interprets), and projects the future of (programs) the city
of today.
The studio uses three distinct areas in the New York City
region to frame its investigations of the urban as a
constantly changing collection of physical conditions,
abstract circumstances, and unpredictable events.
Manhattan's western waterfront, downtown Brooklyn, and an
underutilized industrial site in suburban Long Island
propose a mapping of the contemporary city that considers
equally its center, inner periphery and outer edge. While
each study area presents a specific situation, it also is an
example of a more general, or thematic condition associated
with design challenges that can be found in many late 20th
century cities: Urban Waterfronts, Satellite Centers and The
Low -Density City.
The studio begins by looking at each study area, with the
goal of determining boundaries for working sites. This
process of Site Construction, which results in a designed
understanding of site, provides the materials and ideas
necessary to develop individual Site Programs that account
for existing site conditions. The second phase of work
involves a re-mapping of the sites in relation to individual
programmatic intentions, positing an urban strategy for the
site. This is followed by an in-depth study of part of the
proposed approach, to explore the design possibilities and
to test the project's intentions. The Probes allow an
in-depth understanding of the design strategy.
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