Buildings, Cities, and Climate: The Manhattan Earth Forum Core Undergraduate Studio
This studio raised the awareness of the relationships between a building, a city, and the climate. To design a building in a dense, urban environment we must come to understand architecture’s relationship with larger systems. At this very moment, US cities are experiencing dramatic transformations as they confront issues surrounding the COVID Pandemic, climate change, inequality, and affordable housing. This is all layered on top of typical challenges cities face in relation to infrastructure, density, transportation, economic sustainability, health and livability. It is more critical than ever for architecture to establish a relationship with the systems, fabric, and environment beyond its singular building lot.
In this studio, we read the city in order to produce architecture, while understanding that the city itself has resulted from a gradual accretion of buildings. We also read both city and architecture as constructed responses to environmental conditions that reciprocally impact the environment. As designers of the constructed environment, we thought critically about the effects our actions have on the world, and this great responsibility catalyzed our creativity.
Our strategy was to start from a distance, with the big picture. What and whose territory are we working with? We “landed” on site first as citizens of the world, then as citizens of the city, then as citizens of the building. We delineated the project through it’s public, urban interfaces with the streets, highways, river, ground, green-way, surrounding neighbors, and vast climates of all forms (political, social, environmental, economic....). We defined the building’s urban and environmental position before moving inward into the controlled interior environment. It is the street and the public space that can always bring shared value to the urban condition.
Course Type and Audience Core Undergraduate Studio
Institution University of Virginia
Location Charlottesville, VA
Faculty José Ibarra
Terms Fall 2020 Fall 2021
Works Displayed Credits Cara Hu Tamar Ayalew Phoeve Draper Alex Park Hannah Yoon
