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Hidden Cities: Urban Form, Infrastructural Attention, and the Future of New York (Session 1 of 3)

  • SoRA Sanctuary 55 Washington Street Brooklyn, NY, 11201 United States (map)

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Urban forms are the unnoticed blueprints of the cities we all inhabit. They shape our daily lives in profound ways. With the proper attention, these hidden forms reveal a great deal about how cities are built, regulated, inhabited, and reinvented.

From the precise proportions of Manhattan’s gridiron block to the regulatory frameworks that shaped Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) in Midtown, and from the gradual transformation of industrial waterfronts into parks to the repurposing of derelict transportation infrastructure, the design of abstract spatial frameworks has been instrumental in choreographing how we live, work, and play in the contemporary city. In most cases, little or no attention is paid to the processes and design concepts that produce the urban settings that we encounter daily. Yet concealed within the urban form of cities, we can find many clues that reveal the hidden logics of our city's past, present, and future.

By reading, interpreting, and translating historic and contemporary city maps, our seminar will share techniques on how to become an urban design sleuth. Participants will begin to identify the design and regulatory frameworks that have shaped the politics and topology of the New York Metropolitan Region. Over the course of the seminar series, each participant will produce and present a schematic urban vision before a panel of urban design experts.

Taught by Felipe Correa, architect and founder of Somatic Collaborative, a NYC-based design practice.

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July 16

Slow Burn: Radical Attention and Collective Action in an Age of Crisis (Session 3 of 3)

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July 23

Sidewalk Study: LONG, HOT SUMMER in Lower Manhattan