Program Overview

Program Overview

The Sustainability in the Urban Environment program is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the physical environment of the New York City metropolitan region, including geology, soils, surface water, dominant weather systems, the changing climate, plant communities, wildlife habitat, and regional design style trends.

Program Details

Description

This course provides an overview of the physical environment of the New York City metropolitan region, utilizing the region as a case study site for multi-layered analysis. Each student prepares a colloquium presentation on a particular aspect of New York City regional ecology, design, local material, or an historical feature.

Objectives

1. Develop understanding of the reciprocity between social forces and environmental processes in urban areas
2. Build familiarity with contemporary ecological, design, and planning theory
3. Examine New York City’s human and environmental system’s transformation over time as a basis of understanding processes of future transformation
4. Expand understanding of the city as an eco-system, and develop skills to analyze and critique transformation of its constituent systems
5. Provide a grounding in environmental theory that can be directly related to design practice
6. Enable students to become conversant in the languages of ecology, environmentalism, theories of nature, and urban landscape design

Course Requirements

1. Class Discussion: Seminar readings will be given one week in advance, and students are required to participate in class discussions.
2. Synopses: A one or two-paragraph summary of each of the weekly readings to be printed and handed in at the end of each class.
3. Class Presentations: A 45-minute presentation to the class in PowerPoint format on an aspect of current urban infrastructure technology and its impact on the urban landscape.

Required Readings

The seminar provides an opportunity for students to read diverse perspectives on environmental planning and then synthesize the readings through using their synopsis in moderated class discussion.

Grading and Related Matters

1. Grading for the class will be determined according to the following criteria:

• Class Presentation: 25%
• Class Participation and Weekly Reading Synopses: 75%

2. Incompletes: There will be no Incomplete given for a course except for a documented medical excuse at the discretion of the instructor.
3. Attendance and timely submission of assignments: More than two unexcused absences in a course will result in a failing grade.

Course Outline

• Week 1: Planning for What? Part 1
• Week 2: Ecological Planning: Oxymoron?
• Week 3: Planning for What? Part 2
• Week 4: No Class for September holiday
• Week 5: Environmental Processes in the New York City region Part I
• Week 6: Environmental Processes in the New York City region Part II
• Week 7: Circulation -- Connective Tissue/Collective Meaning I
• Week 8: Circulation -- Connective Tissue/Collective Meaning II
• Week 9: Water and Waste -- Physical Systems and Perceptions of Value
• Week 10: Power – Physical Systems and Social Empowerment
• Week 11: New York Waterfront: More than Economic Infrastructure?
• Week 12: New York Parks: Manifold Roles in Human Ecology
• Week 13: Environmental Processes as an Armature for Development
• Week 14: Class Project Presentations
• Week 15: Class Project Presentations

Instructor

Denise Hoffman

Schedule

Tuesday 1:00 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.

Location

TBA

Credits

3 credits, 3 hours/week

Library Research Help

Contact: Research Librarian, Architecture Library - Spitzer 101

Description

This course provides an overview of the physical environment of the New York City metropolitan region, including geology, soils, surface water, dominant weather systems, the changing climate, plant communities, wildlife habitat, and regional design style trends. The region is utilized as a case study site for multi-layered analysis. Each student prepares a colloquium presentation on a particular aspect of New York City regional ecology, design, local material, or an historical feature.