What is urban design?
(party banter) (laughs) (party banter) I think urban design is a medium for public life. Urbanism is the complex interplay of material, cultural and socio-political factors within highly developed urban environments. I would say urban design is the kind of medium that that tries to negotiate all these different forces. Like a technology. In a way, urban design is a kind of technology for collecting life. (reads Deleuze)
What makes your work urban?
Hm! Well, my work explores the, like, complex interrelations between architecture and media. So that’s the work that McLain and I do together, my work is really looking at the urbanity of the internet. That’s the way I sort of talk about both how network technologies are informing the design of cities, but also how media spheres are influencing and affecting the built environment. So like, the literal “how cities get connected,” but also we navigate the relationships between different forms of content online. I describe that as its own sort of urbanism. So, I would say that my work is urban in its ability to negotiate both physical but also digital interactions and material conditions.
Who is doing compelling work in urban design right now?
So when I when I’m doing work or thinking about urban issues, in terms of my design work, I look at both architecture and urban designers but also I look outside of our disciplines, and I always do that. I’m always looking for ways to engage what I believe to be the core tenants of our discipline. But also the periphery because I feel like the periphery or, like, engaging periphery is a way for us to inject newness. To bring alterity into the space of conventional forms of urban design and architecture. So I look at art practices for representational or, like, tactical strategies but I also look at like architects that you know or like urban designers that you know for inspiration.
I’ve always really loved the work of OMA. Yeah, you know, maybe I’m biased because I spent some time there working at the office. But even before then, I’ve always just admired the ways in which they used the city as a material. Like they were using the materials--the stuff of the city to produce new cities and new kind of urban strategies like literally quite literally like recollaging familiar urban fragments. But I also just admire the way that they are bold in their visions for what does it look like? So I always turn to OMA for a reliable reference. But, you know, more contemporary practices, I love the work of NEMESTUDIO. They’re doing really fantastic representational work. And I really like the work of Open Workshop. I like you know, our own faculty member, you know, Anya Sirota, in the way that she’s thinking about new forms of social engagement, new representational practices, bringing those to the way we think about urbanism.
Yeah, or even practices like Common Accounts. I mean, I would say that the way that they work, you know, they’re, maybe they don’t qualify themselves as urban designers. But they do say that there certainly are definitely interested in urbanism. I can see that a lot of their work and I think that they also are thinking about digital and how that is equally a part of or entangled with other sorts of physical stuff of our built environment. They’re really thinking about how the built environment is sort of supported by and enmeshed with technologies.
What do you try to teach urban design students?
Well, what I love about urban design is that because it’s relational, inherently relational, I think it requires you to always think about how the thing you’re designing is engaged in a context. And I think for my studios and my coursework, I’m always trying to convey to the students how what they’re working on, it’s always entangled, read or meshed with other forms of cultural production and other social economic, political concerns, that it’s always, the thing I’m making is always part of a bigger system. I think, for me, urban design has allowed me to-- urban design, in a way, made it much easier to just convey why it’s important to think about context. Why it’s important to acknowledge the fact that everything you do is always a part of context. So in terms of pedagogical goals, that’s something that I try to impart with students is like, thinking more broadly, more expansively, always looking out at the same time.
What is a common misconception about urban design?
Well, I would say a common misconception of urban design, in addition to the fact that people think it’s urban planning or that it’s only urban planning, is that it only takes place in cities. I actually think that, you know, cities are like most certainly are urban or urbanized, but that suburban or exurban parts of the country or parts of the world are also urbans. The countryside is also urbanized. And that urban design is not only relegated to cities of, like, 10 million or more or high density environments, but actually kind of many different places that can happen. So, that’s like one misconception. And also for me, like I’m trying to make an argument that actually urban design can happen online. Online is as much a part of urban design practice.
Where do you think urban design is heading?
Well, I think in terms of my own research, and a lot of the research that people here at the college, I think that as our, as we become, as our cities become more dependent on digital technologies and access to the internet, our cities I think will have to contend with the digital in some way. You might find that in the future, cities will be organized around not around humans necessarily but around other technologies. You know, we see this already with smart cities. You know, different sensing devices and different modes of transit. Different forms of digital access are all performing the way that buildings are (party blunder) (laughs), that buildings and people organize. So I would say that design is sort of moving towards, urban design is going to have to critically engage these new technologies and figure out how to deal with the publics that will emerge from those technologies.