Working both collaboratively and individually, students will pursue the design of an autonomous city in an abstracted setting. The studio-utopian in mood-investigates principles and practices of city design at regional, urban, neighborhood, and architectural scales and engages a wide variety of analytical, representational, and expressive media.

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, and plant communities, as the basis for an examination of urban infrastructure: circulatory, energy, economic, water supply and management, and solid and liquid waste systems. Large-scale planning initiatives in the New York area are examined from the perspective of how they address the complex local environmental ecologies. Theory and history readings are assigned and discussed weekly to support the class presentations. Each student prepares a colloquium presentation (short paper and slides) on a design practitioner/practice working at the scale of the urban plan. The presentations explore, assess and communicate valuable tactics for ecologically viable design in the urban realm. This course is also an elective in the MS Sustainability in the Urban Environment and Urban Design programs.

There are numerous elective offerings each semester. These may be chosen from the urban offerings and distinguished faculty of City College at large (including urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and sustainability programs), the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. For a sampling of recent electives at the Spitzer School, refer to the school schedule.

There are numerous elective offerings each semester. These may be chosen from the urban offerings and distinguished faculty of City College at large (including urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and sustainability programs), the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. For a sampling of recent electives at the Spitzer School, refer to the school schedule.

The second urban design studio will incorporate strategies and methods developed in the first semester in the investigation of a large urban site in New York City. Drawing on a variety of “real world” influences and sources, students will produce viable designs that investigate the interplay of scale, site, program, and vision.

This course studies key texts and theories of urban design and explores these texts with an emphasis on social and environmental justice. Throughout the semester, we will construct our own collective, contemporary, evolving glossary of urban design, as explored from our readings and transformed your individual research questions.

There are numerous elective offerings each semester. These may be chosen from the urban offerings and distinguished faculty of City College at large (including urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and sustainability programs), the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. For a sampling of recent electives at the Spitzer School, refer to the school schedule.

There are numerous elective offerings each semester. These may be chosen from the urban offerings and distinguished faculty of City College at large (including urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and sustainability programs), the Urban Affairs and Planning Program at Hunter College, and the CUNY Graduate Center. For a sampling of recent electives at the Spitzer School, refer to the school schedule.