Gaining Ground, Looking Forward: Fall 2023 Semester Highlights at AAP

While the return of students to campuses from Ithaca to New York City to Rome reliably reenergizes Cornell AAP each fall, the semester ahead comes in on an inspiring wave of activity and continued action across the legacy departments of architecture, art, and planning and the more recently established multicollege departments of real estate and design tech. New leadership and faculty have arrived, capital projects are underway, and both new and years-long initiatives meant to advance the mission of the college continue to gain ground.

Bolstering Excellence, Belonging, and Growth

This semester marks the debut of Creating Justice: The Worlds We Make, a new cross-college class for all first-year students at AAP to acquire critical skills necessary to work toward a more just and equitable future. Coursework will examine structural racism, colonialism, injustice, and bias through the lens of architecture, art, and urban studies. Core faculty leading the class include Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity Jen de los Reyes, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Neema Kudva, as well as department chairs Caroline O'Donnell (Architecture), Sophie Oldfield (City and Regional Planning), and Paul Ramírez Jonas (Art).

Further, AAP recently launched a new scholarship initiative focused specifically on access and affordability. This effort marks 150 years of academic and creative excellence at AAP and aims to increase affordability by raising 150 gifts for scholarships that will help to ensure the most talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds have access to a Cornell education. As part of the larger, university-wide To Do the Greatest Good campaign, AAP has raised $73.9M to date toward the college's Building Better Futures priorities and initiatives. In a recent message to the AAP community, Dean J. Meejin Yoon underscored affordability as among the most critical priorities for both the university and the college, noting that campaign fundraising will continue through June 2026.

Toward a Just and Sustainable Future

M.F.A. in Creative Visual Arts students in the Department of Art will start the fall semester in the recently renovated Foundry building, which will soon also include the new Jack Squier Sculpture Studio, named in honor of late Art Professor Emeritus Jack Squier (M.F.A. '52). The department's event line-up includes notable speakers such as alum and artist Na Chainkua Reindorf (M.F.A. '17) and the second annual Art Jubilee — two days during which all classes become stand-alone workshops and students are encouraged to attend any they wish, exposing them to new ideas, faculty, and classmates. Artist EJ Hauser is the fall 2023 Teiger Mentor in the Arts and will give a lecture on November 30. Art Assistant Professor Oscar Rene Cornejo begins his appointment as Director of Undergraduate Studies this semester as the department pilots new B.F.A. Creative Research Grants, offering undergraduate art students the opportunity to apply for up to $500 in merit-based awards each semester to support proposed projects.

Professor Milton S. F. Curry, a Cornell alum (B.Arch. '88) and former faculty member, returns to the Department of Architecture this fall. He also joins the AAP leadership team as Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement. In addition to his departmental contributions, Curry will lead a range of cross-college and cross-institutional initiatives and direct the new Black Cities Americas Lab, which will examine the possible impacts of environmental justice and reparations movements on the urban design and redevelopment of America's inner cities. The department's fall 2023 Preston H. Thomas Memorial Symposium, Junior Architects: Building Disciplinary Transformation Through Education, will bring together educators, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss early-learning design programs that build equity and pluralism into design education and professional practice. This fall's symposium is organized by Assistant Professor Suzanne Lettieri and will take place on October 20. Architecture's fall events also include talks presented by Baird Visiting Critic Lindsay Harkema, Gensler Visiting Critic Adam Frampton, and Strauch Visiting Critic Ian Fletcher.

Learn more about all upcoming AAP lectures and exhibitions.

The Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP) will launch a new curriculum for their Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Studies this fall. Awarded a three-year Active Learning Initiative (ALI) grant through the Center for Teaching Innovation, CRP welcomes ALI Post Doctorial Fellow Julian Hartman to assist with rolling out the new core courses in the redesigned program. CRP also welcomes Assistant Professor Ding Fei, previously a Senior Research Associate and Lecturer in the Department of Global Development at Cornell, to the department this semester. Beyond the classroom, all first-year master's students will explore questions of climate justice in New York City with CRP Chair Sophie Oldfield, Professor Victoria Beard, and Assistant Professor Linda Shi. Design Connect, an interdisciplinary, student-run, community design organization that collaborates with towns in Upstate New York, will engage in projects based in Candor, Enfield, Marcellus, and Tioga County; and CRP Associate Professor Jennifer Minner's Just Places Lab will debut its Waste(d) Imagination tour which explores building practices ranging from destructive to sustainable in downtown Ithaca.

The Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate has appointed Professor Stuart S. Rosenthal, previously the Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of Economics and a senior research associate at Syracuse University, as chair of the department. Real Estate will offer a new course covering private equity real estate, taught by Chairperson of Victory Asset Management of London and Professor of Practice Chris de Mestre (M.P.S. RE '07), which provides students with knowledge and skills around deal structures. The department's emphasis on professional practice will bring faculty and students to New York City in October for the Cornell Real Estate Annual Conference, a tour of current redevelopment projects, and a career fair featuring New York City-based employers. This fall's Distinguished Speaker Series will host 14 thought leaders from the commercial real estate industry, including Suahasil Nazara (M.S. RS '96), vice minister of finance, Republic of Indonesia; Jen Davis (B.S. '12), managing director, Northwood Investors; and Spencer Burton (M.P.S. RE '15), president of Stablewood and founder of Adventures in CRE.

AAP's newest department, the multicollege Department of Design Tech, recently announced the launch of its first degree program, a Master of Science in Design Technology. The two-year research and project degree offers students opportunities to work with expert faculty to explore and synthesize disciplines in search of innovative solutions to design challenges spanning digital tools, products, responsive materials, and the built environment. As the department rolls out the new degree program which will begin accepting applications for the 24–25 academic year soon, the inaugural faculty at Design Tech will continue to collaborate with the studio team at Cornell Tech to offer the Product Studio for AAP students in New York City while the Design and Making Across Disciplines studio is offered in Ithaca, co-taught by Visiting Critics Panagiotis Michalatos and Nick Cassab. Michalatos will also teach Coding for Design, a course developed through a pilot program with Cornell Tech over the past few years. Design Tech will launch its first Radical Collaboration faculty search this fall. 

The Gensler Family AAP NYC Center welcomes one of the largest cohorts in the program's 17-year history, with a projected 67 students from architecture, landscape architecture, and city and regional planning. Semester highlights include the arrival of the inaugural class of M.S. in Advanced Urban Design candidates, a new one-year intensive design research program based in New York City and led by Architecture Associate Professor Jesse LeCavalier. New visiting faculty members include Peter Eisenman, Brian Ho, Eduardo Rega Calvo, Jess Ngan, Mikayla Hoskins, Gina Morrow, and Gary Bates. This semester's robust lineup of neighborhood and building tours, architecture office visits, and guest speakers includes a new lecture series with a special focus on urban design collaboratively coordinated by LeCavalier and Architecture Professor of the Practice Florian Idenburg.

Students at Cornell in Rome this semester have a full slate of excursions to Venice (including a visit to the 2023 Architecture Biennale to view work by AAP alumni and faculty), Napoli, and Siena, as well as shorter trips to Hadrian's Villa and Palestrina, Villa Farnese in Caprarola, Villa Lante in Bagnaia, and the Park of Monsters in Bomarzo. Architecture Associate Professor John Zissovici will co-teach the architecture studio with Alberto Iacovoni, and Art Assistant Professor of the Practice Joanna Malinowska will teach the fine art classes. Visiting faculty Carolina Ciampaglia and Anna Gorchakovskaya are creating a shared workshop, Roma, a View from the Margins, in collaboration with Italian independent filmmaker Fede Gianni.

The Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities at AAP advances initiatives for more equitable and sustainable cities and supports faculty research on cities and urban issues, student internships, practitioner residencies, and collaborations with strategic partners. This semester, the center announces the funding of a new Urban Data Initiative led by AAP faculty Wenfei Xu, Timur Dogan, and Jesse LeCavalier, a cross-disciplinary project designed to utilize urban big data infrastructure at AAP to accelerate research, teaching, and engagement with contemporary and critical discourse in design and planning practice. The center is also celebrating a funding recommendation from the National Science Foundation. The proposal seeks the development of a Center for Urban Climate Adaptation Solutions which will foster collaborations between urban experts in multiple disciplines, work closely with civil society and public sector stakeholders, and use New York City as an urban laboratory to address climate risks in cities, with special attention paid to environmental justice concerns.

The college leadership team welcomes AAP Associate Dean for Administration Sara Eddleman who brings with her a wide range of experience and a consistent commitment to shepherding thoughtful organizational change, fostering inclusive environments, developing shareable resources, and building and sustaining collaborative relationships with staff, faculty, and students. Around the Ithaca campus, capital project updates include the opening of the newly renovated Foundry, as noted above, as well as the construction of new admissions and student services spaces on the lower level of East Sibley Hall this fall. The Sibley Dome Project is in the construction document phase. On the Cornell Tech campus in New York City, construction will begin for the Tata Innovation Center's fourth-floor renovation in early October. This space will be the new home of the Gensler Family AAP NYC Center. Additionally, this semester Melissa Banta, AAP Assistant Director of Facilities, is working with Ithaca-based faculty and students to create a material giveaway station to allow for the reuse of materials within the Architecture and Art studios. This is in support of the college's mission to be more sustainable and limit the unnecessary disposal of materials.

Practicing Acts of Imagination

"At AAP, action is grounded in the knowledge, research, and creative practices we build and share," notes Dean Yoon. "And, as artists, designers, scholars, and urban change agents, we link our hopes to our actions as we imagine and create possibility in our community and well beyond." The semester ahead offers myriad opportunities to explore the ideas and relationships that will foster and fuel this essential learning and work.