Get Ready, Get Set: Highlights of the Fall 2024 Semester Ahead

As College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) faculty, students, and staff return to campuses in Ithaca, New York City, and Rome to begin the work of the fall 2024 semester, the weeks ahead will bring myriad opportunities to explore questions and challenges, discuss approaches and share differing perspectives, and celebrate innovative solutions and new knowledge.

New Opportunity and Ongoing Development

The multicollege Department of Design Tech welcomes its inaugural M.S. in Design Technology class. This two-year research and project-based degree, offered jointly by AAP and Cornell Tech, provides students with the opportunity to pursue research in areas that bridge disciplines and generate innovative ideas across science, technology, and design.

The Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities was selected to submit a full proposal to the MacArthur Foundation 100&Change. If successful, a project grant for $100 million will fund Reforming African Cities: Making Housing and Infrastructure Accessible to All, designed in partnership with the University of Manchester's African Cities Research Consortium and Slum Dwellers International. In preparation for the submission and as part of an Einaudi Center seed grant, the center cohosted a workshop in July with colleagues at the University of Ghana in Accra.

The Mellon Foundation has awarded the University of Southern California School of Architecture a $600,000 Humanities in Place grant. The multi-year grant, led by USC faculty as well as Professor of Architecture and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement Milton S.F. Curry, will support several public-facing initiatives related to the Paul Revere Williams Architecture Archive, including a future exhibition of Williams's work at the USC Fisher Museum, two faculty research fellowships, a new biennial pamphlet publication, an annual memorial lecture series, a symposium, and several community events.

The Circular Construction Lab at AAP, directed by Architecture Assistant Professor Felix Heisel, and their project partners have been selected for a $2.5 million EPA grant to develop a process that combines robust environmental product declarations for salvaged materials with material passporting to support the adoption of material reuse practices by the architecture, engineering, and construction industry at scale.

In Ithaca, the renovation of AAP's historic Sibley Dome is now actively underway. While this revitalization effort to bring additional teaching, study, and meeting space progresses, the college's beloved Green Dragon cafe will have a temporary Dragon Annex outpost in Milstein Hall.

The college also continues its affordability initiative, which seeks to increase the number of scholarship funds available to undergraduate and graduate students across all departments.

Connect with Experts

This fall the AAP community will gain inspiration and insight from innovative thinkers through a wide range of exhibition and lecture offerings. More will be announced in the weeks ahead, but here is a sampling to note in your calendar:

Lectures

8/29: Caroline O'Donnell, Edgar A. Tafel Professor of Architecture, in celebration of her concluded tenure as chair (Architecture)
9/6: Adrienne Keane, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney (CRP)
9/9: Regina Galindo, visual artist and poet (Art)
9/24:  Marcelo Coelho, head of design at Formlabs, faculty at the MIT Department of Architecture, and Design Tech Innovation Fellow (Design Tech)
9/12: Christiana Moss, Strauch Visiting Critic in Sustainable Design Lecture (Architecture)
9/25: Kim Yao, L. Michael Goldsmith Lecture (Architecture, AAP NYC)
9/27: P. Sainath, Indian journalist (CRP)
10/3: Pamela Sneed, Teiger Mentor in the Arts (Art)
10/4: Baye Adofo-Wilson, Founder and CEO of BAW Development (CRP)
10/16: Jose Castillo, Chair and Professor, Architecture (Architecture)
10/22: Samuel Leder, Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Computational Design and Construction (ICD) and Cluster of Excellence (IntCDC) at the University of Stuttgart and Design Tech Innovation Fellow (Design Tech)
10/22: Bryant Lu, Vice Chairman of Ronald Lu + Partners and Founder and Chairman of BEHAVE (AAP Entrepreneurship Sessions)
10/29: Nicole Eisenman, John A. Cooper Visiting Artist Lecture (Art)
10/29: Behnaz Farahi, designer and Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab (Design Tech)
10/31: Esra Akcan, in celebration of her concluded tenure as the Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory (Architecture)
11/1: Andrés Martínez-Moscoso, Professor and Director of the Institute for Legal Research, Universidad San Francisco de Quito (CRP)
11/14: Marc McQuade, Gensler Visiting Critic Lecture (Architecture)
11/19: Daniel Leithinger, Assistant Professor at the ATLAS Institute and Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado Boulder and Design Tech Innovation Fellow (Design Tech)
Fall 2024: Italian Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher — La Chimera, Happy as Lazzaro (Rome)
Fall 2024: Italian Filmmaker Emanuele Crialese — L'Immensità, Terraferma (Rome)

Exhibitions

9/9–9/19: Willem Schreiber (B.F.A. '25), Cave Country
9/23–10/3: Alican Taylan (Ph.D. HAUD candidate), in collaboration with Elisa Iturbe and Stanley Cho, Confronting Carbon Form
10/8–10/17: Alp Demiroglu and Veronika Varga (both B.Arch. '21), Hydro-Power: State and Energy in Central Asia
10/21–10/31: Adrian Aguilera (M.F.A. '25), On the manner of arrange the clouds
11/4–11/14: Architecture Lecturer Marta Wisniewska, MycoShell
11/18–12/1: Models by students in the Structural Systems class, led by Nathaniel and Margaret Owings Distinguished Alumni Memorial Professor in Architecture Mark Cruvellier
12/17–12/20: Work by students in The Back Wall seminar, led by Architecture Design Teaching Fellow Catherine Wilmes

Learn more about all upcoming AAP lectures and exhibitions

Beyond AAP, Design Tech Chair and Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture Jenny Sabin will participate in an exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Jenny Sabin Studio is one of three practices invited to contribute work to Architecture Connecting, which opens on November 8, 2024.

Dream The Combine, the practice founded by Architecture faculty Jennifer Newsom and Tom Carruthers, will present Pyramidion (2024) as part of the exhibition Flight Into Egypt: African-American Artists and Ancient Egypt 1876–Now, curated by Akili Tommasino at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nearly 200 works of art exploring this intersection will be on display November 17, 2024–February 17, 2025.

CRP Assistant Professor Jocelyn Poe will deliver the keynote address for the NY Upstate American Planning Association Annual Conference "Planning for Protopia: Designing with Empathy in Upstate New York" held in Ithaca in October, and the Department of City and Regional Planning will host a reception for the participants on October 10.

Enriching Academic and Creative Excellence

In support of the work of the college, new leadership, faculty, fellows, and staff are joining AAP. These include:

Faculty, Fellows, and Endowed Visiting Critics

Jose Castillo, Chair and Professor, Architecture
Vishaan Chakrabarti, Thomas J. Baird Visiting Critic, Architecture
Billie Faircloth, Associate Professor, Architecture; Cornell Atkinson Scholar and Senior Faculty Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Pamela Karimi, Associate Professor, Architecture
Stephanie Lee, Strauch Early Career Fellow, Architecture
Marc McQuade, Gensler Visiting Critic, Architecture
Christiana Moss, Strauch Visiting Critic in Sustainable Design, Architecture

Paul Ramírez Jonas, Chair (reappointed) and Professor, Art
Pamela Sneed, Visiting Critic and Teiger Mentor in the Arts, Art

Joanna Kocsis, Visiting Lecturer, CRP

Tiffany Cheng, Assistant Professor, Design Tech
Marcelo Coelho, Daniel Leithinger, Samuel Leder, and Marirena Kladeftira, Design Tech Innovation Fellows, Design Tech
Adam Burke and Laura Gonzalez, Visiting Lecturers, Design Tech
Lawson Spencer, Instructor, Design Tech

Elmond Bandauko, Postdoctoral Fellow in Just and Equitable Cities, Mui Ho Center for Cities and CRP
Nataya Friedan, Postdoctoral Fellow in Urban Climate Mitigation and Adaptation, Mui Ho Center for Cities and CRP

Cody A. Danks Burke, Director, Baker Program in Real Estate; Professor of Practice, Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate

Learn more about new faculty and fellows joining AAP

New Staff Leadership

Keith Hejna, Assistant Dean of Alumni Affairs and Development
Mark Howe, Director of Facilities
Samantha Pennell, Human Resources Senior Business Partner

Alongside the ongoing growth of the college, new staff are joining our departments and units to support AAP's priorities. A formal announcement will follow later this fall.

The Department of Art also celebrates the career of Associate Professor Roberto Bertoia, who began teaching at Cornell in 1982 and will retire at the end of the semester.

Faculty receiving tenure include Sasa Zivkovic, who was promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture; Stuart Rosenthal, Professor and Chair of the Paul Rubacha Department of Real Estate; and Linda Shi and Nicholas Klein, who were both promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. With the support of a Fulbright Fellowship, Shi will be in Taipei at the National University of Taiwan this coming academic year.

Knowledge Gained Within and Beyond the Classroom

An education at AAP includes remarkable opportunities both in and beyond the classroom, such as innovative studios and memorable field trips.

This fall the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities will sponsor an option studio, Informal Futures: Housing in Mathare, Kenya, cotaught by Architecture Assistant Professor Felix Heisel and Muthoka Mbathi Musyimi, Lecturer in the University of Nairobi's Department of Urban and Regional Planning. As part of this course, twelve AAP students will travel to Nairobi to conduct site visits and design a prototype house for a low-income settlement. Additional off-campus trips include Architecture faculty Maggie Kirk and Christiana Moss traveling with students to Arizona and Hanna Tulis and Marc McQuade accompanying students to Italy.

Architecture faculty Katharina Kral and Marta Wisniewska will lead the option studio RE:HOUSING NYC, part of the Re:Housing Futures initiative comprising the Housing Innovation Lab, Regenerative Architecture Lab, Environmental Systems Lab, and Circular Construction Lab.  A residential portfolio of more than 300 buildings will serve as a test bed to examine the relationships between the socio-economic, political, and ecological challenges confronting households, and the decisions involved in both retrofitting and the provision of new housing. A field trip to New York City will offer additional insights through site visits, guest presentations, and conversations with multiple stakeholders. 

The Gensler Family AAP NYC Center will host 60 students representing six degree programs, one of the largest cohorts in the program's history, at both the Tata Innovation Center on Cornell Tech's Roosevelt Island campus and at 26 Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Five option studios will be offered, including two collaborative studios between Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture. Neighborhood tours for Architecture and Planning students will span the city, and AAP NYC will welcome a field trip of 65 CRP master's students for a weekend of tours and talks. A reception with invited CRP alumni will also be held during the trip on September 19.   

The field trip offerings for students studying at Cornell in Rome this semester expand the scope and length of travel for day trips and multi-city excursions. Highlights include visits to Arezzo, Sansepolcro, Città di Castello, Urbino, Rimini, Ravenna, Venice, Florence, Matera, Herculaneum, Oplontis, and Naples, as well as stops at Hadrian's Villa and Palestrina, Villa Farnese in Caprarola, Villa Lante in Bagnaia, and the Park of Monsters in Bomarzo.

In Rome this fall, Architecture Senior Lecturer Luben Dimcheff will coteach a studio with architects Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori from Labics, and Art Professor Michael Ashkin will teach both the art studio and an advanced photo course focused on the use of photography as a means of creating mental images of space.