Stories
Cornell AAP Architecture Professor Esra Akcan released a new book this fall examining architecture's dual role as both a cause of human casualties and an agent for the public good with the potential to ameliorate traumas following conflict and crises.
Groundwork: Cultivation Rooted in Art and Action
At the intersection of art, ecology, and community, students enrolled in a course led by Associate Professor Jen de los Reyes explore research and practice that moves beyond the studio and into Ithaca's local ecologies.
New Cohorts of Engaged Fellows Contribute to Campus Community-Engaged Learning Network
Cornell AAP faculty Caitlin Blanchfield, John Ponstingel, and Hanna Tulis, and postdoctoral fellow Julian Hartman, were selected for the 2025–26 Engaged Faculty Fellows cohort, contributing to Cornell's campuswide network advancing community-engaged learning and scholarship.
Using Found Objects, California Artist Turns Trash to Treasure
Cornell AAP alumnus Alvaro Alvarez (B.Arch. '15) is profiled for transforming discarded materials from the US-Mexico border region into sculptural artworks that reframe waste, abandonment, and environmental neglect as sources of beauty, memory, and renewal.
Tribute to Europe's Lost Synagogues Is an Artist's Labor of Love
Cornell AAP alumna Andrea Strongwater (B.F.A. '70) is profiled for her 15-year artistic and historical effort to document 77 destroyed European synagogues as an act of cultural memory and architectural preservation.
Informal Settlements Generate Collective Empowerment through Locally Led Action
Hosted by the Cornell Mui Ho Center for Cities, Shiela Muganyi — a community research leader from the Zimbabwe Homeless People's Federation and a member of Slum Dwellers International in Zimbabwe — visited AAP to share how mutual exchange and planning for the future can improve the lives of residents in informal settlements.
Machine Learning Teaches Membranes to Sort by Chemical Affinity
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Design Tech faculty Uli B. Wiesner and his team used machine learning to create a new class of ultrafiltration membranes that sort molecules by chemical affinity rather than size, enabling more precise separations for medicine, manufacturing, and water treatment.
At COP30, Floating Plaza Shifts Perspective of Sea-Level Rise
AquaPraça, a collaboration between AAP Dean J. Meejin Yoon (B.Arch. '95), Eric Höweler (B.Arch. '94, M.Arch. '96) (Höweler + Yoon Architecture), and Carlo Ratti Associati, has arrived at this year's UN climate summit in Belèm, Brazil.
Knitting Machine Makes Solid 3D Objects
Professor of Information Science at Cornell Bowers and Design Tech faculty François Guimbretière and engineering student Victor Guimbretière ('29) developed a prototype knitting machine that creates solid three-dimensional objects by interlocking yarn in multiple directions, opening new possibilities for customizable, biomimetic materials.
Cornell AAP to Launch First New York City-based High School Summer Program
The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) is adding a new summer intensive for high schoolers interested in studying the collective aspirations, methodologies, and processes involved in the design of cities.
Using imagery and words that celebrate the surrounding valley as well as airport staff, Ramírez Jonas has revealed preliminary models of the full work, which will wrap the transportation hub's new six-story parking facility.
Gensler Family AAP NYC Center Opens Doors, Possibilities on Cornell Tech Campus
After a decade at 26 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, the center's move to Roosevelt Island affords new opportunities for connection and collaboration.
Built on Curiosity: Architecture and the Public Realm
Rubacha Featured Speakers Susan Rodriguez ('81, B.Arch. '82) and Michael Manfredi (M.Arch. '80) will deliver lectures on Thursday, October 23, at 5:30 p.m. in the Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium on Cornell's Ithaca campus. In advance of their talks, Rodriguez and Manfredi share insights drawn from their professional trajectories.
Midwest Art Installation Pushes Boundaries of Urban Space
Architecture faculty Suzanne Lettieri and Michael Jefferson, in collaboration with Visiting Critic Ryan Whitby, present their public installation, Apart, Together, at this year's Exhibit Columbus. Other contributors include alumni Andrew Fu (B.Arch. '15), Aaron Goldstein (B.Arch. '15), Aleksandr Mergold (B.Arch. '00), and Studio Cooke John, founded by Nina Cooke John (B.Arch. '95).
Teens' Portraits Celebrate Toni Morrison as Community-Builder
Architecture Assistant Professor Peter Robinson is featured in the Cornell Chronicle for leading a collaborative mural project with Ithaca and New York City students, whose visual tributes to Toni Morrison now hang in Morrison Hall to honor her legacy and inspire cross-generational dialogue.
Largest-Ever Cornell Delegation to Attend Climate Week NYC
The Cornell Chronicle announced participating Cornell faculty in this year's climate week, including AAP's Billie Faircloth (Architecture, Cornell Atkinson Scholar and Senior Faculty Fellow) and Linda Shi (CRP) who will add to public discourse on topics including renewable energy transition, protecting public health from increasing heat waves, and addressing the impact of climate change on housing and community planning.
How Communities Can Bridge the Digital Divide
The Cornell Chronicle featured CRP Professor Mildred Warner's recent open-access book coedited with Natassia Bravo (Ph.D. CRP '25) and Duxixi (Ada) Shen (M.R.P. '24), and funded in part by the USDA and Pew Charitable Trusts. Their research presents a multilevel governance framework showing how local leaders leverage policy and community resilience to bridge broadband inequities.
Rooms with a 'View Score': Software Aids Building Designers
The Cornell Chronicle featured Ph.D. student in Systems Engineering Jaeha Kim (M.S. AAD '21), who has advanced research in collaboration with Architecture and Design Tech Associate Professor Timur Dogan and Architecture Lecturer Katharina Kral on the development of Viewscore.io, a tool that measures window view quality to guide better building design and sustainability standards.
En Route to Brazil, AquaPraça Floats New Responses to Rising Seas in Venice
An international coalition of architects, including AAP Dean J. Meejin Yoon and alumnus Eric Höweler, governmental agencies, NGOs, and other partners unveiled AquaPraça, a submersible public plaza designed to advance civic discourse on climate change, at La Biennale di Venezia before the project departs for COP30 in Brazil.
Campanella's most recent book was released after he began research decades ago as a Cornell student on two largely underrecognized landscape architects who deeply shaped the urban geography of the New York City we know today.
