Curriculum
Immersive and Interconnected Learning
City Visionaries understands the city as a place of knowledge production and knowledge exchange — a place where diverse constituencies and interests are embedded in a complex matrix of cultural, social, financial, and political spaces, private and public, natural and human-made.
Cross-Disciplinary Curriculum
City Visionaries' cross-disciplinary curriculum will introduce students to:
How urban planners and real estate professionals conceptualize complex projects by engaging a broad group of stakeholders, mobilizing land and financial capital through careful analyses of programming and perceived community needs, and engaging municipal entities and strategic partners.
How architects, artists, designers, and technologists conceptualize complex projects by assessing community and client needs, researching context, investigating urban and architectural building typologies, and developing conceptual approaches to public art and civic space.
How multi-disciplinary teams work collaboratively to address the ecology, geography, and demographics of urban developments within the context of contested ideas around what constitutes spatial justice, equity, access, and affordability as it pertains to mixed-use projects.
Week 1
Curated Lectures / Discussions / Design Exercises
Students spend the first week with Cornell faculty and New York City-based practitioners and scholars immersed in lectures, discussions, and research on New York’s complex urban developments. Instructors will introduce students to fundamental concepts of urban design and placemaking in culturally complex contexts utilizing historical examples and active design exercises.
WEEKS 1–3
Curated Urban Case Study Analysis / Diagramming / Conceptualizing
Students spend several weeks analyzing and diagramming transformative mixed-use projects that have significantly shaped Manhattan’s urban development. Sites may include Battery Park City, Essex Crossing, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Columbia Manhattanville Campus, among others. Students will be introduced to fundamental concepts of collage, data visualization, spatial analysis, and urban analysis.
WEEKS 3–5
Curated Urban Case Study Speculations
Students will spend several weeks reimagining components of a site utilizing skills learned in the first half of the program. Students' work will be informed by their own interests in different roles that creatives play in developing urban projects and will be mentored on deliverables that illustrate their creative potential.
Goals and Objectives
City Visionaries' progressive, cross-disciplinary curriculum is designed to introduce students to the urban geography and design of New York City and deepen their engagement with the disciplines that shape and study spaces, equipping them with new skills learned in and beyond the studio. Over the course of five weeks, AAP faculty guide and mentor students as they:
Gain exposure to creative disciplines engaged in the design of cities and communities
Learn how multi-disciplinary teams of creatives conceptualize and produce transformative urban projects
Actively pursue project-based work and learn fundamental aspects of spatial, formal, and visual analysis of urban form
Functionally apply what they've learned to a speculative design option students develop for an urban site, honing a specific area of interest
