City Wild
Unraveling Urban Life and Space
I'm pleased to announce I have a new study out this week, co-authored with former student Meghan Hazer and two Upstate Medical University faculty, Margaret Formica and Chris Morley. "The relationship between self-reported exposure to greenspace and human stress in Baltimore, MD," presents an investigation of the reduction of stress associated with spending time in or looking at green spaces. The article is available now online and will be out in print in an upcoming issue of Landscape and Urban Planning. As a journal article, it will be behind a paywall soon - but until October 13, it is available open access (that's free full text!) at this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Vbv0cUG56y~D
About twenty minutes ago, "The World in 2050: Creating/Imagining Just Climate Futures" opened. This is a totally online conference about, well, visions of just climate futures - how we might all live better lives in a warmer world. I tell you about this because:
Talks remain up and discussions active from now until Nov. 14. Keynotes (also available to you without charge!) by this fantastic lineup: Bill McKibben, Patrick Bond, Erik Assadourian, Margaret Klein Salamon, and Wen Stephenson. Take a look - hope to see you there! Snacks, drinks, intriguing new ideas about how to accomplish REV's goals on actual pieces of land in Syracuse, free parking - how could you refuse? See you there-
![]() Final poster session, featuring student designs for Energy in the Landscape, bringing REV4NY’s goals to Syracuse’s urban spaces. 5.5.16, 4-6 pm. Syracuse Center of Excellence. If you're reading this, you're welcome to come: past students, well-wishers, community collaborators. Come for 15 minutes, come for two hours. This isn't a critique. #redesigningdesign Hope to see you there! “[New York State’s] energy plan's goals for 2030 are a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector compared with 1990 levels, a 50 percent share of electric power from renewable sources and a 23 percent reduction in energy use by buildings.”
- from “Power projects fire up N.Y.'s 'Reforming the Energy Vision'” http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060030769 The need to address climate change and national security by transitioning to clean energy is central to current efforts at the international, national, and state levels. Our main project this semester engages with NYS’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative and energy community collaborators to identify opportunities to meet REV's goals within central Syracuse, developing a research-based framework for selection of appropriate sites for the implementation of these opportunities. Each student will then refine one of his/her concepts to a design development level, on a site selected using the framework. Plans like REV are often composed of goals that are too large, too abstract, or too vague to direct individual projects, while the clean energy industry is dominated by technical detail, frequently at the scale of electrical circuits. In this project, we explore the middle ground, uniting broad goals with practicalities through urban design. In this era of great reluctance to invest in large public projects, tying small, implementable designs to overarching goals becomes an essential skill to enable change, one step at a time. In the process we will apply design thinking to one of the most urgent issues of our time. How can design in urban environments capitalize on the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy to improve life for all residents? This project will proceed in two phases: the development of a logic for selecting sites and application of that logic to the city of Syracuse, followed by designs for selected sites within the city. Products for Phase I should:
Tu 3.1 Guest lecture in CoE 508: Micah Kotch, NYSERDA. Class discussion and directed group work at CoE. Tu 3.8 1:00-2:00 Guest lecture in CoE 203: Richard Yancy (BEEx) (short class meeting) 6:00-7:00 “Disruption and Design Thinking” lecture by Susan, Slocum Auditorium 3.14/3.16 Spring Break – no class meetings. Tu 3.29 1:00-2:00 Guest lecture in CoE 203: Aseem Inam (TRUlab) (short class meeting) Th 4.1 No formal class meeting - no studio deadlines week. Tu 4.5 NY Power Dialog: Digital sketchbook discussion of work in progress (details TBA) Th 4.6 Upload pdf of sketchbook work to class folder …to be continued on Part II brief… Deliverables: Digital sketchbook representation of your work to date for discussion on 4.5. “Digital sketchbook” means:
Audience will be primarily professionals from other fields and students from outside Architecture. Your digital sketchbook images must support discussion of your work-in-progress with this audience. Digital sketchbook images must *also* be suitable for sharing via web or social media (eg: be able to stand alone with limited additional text narrative). Evaluation Criteria:
Copyright © 2016 Susan Dieterlen Come join us if you can - for an hour or a few minutes. Work on display will be for the System Restart project, for which I previously posted the briefs.
Cities are systems, systems within systems. Government, infrastructure, food, healthcare, education, taxes, ecosystems - these are just a few examples. We live in a time characterized by dysfunction and lack of investment (#neglect) in many of these systems. Some of these are spectacular – levee failure – to mundane - a crack in the sidewalk. As we’ve seen in #Flintwatercrisis, catastrophes happen when multiple system failures align in the same space.
Understanding the systems operating within cities lets us understand cities and how to accomplish tasks (change, built work, permit approval) within them far better. In this project the systems of the city become more visible to us through the places where they break down. We reframe these places as opportunities for design. How can design utilize dysfunctional urban systems to create more just, healthy, and sustainable environments? Project site: Chosen by individual student for his/her Part II design. Choose a site that:
Project schedule: Th 2.11 Part I in-class presentation, posts to social media/your online portfolio, tagged with @samedelstein and @Andrew_Maxwell, #iteams (+other hashtags at your discretion) Part II project brief posted via @susandieterlen and on City Wild (blog) Tu 2.16 & No formal class meeting- Th 2.18 no studio deadlines week. Email me with questions or to meet by appointment. Tu 2.23 80% complete; Regular studio meeting Th 2.25 Poster Session with Syracuse I-Team (location and details TBA) M 2.29 5:00 p.m.: Parts I and II due in pdf to class Google drive folder. Please submit your Part I work as completed for 2.11.16, even if you used a different system for Part II. Post final boards to social media/your online portfolio, tagged with @samedelstein and @Andrew_Maxwell, #iteams. Deliverables: Pdf of final boards uploaded to course website, AND For poster session: 2 – 24”x 36” boards in hardcopy, unmounted, oriented horizontally (eg: 36” wide). Also include a separate paragraph explaining your design intent (300 words or less) – details about how to submit this paragraph will be forthcoming. Boards should include:
Designs should be realistic in terms of scale and relationships of site elements, with materials specified for key elements. Evaluation Criteria:
Copyright © 2016 Susan Dieterlen Cities are systems, systems within systems. Government, infrastructure, food, healthcare, education, taxes, ecosystems - these are just a few examples. We live in a time characterized by dysfunction and lack of investment (#neglect) in many of these systems. Some of these are spectacular - the levees failing in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina - while others are mundane - a crack in the sidewalk.
Understanding the systems operating within cities lets us understand functioning cities and how to accomplish tasks (change, built work, permit approval) within them far better. In this project the systems of the city become more visible to us through the places where they break down. What design opportunities are created by dysfunctional urban systems? Project site: The city of Syracuse. Some systems may include areas beyond the city or even its suburbs (eg: watersheds). What to do:
Project schedule: M 2.01 Project brief posted via @susandieterlen and on City Wild (blog) Tu 2.02 Guest lecture by Syracuse I-Team’s Andy Maxwell and Sam Edelstein (CoE 508); go over project brief; begin Part I Tu 2.09 Flint water crisis panel (Room 203, Syracuse Center of Excellence; noon-1:00) Th 2.11 Part I finished; in-class presentation, posts to social media, tagged with @samedelstein and @Andrew_Maxwell, #iteams (+other hashtags at your discretion) Part II begins (see separate project brief) Th 2.25 Poster Session with Syracuse I-Team (location TBA) M 2.29 5:00 p.m.: Parts I and II due in pdf to class Google drive folder. Tu 3.01 Post final boards to social media, tagged with @samedelstein and @Andrew_Maxwell, #iteams Deliverables: 1 – 24”x36” board (digital) OR equivalent in Prezi including:
Evaluation Criteria:
Copyright © 2016 Susan Dieterlen All things tend toward disorder, including built work.
In the end, everything falls apart. Nowhere is this more apparent than in built work in outdoor environments, where weaknesses in construction methods and materials, the extremes of nature, and the creative destructiveness of people all begin to break down structures from the moment of installation. Good design and careful attention to construction detail can delay the inevitable; knowledge is power in this effort. Here we learn more about entropy (aka chaos, disorganization, randomness) in sitework and small structures. What if entropy was not the enemy, but the inspiration? Project site: Campus bus stops, on Connective Corridor and South Campus routes. Each student will choose one (1) of the stops. I recommend one of these, but will entertain suggestions for other stops:
Site functions (program):
Project schedule: F 1.22.16 Project brief posted via @susandieterlen and on City Wild (blog) Tu 1.26 Short presentation by Susan; peer group discussion on processes and initial sketches. Th 1.28 80% done at 1:00; Peer group discussions/desk crits. Class decides how to share final products. M 2.1.16 Project due in pdf to class Google drive folder. PLEASE PUT YOUR LAST NAME IN THE FILENAME. Final products will be shared with class via TBA digital means. Deliverables: 2 or 3 - boards in 11”x17” including:
Evaluation Criteria:
Processes that destroy sitework
Copyright © 2016 Susan Dieterlen
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AboutAssorted drafts, previews, and outtakes from the book I'm currently writing about the impact of vegetation and neglect on urban life. I also take other thoughts for a test drive here, including nascent design and research ideas. Archives
September 2020
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