Marina Correia

This design studio will examine current environmental pressures in the margins of the Bronx River in relation to inhabitation, including homelessness, transient living, appropriation, and commonality. Layers of mobility infrastructure and industrial uses parallel to rivers in urban environments often exacerbate their isolation from residential neighborhoods. Recreational programs are frequently paired with existing or new educational facilities; however, housing for the most vulnerable population is not integrated into these visions. Working on a site adjacent to the Bronx River, students will explore convergences that challenge conventional definitions of inhabitation, amplifying intersections between natural landscapes and shelter. This architectural design studio will develop foundational design skills through conceptual inquiry and iterative design experimentation. Students will work both individually and in groups, integrating analog methods with advanced digital tools.

This course will offer an introduction to fundamental discourses on the relationship between city and nature from the 20th and 21st centuries, bridging design, history, and theory. We will examine interpretations of “green” and other topics such as infrastructure, geography, and inhabitation. Case studies at both architectural and urban scales—including the cities of Los Angeles, Paris, New York, and Rio de Janeiro—will be integrated throughout the course. The objective is to situate students in the contemporary city and its recent history by engaging with its fields of opportunities (innovative, unique contemporary potentials) as well as its gaps, latent absences, and concealed inequalities. The course methodology will emphasize active participation through weekly readings and discussions. Coursework will interweave theory and design through the production of essays and drawings, supported by digital drawing workshops and presentations.

This design studio will investigate foundational design principles through the concept of transition, focusing on the exchange between built and natural environments. It will address this relationship in both physical and social dimensions, through a lens of ecology that involves individual and collective appropriation. The course will be structured into two modules that progress from the fundamental to the complex. In the first half of the semester, students will engage with typical elements of transition in architecture, such as windows, doors, and corridors to develop an architectural analysis that is at once documental (working with projective standards, scale, line weights, and precision) and experimental (explores the abstract potential of form to derive alternative interpretations of elemental types). The second half of the course will investigate transitions at an urban scale, focusing on types such as the street and the square. The studio’s pedagogical approach relies on conceptual inquiry and iterative design experimentation. Students will work both individually and in groups, integrating analog methods with advanced digital tools.