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Cities are informed and imagined by many people simultaneously. They are subject to constant change by which different actors transform the economic, political and social configuration of the urban configuration, literally and figuratively.
Being part of a city, involves therefore being continuously immersed in its initiation - its unfolding. It is therefore our very participation that creates city.
Urban Transits is an interdisciplinary research initiative, with focus on the transient nature of cities. The aim of the Initiative is to bring the expertise of different disciplines together to study and document the constantly changing configuration of the city, by which different actors transform the economic, political and social configuration of the urban landscape through their interaction.
Cities are informed and imagined by many people at a time. By interacting with one another, people change the urban landscape, and vice versa. They are an open stage for complementary and conflicting encounters. Cities from that point of view are not a static construct wherein things and interactions unfold, but instead consist of a plurality of movements and changes in which a multitude of different actions continuously create the urban condition, both human and nonhuman.
This is exemplified in a growing urban society that has become active by moving away from the general actions of the state - an apparatus that operates through a system of precisely registered coordinates to implement and exercise its politics. While the state manages and controls, urban citizens articulate themselves more and more between power and action. In this, urban citizens interact in a constantly changing field of relations to form a shifting spatial platform, from which they perform as a body of multitudes: the collective. As they perform, they produce public places of assemblage through their interaction with one another and their environment.
In proposing public place as an emergent process of temporal relations, the objective of this research is the investigation into how urban citizens contribute to the production of 'publicness' in revealing their political potential in an emerging body of interactions.
Asingkronos revolves around the question of how urban citizens participate in shaping their environment today. As transnational flows of goods, information, and people pass through, new configurations of urban life appear. Urban life is thus a complex assemblage of heterogeneous parts, always on the move, always in transformation. In this, a new urban movement seems to be on the rise, mostly influenced by current economic practices, politics, and public polity. Here is what we found.
In collaboration with Arshia Chaudri and Filiberto Viteri (Biographies)
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Stories are part of our daily existence. They place us in space and relate us to each other. They are devices to make connections between disparate spaces.
While many interpretations of cities, such as those in the sector of planning and urban design often apply the treatise of the plan as the primary mode of describing the urban construct, this workshop employed storytelling as a tool to read and document the urban fabric.
Participants: Diana Carolina Tapasco, Manuela Morales Guzman, Deby Martinez Gutierrez, Mateo Benauidez Sauta, Liliana Velez Delgado, Catalina Jaramillo Diez, Carolina Mesa, Betancup, Camila Velez Vargas, Natalia Pino Acosta.
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Cities are subject to constant change by which different actors interact with the cultural and physical configuration of the urban configuration. Being part of urban life, involves therefore being continously immersed in its initiation. Stories are part of this realty. They place us in space and relate us to each other. They are a device for making connections between disparate spaces.
This workshop revolved around personal the encounters with the city and the engagement of creating maps informed by the stories urban citizens have collected while passing through the city.
Participants: Barbara Bravo, Helena Granitoff, Vitor Coelho, Julia Nodari, Branca Leibovich, Thaianni Ribeiro, Isabela Antunes, Maria Chalup, Gabriela Mesquita, Julia Roizemberg, Noel Machado Borba Neto, Joana Muzy Lopes, Stephenson Magalhaes, Sara Gabral Filgueiras, Rebeca Waltenberg, Douglas Martins, Carolina Sampaio, Natalie Ventura, Giordana Pacini, Oliver Lauppi, Julia Lobato
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Hunts Point is located in the South Bronx of New York City. The area is dominated by infrastructural and industrial uses. It houses one of the largest food distribution facilities in the world, also known as Hunts Point Market. However, Hunts Point is one of the poorest communities in the city.
This workshop focused on senarios to integrate disparate urban infrastructural components into a community that is experiencing environmental and social inequalities. As there are many different entities located in this area, it was our task to develop strategies that address these diverse components not as separate entities, but joint undertakings that benefit from each other.
Participants: Ross Brady, Stephan Jaraczewski, Bethony MacNeill, Andrew Hite, Marivi Perdomo, Julio Cedano, Natasha Trice, Crystali Suma, Ian Brecher, Fatou Jabbie, Joe Chavez, Cyrstal Eksi, Tin Yan Cheung, Razvan Voroneanu, Livey Bai, Avantika Goswami, Kelly Dougherty
In collaboration with Lynnette Widder, The Earth Institute,Columbia University, NY
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Infrastructures are the base for flows of goods, information, and people. They are an essential life line of every city. However, many infrastructure networks provide only mono-functional uses and are usually disconnected from or by passing their local context, like the interstate highway network, the railway system or a data center, collecting and storing information.
This workshop focused on developing hybrid models of infrastructures - models that allow for a multi-functional and multi-scalar approach. Infrastructures, from this point of view are understood as operative frameworks that are civic, functional, and adaptable at the same time. They are not just bypassing entities, scattered in the landscape, but facilitators that connect the community and the city at the same time.
Participants: Nishant Samir Mehta, Yan Shun Lee, Dhruv Batra, Ziyang Zeng, Xi Chen, Chenxing Li, Zhou Wu, Zhuoran Zhao
In collaboration with Professor Guilherme Lassance, Universidade Federale de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Bridgeport, once a wealthy industrial powerhouse has over the last 50 years struggled to redefine its post-industrial identity. As a city of peninsulas divided by the mouths of rivers and streams running south into Long Island Sound, Bridgeport is also vulnerable to sea level rising.
This workshop revolved around the question how coastal cities respond to the continuous challenge of changing conditions, both from an environmental and socio-economic point of view.
Participants: Christopher Tan, Michael Jorisch, Dominic Rinaldi, Jeanne Bergman, Josh Grossman, Radhika Sri Paravastu, Scott Nielsen, Ross Brady, Eric Lee, Marina Marquez, Sabiha Haque
In collaboration with Professor Lynnette Widder, The Earth Institute, Columbia University, NY
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We are accustomed to and reliant on the authority of maps depicting a top-down view of the city, both in digital and hard copy formats. Digital mapping software in particular gives us access to multiple points of view, not only planometric, but also from a perspective and axonometric point of view. With these tools so easily accessible, we are able to visit many different sites, conduct an extensive amount of research from wherever we are.
This workshop revolved around the development of a critical position towards sensing the city from afar. Students explored through different lenses the potential of mapping cities from afar and within.
Participants: Professor Maria Rubert-Ventos, Professor Eulalia Gomez Escoda, Professor Anna Majoral, Professor Marta Bayma Mas, Professor Daniel Nava, Professor Joaquim Rosell, and 180 students.
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Petra Kempf, PhD. is an architect and urban designer based in New York City. Her background includes working with the public and private sector, such as the Department of City Planning in New York City, The Project for Public Space and Richard Meier and Partner. In addition to her current teaching appointment at Columbia University in New York, she has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, such as Cornell University, Parsons School for Design, Pratt Institute, and the University of Dortmund, Germany.
She has lectured in the United States and abroad. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries, institutions, and museums in the United States and Europe and has been featured in multiple publications.