URBAN & cOMMUNITY DESIGN: UDC GRADUATE SEMINAR
Where: University of the District of Columbia
When: Fa2018, Fa2019
Course: ARCP 503
Role: Instructor
In Urban & Community Design, students spend the semester studying communities. At first, we fill our “toolbox” with the kit of parts that make up our cities. We expand our spatial understanding of the built environment we live, work and play in everyday - especially focusing on Washington, DC. After creating an active shared dialogue of our urban landscapes we transition into larger socio-cultural and contextual conversations about the complexity of what it means to belong or not belong to a community. We search for physical “centers” of community, but also tried to link that center to an “identity” that defines the atmosphere of a place.
We also study what is means to transition from neighborhood to neighborhood, parsing out the meaning of boundary, approach and even explored the five senses in our communities.
The final project is an opportunity to stitch these studies together, and investigate a site for future development through the lens of positive community contribution, based on in-depth site analysis of an area in Washington, DC.