A webinar series all about designing cities — spanning Baltimore and Rotterdam!
This series is a sequel to the previous webinar series from spring 2022. The spring 2023 theme is: Infrastructure as a Barrier: The scar that divides communities and breaks the very heart of the city. The 2023 series is intended to critically look at the theory gained through the 2022 series and provide practical input to current urban challenges.
Architects, designers, and researchers from Baltimore (Maryland, USA) and Rotterdam (the Netherlands), discussed “How do architects design spaces for people?” together with the audience — in 4 round tables facilitated by international moderators. Each round table dynamically explores designs that value infrastructures, cities, public spaces, communities, and individuals. Each webinar explores a specific theme. This is a unique opportunity to hear how different types of firms approach design in two cities with similar historical legacies (working class cities with port industries).
The Baltimore+Rotterdam 2023 series was part of Morgan State University School of Architecture + Planning’s Spring 2023 Lecture Series. The Baltimore+Rotterdam series was designed and coordinated by Cristina Murphy, Assistant Professor at Morgan State University School of Architecture + Planning (MSU SA+P) and Adjunct Professor at Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center.
Dates: Every Tuesday from February 14 to March 7, 2023
Format: Online webinar — moderated panel discussion and Q&A
AIA continuing education credits: 1.0 AIA LU|HSW per webinar
The series has ended, but you can watch recordings of each webinar below!
WEBINARS:
Jump down to:
WEBINAR 1
FEBRUARY 14, 2023
Video recording: youtube.com/watch?v=FeSNoK-B0wc
THEME
Urban Ecology: Approaches for Environmental + Social Justice
A discussion on urbanization based on ecological knowledge and sustainability approaches
SPEAKERS
Paul Riley & Cara Versace Marshall Craft Associates (MCA) (Baltimore)
Amelle Shultz Ayers Saint Gross (Baltimore)
Jaqueline Bershad National Aquarium (Baltimore)
Jan Jongert Superuse Studios (Rotterdam)
David ter Avest Urban Geographer; Lecturer, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (RUAS) (Rotterdam)
Moderated by Thijs van Spaandonk Program Director for Urban Design, Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst (RAvB)
ABOUT
Urbanization is domesticating our ecosystems. Cities are spatially heterogeneous, complex adaptive systems. Furthermore, contemporary cities tend to be big in size and ecological footprint, fast in growth in population and land, and irregular in landscape configuration. Although the dynamic trajectory of cities can never be controlled, its evolution can be guided toward desirable directions through planning and design that are based on urban ecological knowledge and sustainability approaches.
WEBINAR 2
FEBRUARY 21, 2023
Video recording: youtube.com/watch?v=yzCjIl5kbQE
THEME
Collective Reuse: The Art of Reuse through Community Participation
A discussion about the roles of adaptive reuse in the urban environment, focusing on repurposing in order to (re)define the city
SPEAKERS
Megan Elcrat Present Company (Baltimore)
Evan Wivell EastWing Architects (Baltimore)
Duzan Doepel DoepelStrijkers (Rotterdam)
Jan Knikker MVRDV (Rotterdam)
Moderated by Sinisha Brdar Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal
ABOUT
Adaptive Reuse is the use of buildings and materials for purposes other than originally intended. Although adaptive reuse has a long tradition in arts and crafts, more recently environmental awareness and design for sustainability have revitalized the role of a trash-to- treasures approach, providing a wide array of contemporary urban design which is an important part of today’s city sustainability. In this session, we will explore the roles of adaptive reuse in the urban environment, focusing on repurposed objects (also) found in urban public spaces in order to (re)define the city.
WEBINAR 3
FEBRUARY 28, 2023
Video recording: youtube.com/watch?v=aaIH9fWqObI
THEME
The Generous City: Infrastructure and the Highway to Nowhere
A discussion on claiming back spaces historically divided by infrastructure
SPEAKERS
Jerome Gray Jerome C. Gray Architect (JCGA) (Baltimore)
Scott R. Vieth Design Collective (Baltimore)
Maarten van Bremen GROUP A Architects (Rotterdam)
Kees van Casteren Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) (Rotterdam)
Moderated by Selina Abraham Doctoral Researcher, University of Amsterdam
ABOUT
Cities and infrastructure can have an incredible impact on the lives of people. In the 1950s, the United States undertook an ambitious national interstate highway project with the goal of building roads to connect American cities. The design was, however, intertwined with racial prejudice creating segregation and impoverishing communities. In the Netherlands, cities like Rotterdam were rebuilt after the war and focused on cars as opposed to people. Urban highways have largely had a negative impact on urban life. This is the opposite of a “generous city”. In this session, architects from the Netherlands and the US will discuss how cities and their infrastructures can consciously contribute to empower people through generosity-by-design.
WEBINAR 4
MARCH 7, 2023
Video recording: youtube.com/watch?v=6ZzmVBNW0PE
THEME
The Power of Design! Working with Stakeholders to Design Human Spaces
A discussion on co-designing and co-creating to confront big issues in urban design
SPEAKERS
Tyler Miller Gensler Baltimore (Baltimore)
Jason Neal J.Neal Design (Baltimore)
Elina Karanastasi ExS Architecture (Rotterdam)
Zico Lopes Spatial Codes – Studio for Architecture & Inclusion (Rotterdam)
Moderated by coleman a. jordan [ebo] Assistant Professor at Morgan State University School of Architecture + Planning (MSU SA+P)
ABOUT
In order to improve the way we live, we ought to design healthier and safer cities and smarter buildings. To do so, collaboration is key. Our world faces challenges that are too great to be tackled by a single discipline. Baltimore and Rotterdam, like many cities around the world, face challenges related to food segregation, water resiliency, and poverty (also connected to homelessness), to name a few. More than ever, inviting users, customers, governance, and other stakeholders into the process of design is fundamental. These “new” stakeholders need to be brought in as active co-designers, to confront the big issues and develop actionable ways to improve experiences and to co-create new solutions. How can we, the designers, guarantee the welfare of citizens, through the creation of the built environment? Collaboration is discovering and using unique perspectives and benefiting from collective exploration.
PREVIOUS WEBINAR SERIES
RELATED: SPRING 2023 EXCHANGE
Several of the above speakers are also participating in the spring 2023 architecture student exchange. Students and faculty from Morgan State University School of Architecture + Planning (MSU SA+P) will travel to Baltimore’s sister city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands in March 2023 and visit several architecture firms and infrastructure sites in Rotterdam. In April 2023, students from Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design (RAvB) will reciprocate the exchange by coming to Baltimore. More information about this exchange.
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Gary A. Bowden FAIA, Architect Emeritus
