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Chua Demchak Dixon —— m Koh Kroeger Randall Shim
Right: CRP’s Professor Mildred Warner (second from right) and Cornell in Rome Professor Greg Smith (right) discuss a waste disposal facility with Italian planners. Photo: Kevin Chung (B.S. URS ’11). Below: From left: Eva Schwartz, Brown University; Sasha Thruong (B.S. URS ’11), San Saba resident, Anuja Thatte (B.S. URS ’11), and Kevin Chung (B.S. URS ’11) discuss neighborhood issues in Rome. Photo: Lauren Raab (B.S. URS ’11). Bottom: CRP students from the Rome campus visited the Planning Department in Naples to discuss service infrastructure delivery with ASIA (Azienda Servizi Igiene Ambientale), a privatized waste management company overseen by the City of Naples. Photo: Kevin Chung (B.S. URS ’11)
Kimberly Eng’s ColorMeBlackberry (2009), digital print, 52" x 43".
Four Art Students Head to Rome as Recipients of Bean Prize The Department of Art has named four undergraduate art students as recipients of the 2009–10 David R. Bean Prize in Fine Arts. Kimberly Eng (B.F.A. ’11), Taery Kim (B.F.A. ’11), Emma Koh (B.F.A. ’11), and Rachel Shim (B.F.A. ’11) have each been recognized as talented students of art in Europe and studied with the Cornell in Rome program in the spring. The prize was established by Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bean ’43 in memory of their son, David Richard Bean ’71. David graduated from Cornell with a degree in government administration. While he was a student, he spent time in Europe and was enchanted with Florence, and had planned to study art. The annual David R. Bean Prize in Fine Arts provides financial support for travel in Europe, and each recipient of the prize is given a copy of Bean’s writings and artwork.AAP
Above: Cornell took fourth place in the 2009 NOMA student competition with their Hogar:Home.
Women’s Planning Forum Active in 2009 The Women’s Planning Forum (WPF), an
autonomous graduate student organization housed in the Department of City and Regional Planning, aims to promote women’s contributions to the fields of planning and development, as well as provide a forum for discussion of gender discrimination and equity in the classroom, university, and workplace. The Cornell The WPF hosted several events during the University student chapter of the National fall semester, including: tea and sandwiches Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) with Rachel Weinberger, assistant professor of took fourth prize during the association’s 37th city and regional planning at the University of international conference and exposition in Pennsylvania, in September, where discussion St. Louis. Entries into the student competition focused on issues such as working in a maleaddressed “holistic urban infill housing.” The Cornell entry, Hogar:Home, was designed dominated field and advice for women working and soon-to-be working in these fields; brunch for a young and growing family. “[The family’s] with CRP faculty members Lourdes Beneria, status as immigrants implies both drastic and Nancy Brooks, Ann Forsyth, Susan subtle changes in lifestyle, daily routines, and Christopherson, and Katia Balassiano, even family dynamic . …The presence of the who discussed their experiences as women in grandparents implies a cross-generational academia; dinner with alumna Beth Seward transition of knowledge and culture . …Our (M.R.P. ’07) in November; and a dinner discussion response to these conditions was to create a with Avery Ouellette (M.R.P. ’06) from USAID, house with highly adaptable spaces in which transformations and the development of the family also in November. In the spring, the WPF hosted a panel could happen naturally,” the team’s entry explains. discussion with two CRP faculty members on Also during the NOMA conference, Nenha Young (B.Arch. ’12) was elected to be one of two job and internship hunting tips. “Our goal for this year is to facilitate events which will focus on student representatives to the NOMA board of women’s issues as practitioners in the planning directors for 2010. field and raise awareness around issues related Contributors to the design team included: to networking in a male-dominated environment, Kristina Alford (B.Arch. ’13), Oscar salary and benefits negotiation, and family Hernandez-Gomez (B.Arch. ’10), Diana Lin balance,” says the secretary of WPF, Ruth (B.Arch. ’10), James Nguyen (B.Arch. ’14), Kroeger (M.R.P. ’10).AAP Yazma Rajbhandary (B.Arch. ’12), Roberto Soto (B.Arch. ’14), Charles Williams (B.Arch. ’13), Daniel Torres (B.Arch. ’14), Mauricio Vieto (B.Arch. ’13), as well as Young.AAP
NOMAS Chapter Takes Fourth in Competition
URS in Rome: Spring in the Eternal City This spring 24 undergraduate URS students are studying urban planning in Italy as part of the Cornell in Rome program. Rome is Europe’s largest—and oldest—city! It is a literal palimpsest of urban planning—and the students are peeling back the layers—studying ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern Rome through experience-based classes. Although AAP has a delightful 17th-century palazzo as its home here, students spend most of their time at critical historical sites and in the neighborhoods where they are exploring current-day planning issues, or on field trips to other parts of Italy. The Rome Workshop requires that students spend about 20 hours per week in assigned peripheral neighborhoods to explore such issues as public space, social housing, infrastructure services, immigrant integration, and economic development challenges. The course uses an inductive, handson approach based in part on Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City. Students emulate professional practice by adopting techniques of investigation they have studied in their first two years of the URS degree. Qualitative approaches, including structured observation and citizen interviews are combined with quantitative analysis using Italian census and cadastral data as well as their own observations—all mapped for later sharing with neighborhood residents. This year’s neighborhoods include San Saba—one of the oldest (and architecturally most interesting) social housing sites in Italy that reflects, in part, Clarence Stein’s Garden City designs; Quadraro, an “O Zone”—a self-built neighborhood where housing was built before infrastructure (water, sewer, roads) were laid out; Donna Olympia—the densest neighborhood in Rome and site for Pasolini’s famous novel, A Violent Life; Italia—a neighborhood loaded with private streets (gated and turned into parking lots) and an innovative time share market scheme not unlike the Ithaca Hours scheme back home; and finally, we have Gustianno Imperatore—a neighborhood where the multistory apartment buildings are tilting and cracking due to subsidence, and planners are trying to create renewed interest in social engagement in public space. The Rome Workshop makes planning and the city come to life for the students. Even though many do not speak Italian, they can use their observation skills as planners to create useful data for the residents and learn a lot about urban planning and design in the process. Experiential learning is the hallmark of the Cornell in Rome program and one reason why students find it such a powerful learning experience. For faculty too, the opportunity to use this large city as a classroom is just great.AAP —Professor Mildred Warner, CRP
News08 Spring2010
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