As I write this post, I am sitting on a Qatar Airways flight to Ahmedabad, India, the first leg of the IHP Cities trip. All 33 of us have made it onto the flight and are excited for our newest adventure. It will begin after about 40 hours of travel. I, however, cannot complain as Qatar Airways has treated me very well. We only took off twenty minutes ago, and I've already received free candy and a hand towel. I can't imagine the amenities in First Class!
Aside from taking advantage of this awesome movie selection, I plan to use the time to reflect a bit, and of course...catch up on some much needed sleep! The Cities staff and faculty have been led us through an action packed final week in New York City. We spoke to a number of different professionals in the field of urbanism and held multiple discussions based on our observations. One of my favorite aspects about studying urbanism in cities is that the classroom is literally all around you. I can study just by sitting on the Subway on my way to class. Additionally, I can walk out the door after a lecture and witness our textbook examples everywhere.
This week, we had a speaker come in from an intercity organization called the Interboro Partners to talk to us about his work around NYC. He has focused on creating community oriented spaces around the city. His designs have transformed many empty lots into community parks or gardens, immediately increasing their worth to people who live and work in the neighborhood. His most recent project was for PS1, a satellite museum of MoMa located in Long Island City, Queens. Many say that the area is rapidly gentrifying, and PS1 stands as the epitome of this process, so the speaker from Interboro decided to create an outdoor project for the museum that would give back to the surrounding community.
He located nearby businesses and organizations and asked them what they needed most. After compiling an assorted list from trees to ping pong tables to ballet mirrors, he began to craft an innovative design, which would integrate all of these components. He pitched his project to PS1 with the agreement that the museum would donate all of the structure's components to their local counterparts after the exhibition ended. With their approval, he got to work creating his structure, which served as the outdoor exhibition at PS1 for one summer. Each object within the exhibition was labeled to acknowledge its purpose within the community, and after the summer's end, the museum donated all of the necessary objects to the community organizations strengthening their connection with the neighborhood outside the museum walls.
The architect's project in part inspired my focus for my semester-long research project, a mainstay in the IHP curriculum. I will be making a comparative analysis on the use of abandoned spaces in Ahmedabad, Dakar, and Buenos Aires. I plan to examine how these spaces are re-purposed to better serve the surrounding communities. I'm excited to begin my observations! One of my favorite parts of my stay in Buenos Aires last semester was the assortment of open air markets that were held in different neighborhoods all over the city. Re-purposing these streets, parks, and plazas allowed local artisans to make a living and enhance the rich artist culture in Argentina's biggest city. I hope that my research will lead me to discover even more interesting spaces this next semester!