The 21st century is an urban century, one in which the human condition has become an urban condition. This ten-week summer program responds to this challenge and provides the students the opportunity to study and experience a series of significant global cities in comparative perspective. These cities are imbued with the complexity of urban life and have an active and lively culture, art, and design scene in which the making of the urban fabric is challenged by rapid growth, environmental stress, and the need for a new approach to informal and formal urbanism
Each year the studio selects a fast-growing city in Asia to compare and contrast with an American or European city, and utilizes a similar urban design project to develop a detailed design project that offers a distinctive, place-specific urban response. Over the past five years various themes of urban intensification have been explored, with particular focus on sustainability, vertical urbanism, hydo-urbanism, emergent urbanism, and the creation of everyday lively, livable, and socially transformational urban interventions. Sites have included Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mexico City, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Read the full story from the Sam Fox School: Global urbanism studio – Shanghai