DISASTER PLANNING
Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University combines pioneering disciplinary experimentation with an uncompromising engagement with the world and the urgent questions of our time. Located in the heart of the Columbia Morningside campus in one of the most vibrant global cities in the world, the GSAPP is committed to imagining a future where architecture and cities are reinvented and recast in a more symbiotic relationship with the environment.
As a leader in shaping the fields of architecture and the built environment, Columbia’s GSAPP explores questions of global practice and fosters the development of new forms of design research and scholarship, opening up new territories for more meaningful practices of architecture and the design of cities, in an expanded field and within a context of social and environmental concerns. In t
his synthetic moment, the GSAPP draws together the geographical question of “where” with the temporal question of “when,” making visible the processes of rapid urbanization in a time of climate change. We bring these questions to bear on the thinking and design of everything, from the scale of a brick to that of a city.
At the GSAPP, we believe that the expanded disciplines of architecture and urbanism—as well as the redesigned figures of architects, urban planners, environmental and urban designers, real estate developers, preservationists, critics, and curators—are all formed through relentless probing and focused exploration toward the creation of new relationships, understandings and hierarchies with radically different consequences for research and practice as well as for the future of architecture, cities, and the environment.
All of our programs strive to offer the highest standards of expertise and knowledge combined with a generous and open-ended form of education, where long established curricula not only respond to the constant transformation of the world around us, but are also designed to give both faculty and students the means to lead this transformation. With a deep commitment to experimentation that weaves together cutting edge skills with incisive critical thinking, Columbia’s GSAPP is a laboratory for learning, where students and faculty engage one another in a spirit of intellectual respect and support. We do not believe that schools exist to prepare students for the world, but rather that the world is always already here, inflecting everything we do—from design studios to seminars, and from spaces of discussion and debate to laboratories for research and making. As such, our students believe they can contribute to the shaping of the world from the moment they arrive.
As a spatial network, Columbia’s GSAPP brings together a highly diverse group of people, faculty, and students from around the world at our locations in various cities and across continents. In New York, the School’s long commitment to engaging the city’s endlessly vibrant and condensed life continues to provide a strong context for understanding our industrialized past while imagining alternative futures. Through its global network of Studio-X locations, the school offers a generous infrastructure through which to imagine new pedagogical models: undermining notions of center-periphery and promoting relational thinking as both students and faculty navigate this expanded notion of what a school of architecture and the built environment can be. Engaging with these various sites and collaborating with our Studio-X Directors, new knowledge is produced that expands the canon of architectural and urban thinking, simultaneously opening up possibilities for new lines of inquiry and forms of practice.
Acting as a glue that binds our diverse programs and research interests together are the Centers and Labs, which are led by faculty and focused on various forms of research into the past, present, and future of architecture, cities, the environment, and technology. Many of these investigations enable a feedback loop between teaching and research, where faculty interests create a context for student explorations. Research at the GSAPP not only cuts across the various programs, it extends the school’s focus beyond its own walls to connect to other schools and institutes on Columbia’s campus.
Events, Exhibitions, and Publications constitute the heart of the GSAPP’s engagement with the public sphere. Through its vibrant events and programming, the school becomes a platform for discussion, debate, and the exchange of ideas in New York and across our Studio-X network, percolating ideas back through every studio, classroom, and workshop. The Ross Architecture Gallery and our publishing imprint, GSAPP Books, act in tandem to further question and expand the canon of architectural and urban education, bridging faculty research and student curiosity with original research into moments of architectural and urban history, often theorized and presented for the first time to international audiences through the highest levels of curatorial and critical practices.
Finally, Columbia’s GSAPP is best described as a coming together of the most outstanding and diverse faculty — spanning a gradient from pure scholarship to pure practice, with many hybrid models in between — and an equally creative and dynamic body of students. Our students bring together endless curiosity, talent, incurable optimism, and a sense of entrepreneurship, rendering them leaders in the field as they continue to strive to change the world.
http://www.arch.columbia.edu/about/letter-from-the-dean
The New School
Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy
Innovative, Action-Oriented, and Engaged
The Milano School is widely recognized for its innovative approach to educating leaders who make a measurable difference. Its activities focus on addressing complex real-world problems in cities, organizations, and communities. Milano’s approach is both comparative and global, with a commitment to the achievement of a just and equitable world.
Milano blends critical theory with hands-on practice, progressive thinking with social engagement, and research with reflection in action. The unparalleled faculty of scholars and practitioners engage in multidisciplinary, critical approaches that challenge prevailing wisdom. Milano graduates lead public, private, and nongovernmental institutions around the world and in New York City.
The Milano School’s Center for New York City Affairs and the Observatory on Latin America conduct applied research and convene public programs, promoting dialogue on pressing issues of interest.
http://www.newschool.edu/public-engagement/milano-school/
University of Washington
Department of Urban Design and Planning
Master of Urban Planning Program
Our Mission
Our core mission is to develop a community of inquiry, learning, and practice that helps urban regions to become more livable, just, economically effective, and environmentally sound through a democratic process of urban design and planning.
The Professional Master’s Degree Program
The Master of Urban Planning (MUP) is the usual educational credential for professional planning practice. It is normally a two-year, or six-quarter program. Requirements for undertaking graduate-level study include a satisfactory academic record and undergraduate training in one of a variety of disciplines including urban planning and environmental design or other appropriate fields, such as geography, economics, or other social sciences; English and other humanities; civil engineering and environmental studies; landscape architecture and architecture.