STUDIO OVERVIEW
The nation’s continuing recovery from the recent impacts of COVID-19 added onto over a half-century of neglecting our aging infrastructure demands ideas that can create opportunities, reduce inequality, and prepare this region for climate change by reinvesting in the human, physical, and technological capacity to revive the economy and create a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable future. We need to think big and bold and set priorities that build upon identified needs. This studio will explore how well-designed social infrastructure contributes to a sustainable & just future. As the infrastructure projects of the 1930s and 1960s structured how Atlanta’s region looks and operates today, the projects we envision in this course will structure how our region looks and operates for future generations – how can we address and respond to our societal issues at the scale of infrastructure.
Our public infrastructures for transport, industry, energy, waste, water, sewage etc. are major investments in our public budgets. What if we could harness those massive investments and imbue them with positive social side effects? What if we could turn a highway interchange into an urban farming landscape that provides food to the local schools? What if the massive volume of a waste-to-energy power plant could become a mountain with ski slopes in a city full of snow but without hills encouraging an active lifestyle across multiple generations? By proactively cross-breeding the public infrastructure with social programs we can inject new urban life forms into the heart of our cities - and we can seize the billions of dollars in Biden’s Infrastructure Bill to supplement the city’s shrinking budgets for urban social philanthropy and reconnect neighborhoods that have long been divided due to the planning principles driving the infrastructure of the past.
PORTMAN VISITING CRITIC
In order to enrich and accelerate the process of the integrated building design studio, the semester is guided by a Portman Visiting Critic. Each year, a distinguished practicing architect / educator is invited to participate during the full arc of the semester’s work, establishing a research agenda, giving a lecture prior to the start of the semester, visiting multiple times during the semester, convening specialists to supplement the educational dialogue, and guiding the full student cohort through the process of the work.
This year’s Portman Prize Critic was the architectural practice BIG led by Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA who will be accompanied virtually by presentations of several of the Department Heads of Landscape, Engineering, Sustainability, and Planning from their global offices who will provide insight into BIG LEAP and their holistic approach to designing buildings and the systems they inhabit.
Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA is a Partner at BIG who brings his architectural expertise to proposals around the globe, including work in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. BIG currently has its five global offices working in over 40 different countries. Kai-Uwe also oversees BIG's Urban scales projects and supports BIG’s Landscape projects. He is registered as an architect in the USA (15 states) and Canada. Kai-Uwe most recently contributed to the resiliency plan BIG U to protect 10 miles of Manhattan's coastline. First envisioned through the Rebuild by Design competition to develop proactive responses to Superstorm Sandy, it is now being constructed with a completion date in 2026. Further projects include Reimagining Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Queens Park, Smithsonian Master Plan, Pittsburgh Master Plan and Miami Beach Square. He complements his professional work through previous teaching assignments at Pratt Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, IE University in Madrid, and his alma mater the University of Virginia. Kai-Uwe formerly was on the Board of the Van Alen Institute, participates on numerous international juries and lectures globally on the works of BIG.