Winning teams announced for senior studio | Urban Life: Self + Society

Streetwise, proposed by Marissa Hayden and Autumn Bender, seeks to create a safer environment for children in urban areas. During non-school hours, 1 in 5 New York City children are left unattended due to undesirable living conditions or the effect of parent or guardian's long working hours. Streetwise addresses this issue by offering free recreational programs to the public, shifting children off the streets and into a safer environment. The programs are available through a co-op system; educators of all kinds are incentivized to live and teach, utilizing underused skills and giving back to the community. 

COMMENCE, proposed by Mira Shami and Kaetlyn Hanlin, is a mixed-use housing project that supports immigrants of all statuses, including international students and professors, and refugees, by partnering with community members in Queens. Commence utilizes Queens’ strong collective efficacy to provide a combination of legal, academic, and emotional assistance to tenants living in shared-lease apartments through volunteer aid. The students believe utilizing the community in this housing project could help break the often daunting and confusing task of relocating to another country and would give people a strong sense of cultural identity while adjusting to their new life in the United States.

Cocoon, proposed by Austin Wyles and Kendall Roman, provides housing for individuals and families affected by Autism Spectrum Disorders. Using the Autism ASPECTSS Design Index as guidelines, this project integrates the ASD community with the surrounding neighborhood, while creating spaces that make living with Autism easier and more comfortable.

Cross-Pollinate, proposed by Tom Cleary and Jacob Barkan, integrates wildlife habitat with urban living. The scheme incorporates multiple communal on-floor and rooftop landscapes comprised of meadows with tall grasses and wildflowers, which total 160% of the site footprint. An independent serpentine structure allows cross ventilation and daylight from multiple angles, and is surrounded by views out to nature.

David Allin is an Associate Principal at Diller Scofidio + Renfro where he has led exhibition, performance and architecture projects since joining the studio in 2006. He is currently project director for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Collection and Research Centre in London, and the University of Toronto’s Centre for Civilization, Cultures and Cities. He was Project Designer for the The Shed, a kinetic building for visual and performing arts in NYC, and Project Director for The Bubble, an unrealized seasonal pneumatic structure for the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC. He holds a B Arch from Cornell and an M Arch from Princeton and has taught studios at UB, Cooper Union, and Princeton

Emily Kutil is the 2019 Reyner Banham Fellow at UB. She is a founding member of We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective, an interdisciplinary collaboration between community activists, academics, and designers mapping geographies of austerity in Detroit. She has practiced at architecture firms in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Los Angeles where she worked on an experimental water infrastructure project at Metabolic Studio.  She received a BS Arch from the University of Cincinnati and an M Arch from the University of Michigan. Her research at UB is focused on the history and future of water, land, power, and life in the Great Lakes Watershed.

Ann Lui is a founding partner of Future Firm in Chicago, which focuses on the role of architecture as an infrastructure for discourse. Previously, she practiced at SOM, Bureau Spectacular, and Morphosis. She was co-curator of “Dimensions of Citizenship,” the US exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale; assistant editor of OfficeUS Atlas (Lars Muller, 2015); and co-editor of Public Space? Lost and Found (MIT Press, 2017) on the role of architects and artists in the civic realm. She holds a B Arch from Cornell University and a Master of SMArchS in History, Theory and Criticism from MIT. She is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

Georgeen Theodore is founding partner of Interboro in New York City, an award-winning architecture and planning research office that works with public, private, and not-for-profit clients. She is an expert in coordinating complex urban projects that involve diverse stakeholders, infrastructures and ecosystems. She leads the international multi-disciplinary team engaged in post-Sandy rebuilding on Nassau County’s south shore.  She received a B Arch from Rice University and an M Arch in Urban Design from Harvard.  She is a Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology College of Architecture and Design, where she directs the Master of Infrastructure Planning program.

Mason White is founding partner of Lateral Office in Toronto, which investigates architecture as a by-product of complex networks within ecology and culture, with particular focus on public infrastructures in northern and remote contexts. Among many awards received by Lateral Office are the Professional Prix de Rome from Canada Council for the Arts and Special Mention at the 2013 Venice Architecture Biennale for the project “Arctic Adaptations.” He received a B Arch from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and an M Arch from Harvard. He is an Associate Professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at University of Toronto and a founding editor of the journal Bracket.