IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

This paper will outline the characteristics, implementation, and assessment of a pedagogical tool developed by the author as an Architecture Advanced Design Studio that draws connections between Barcelona and New York. With the title SuperBlock Studio: Contesting the Cultural Hegemony of the car, the course has been running for four years in different Schools of Architecture in New York. In it, students analyze the superblocks -Superillas- implemented in Barcelona since 2016 and look for potential applications in New York. They establish traffic patterns, pedestrian areas, community use, etc.; in order to propose the configuration of a New York City Superblock. During its four iterations students have worked in Hell’s Kitchen, the Lower East Side, Central Harlem and East Brooklyn. In the process, they engaged each area’s community boards: Manhattan Community Boards 03, 04 and 10, and Brooklyn Community Board 02, working with the community members on their proposals. After the first analytical and speculative exercise, the class develops a proposal for a NYC Superblock, working on a project through three scales: City scale, Superblock scale, and architectural scale, developing their proposals both collectively and individually and addressing the communities’ concerns and goals in the process. The paper will present an overview of the four editions of the studio with special emphasis on the urban scale and the current state of the overarching goals of the project through a series of examples that demonstrate the potential of Barcelona as an impactful case study for the future of the architecture education curriculum.