Option studios are offered each spring, focusing on issues impacting Latin America's contemporary urban landscape. This initiative drives studio investigations in cities ranging from Mexico City to Bella Horizonte, Bogotá, and Quito.
The program benefits from a strong contingent of faculty pursuing Latin American urbanism at the School of Architecture. Studio topics may range from urban housing to public space and infrastructural interventions in informal settlements. Students enrolled in a Latin America option studio will undertake a research trip during the spring semester.
BOGOTA STUDIO: INTO THE COMMONS
This studio was an invitation to engage with transnational conversations about urban sustainability and global warming, and to critically analyze the translation of urban models focusing on Bogota, Colombia’s capital. This dense city of almost 10 million inhabitants located on the Andean Mountain ridge at 8530 feet above sea level has been as much a receptor and celebrated exporter of ‘best practices’ of urban sustainability. During the past two decades, the city has gained visibility for promoting public space and public architecture, fostering ‘citizen culture’ and implementing non-car transportation alternatives. This has granted Bogota a global recognition, shaping a narrative of the city’s success that has elements of both myth and reality. The studio built upon and participated in the work begun by the city of Bogota in the design and implementation of the Vital Neighborhoods strategy (Barrios Vitales), which proposes the scale of the neighborhood as a means to envision a compact and carbon-free city, combining temporary, semi-temporary and permanent interventions.
Pictured Below:
Revival: Uncovering Las Cruces Corridor by Andrea Cruz (MSUD and MSCRP, '24), Alexandra Matute-Blanco (MArch, '24), Brent Rydak (MLA, '23), Arantza Zamudio (BArch '23)
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