Photo by Karl Schmeck

Midterm reviews for the BIG/Durst studio have come and gone, and now we’re reflecting on the criticism and issues raised during the day. Our studio project focused on “social infrastructure” (a term employed by Bjarke Ingels), as it relates to the design of a habitable bridge. The primary investigation outlined by the studio brief was to test how architects might be able to propose novel models of public/private partnership, such that a new transit bridge in New York could be funded in part by private development.

This challenge is compounded by the technical and structural considerations of bridge construction and maintenance, as well as the lifestyles and housing typologies that would be designed into the architecture. The project is a sort of Gordian Knot—it needs criticism and expertise from all manner of disciplines in order to untangle it. We were fortunate to have on our jury, in addition to our teachers architect Bjarke Ingels and developer Douglas Durst, Jerry van Eyck from !melk, Claire Weisz from WXY Studio, Paul Stoller from Atelier Ten, Craig Schwitter from Buro Happold, and Julia Watson from REDE, along with studio critics Thomas Christoffersen and Andrew Benner. (more…)