It’s 2016 and the Columbia design studio has come to a close. In December students presented final presentation videos. The big question was how can Newburgh, Beacon and other regional cities work together? Check out the videos below to see what solutions students found.
Columbia University design studio students have prepared their mid term project videos. A total of 9 videos were created by different groups. Students chose to focus on a variety of topics such as the collaboration of Newburgh and Beacon, regional issues and city issues. Below is a sample of one of the 9. If you would like to see the rest see the list below the embedded video.
This past Saturday, Columbia University urban design students conducted a site survey in Newburgh and Beacon. They conducted interviews with community members to hear their stories, which will be compiled later into a visual presentation. To learn more about what students are studying this semester, click here.
Last Friday, October 2, Columbia University urban design students made a site visit to Newburgh and Beacon. They met in the Atlas Studios Warehouse. Speakers included city manager, Michael Ciaravino, and city planners Dierdre Glenn and Alexandra Church, among others. Students had a meet and greet with Newburgh stakeholders and bus tour of the city. It’s very exciting to have Columbia back for another semester! To learn what they will be studying this semester, check out this past post.
If you’d like to participate in one of Columbia’s on site events, the students will be back in Newburgh October 17th.
-Photos by Nans Voron
It looks like the Columbia University Urban Design Studio had such a great experience in Newburgh last Fall, they are coming back again in 2015! This semester they will be studying the regional relationships between Newburgh, Beacon and New York City. The similarities and contrasts of the sisters cities leads to a worthy discussion of Newburgh and Beacon’s development, and perhaps collaboration in the future.
According to the syllabus:
The histories and current state of Newburgh and Beacon reveal the Hudson River Valley as a place of great promise and innovation as well as a place of tension and disinvestment. Each city is defined by multiple and overlapping narratives and together they reveal the complex environmental, economic, technological and cultural territories that define the Valley. These narratives have changed over time, shaping settlement patterns, driving the transformations of the natural environment for occupation and exploitation, altering the movement patterns of people and goods and manipulating the exchange and intensity of commerce and culture…
Today new pioneers are again finding their way up the Hudson River, looking for places of opportunity: access to resources, the promise for growth and a higher quality of life at lower-cost. At the same time, people who have lived in the Valley and its cities for generations and those who live there by necessity rather than choice, are also striving to make their cities better places to live and work and to capitalize on their regional contexts…
The Fall 2015 UD Studio will examine not only what can be done but how any actions might be undertaken, with what tools and methods. This entails work at many scales and with many actors and, to the extent that the Hudson River Valley is part of a global system as much as a local system, the studio research will necessarily challenge the language and assumptions of urban design as a practice.
Last year many Newburgh residents thoroughly enjoyed the site visits and student installations. This year they will be in Newburgh and Beacon October 2 for a site visit and October 17 for a site installation. For a glimpse of the final outcome, check out last years final presentations.
The year has come to a close and so has the Fall semester for Columbia University’s urban design studio in the City of Newburgh. Over the past few months 49 students from over 20 countries put their brains to work to innovate and solve issues in this small city. Twelve students teams conceptualized ideas covering job creation, revitalization, natural resources, and agriculture. Clicking through to the links will send you to each group page, along with an excellent video they produced to further explain their ideas. Well worth the time! Also, a few students will continue to work on Newburgh into the Spring for independent study. There might be other opportunities as well pending support and funding.
Light Up Newburgh (pictured above) was presented by group 6. Their idea was to revitalize the city by reducing unemployment and drop out rates by creating rehabilitation jobs for Newburgh’s aging and decaying architecture. They envision the project starting with the Dutch Reformed Church which would be the catalyst for other projects. Restored houses would temporarily be used as spaces for after school programs and would eventually be converted into affordable work-force housing and live-work artist space.
Building on Trust – Group 1. This group focused on criminal recidivism in Newburgh and the large parolee community. They envisioned connecting city-based programs to train, house, and hire parolees in a 5-block area north of Broadway that is already being rehabilitated through the Newburgh Community Land Bank. The workers will reclaim factories and warehouses in Newburgh that will be used as staging facilities to produce architectural products for export to the region at large.
Agri-Shed- Group 2. This group is proposing to connect Hudson Valley farmers by forming a farmers’ cooperative that would be located in the City of Newburgh. The distribution center would produce industrial, managerial, and retail jobs and support a new urban Mercado. They feel this will anchor a promenade on Broadway and create a new open and public space that will connect business as well as welcome visitors.
Trail of Two Cities- Group 3. They looked at creating a sister city bond between Newburgh and Beacon, and the region as a whole. They think that Newburgh could tap into the 75,000 annual tourists that visit Beacon by having the cities work together alongside the MTA and the private sector to create new waterfront development. In this plan would also be an Industry Museum along with improved ferry service between cities, a bike loop, and pedestrian services.
Additive Enterprise- Group 4. Additive Enterprise is a framework to spur the transformation of urban corridors by promoting the growth and success of small businesses. By re-purposing existing vacant buildings and parcels the project strategically clusters and supports small enterprises, educational opportunities and new public spaces within the city. They propose a new non-profit, Make [in] Newburgh], that will partner with community and educational organizations that would provide a link along the William and Dubois Street corridors.
Rebuilding Newburgh by Pieces- Group 5. This group proposes creating a new non-profit organization that will match resources to vacant sites on a temporary basis to pilot new businesses. Rehabilitating vacant spaces will add to property value, which currently reduces value by $7,000.
The Newburgh Path-Group 7. The Newburgh Path allows offenders of non-violent crime with sentences of three years or less to be diverted from traditional imprisonment and instead be housed under various levels of observation and engagement within Newburgh. The infrastructure used to facilitate this process is shared with and available to the public in the form of vocational workspace, recreation and meeting space.
Re-imagining The Post-Industrial City Through Waste – Group 8. This group took Newburgh’s industrial past to make the city viable in the future as a hub for scrap metal recycling for the Hudson Valley region. They think it will add value to products made in Newburgh as well as create job opportunities.
Resourceful Cities – Group 9. This group envisioned a platform that aims to establish a neighborhood of resources that through a unique form of mentorship and exposure to existing resources that would provide residents with opportunities for education, upward mobility and entrepreneurship. The expectation is that this campus like setting would produce a concentration of activity that would help to facilitate new forms of positive community interaction and help to retain and attract people to Newburgh.
Cooperative Growth-Group 10. This group focused on regional investment and local revenue. Their project is based on a shared value model in which worker cooperatives, anchor institutions, nonprofit organizations and the city municipality work together to strengthen the Newburgh community and economy.
Patching Urban Ecosystems-Group 11. Locally this project reconnects the shared fabric of Newburgh, New Windsor and the Town of Newburgh by proposing to preserve undeveloped previous land around city’s key drinking water resource – while refocusing development in relation to water with- in the urban fabric of Newburgh and New Windsor to catalyze regional economies.
Lights Camera Newburgh-Group 12. Last but not least, group 12 focused on using Newburgh as the backdrop for the film industry utilizing warehouses and empty lots for sound stages and sets that can be re-purposed for community uses.
