URBAN@PARSONS

Welcome to the online hub for urban graduate programs at Parsons School of Design—Design and Urban Ecologies and Theories of Urban Practice.

At Urban@Parsons, we reframe the study of urbanism, design, urban policy and social justice, and configure critical courses of action and research which attempt to redefine cities and urbanization in fundamental ways.

We believe this is a critical moment to examine the global situation which is affecting every aspect of urban life from food, education, and housing, to jobs, mobility, and urban infrastructure. There is an unprecedented urgency to engage, through design and research, in the conceptualization and implementation of radically new approaches that can transform the socially, economically and environmentally unsustainable forms of urbanization that have dominated policy and politics for decades.

Urban@Parsons is a very unique design-based graduate learning environment with a committed engagement with the city, which places questions of social, spatial, and environmental justice at its forefront. Therefore, we believe we are in the best position to tackle the ongoing and ever-changing challenges of cities and, most importantly, the role that citizens and residents play in making cities more resilient and sustainable through collective action.

Our students, faculty, and researchers work across New York City with local grassroots initiatives, community-based groups, not-for-profit organizations and city agencies, in areas facing rapid changes and therefore challenges: waterfront development, gentrification and displacement, migration and resettlement, food justice, housing and school overcrowding, new transit-oriented development, just to mention a few. In addition, students have opportunities to be involved in a range of projects, nationally and internationally. Through our Global Intensive Studio, students and faculty have traveled and engaged in projects with universities, civil society partners, and community organizations across the world: Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Venice, as well as in Medellin.

EVENTS

Urban Colloquium Guest Lecture Fall ’24 : Marika Dias @ OCT 30TH, 4:00 PM

Lecture by Marika Dias on Evictions, Housing Courts, and the Right to Counsel. Details:  Wednesday, October 30th 2024 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM Room 1108 , Parsons 2W 13th street, New York, NY. — Marika Dias is a public interest attorney who has worked in civil legal services since 2001, in a range of legal…

Urban Colloquium Guest Lecture Fall ’24 : Martha Kenton @ OCT 23RD, 4:00 PM

  Lecture by Martha Kenton on Homelessness and Housing.   Details: Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (EST) Room 1108, Parsons, 2W 13th Street, New York, NY. — Martha Kenton serves as the Executive Director of Federal Homeless Policy at the NYC Department of Social Services. She began her career working in…

Public Space Lab Guest Lecture Fall ’24: Emily Wiedenhof @ OCT 23TH, 4:00 PM

  Lecture by Emily Wiedenhof, Assistant Commissioner, Public Realm   Details: Wednesday, October 23th, 2024 4:00 – 6:00 PM (EST) Star Foundation Hall, University Center, 66 W 12th Street, New York, NY. — Emily Weidenhof serves as the assistant commissioner of public realm at NYC DOT working closely with community organizations throughout the five boroughs…

Public Space Lab Guest Lecture Fall ’24 : Claudia Tomateo @ Oct 2ND, 4:00 PM

Lecture by Claudia tomateo , PhD Candidate,DUSP,MIT   Details:  Wednesday, October 2nd 2024 5.45 PM – 6:45 PM UL105, University Centre 63 5th Ave, New York, NY. — Claudia Tomateo is a PhD student in Urban Planning at DUSP MIT. Her research focuses on the restitution of Indigenous worlds through the construction of typological frameworks…

Public Space Lab Guest Lecture Fall ’24: Pilar Finuccio @ SEPT 25TH, 5:00 PM

  Lecture by Pilar Finuccio, Executive Director, Center for Urban Pedagogy.   Details: Wednesday, September 5th, 2024 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (EST) UL105, University Center, 63 5th Ave, New York, NY. — Pilar Finuccio is the Executive Director of CUP. She was born and raised to a big Cuban family in Miami, where her…

Urban Colloquium Guest Lecture Fall ’24 : Alicia Boyd & Lydia Simas @ Sept 25TH, 4:00 PM

  Lecture by Lydia Simas and Alicia Boyd on Community Boards development and Environmental & Climate Injustice   Details:  Wednesday, September 25th 2024 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM Room 1108 , Parsons 2W 13th street, New York, NY. — Lydia Simas is the Solidarity Program Offcer for Brazil at Grassroots International. Since joining Grassroots in…

Urban Colloquium Guest Lecture Fall ’24: Kali Akuno & Kartik Amarnath @ SEPT 18TH, 4:00 PM

  Lecture by Kartik Amarnath and Kali Akuno on Environmental and Climate Justice.   Details: Wednesday, September 18th, 2024 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (EST) Tishman Auditorium, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. — Kartik Amarnath is the Policy Specialist for PUSH Buffalo and a MD and MPH candidate at SUNY Downstate Health…

Extractivism as Aesthetics @ Oct 27th, 12:30 pm

Since colonialism’s outset as a modern political project, images have been central to extractivism, a racial practice that reduces parts of the Earth and its inhabitants to exploitable and marketable resources. How does this centrality operate in a context where visual culture itself has become an extractive industry with images as its raw material, many…

NYC2033: Radicalising Urban Futures Oct 27, 2023 @ 2:00 PM & Oct 28, 2023 @ 10:00 AM

Engaging in exercises of collective envisioning is of utmost importance to incite the conceptualization and experimentation of radical urban futures that can transform the socially, economically, and environmentally unsustainable processes dominating our current urban landscapes. With a specific focus on envisioning the future of New York City in 10 years, NYC 2033 aims to reflect…

Rabble Rousers: Frances Goldin and the Fight for Cooper Square – Documentary Screening and Panel Discussion May 4, 2023 @ 5:30 PM

Documentary Film Overview A trailblazing housing organizer and her diverse working class neighbors fight Robert Moses, the real estate industry and five mayors to create the first Community Land Trust in New York City — an oasis of permanently low-income housing in the heart of the rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side. In 1959 New York…

Urban Colloquium Guest Lecture: Grounding Urban Natures April 12, 2023 @ 4 PM

Grounding Urban Natures, lecture by Martin Avila, Professor of Design Konstfack School of Arts, Stockholm Sweden Details  Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 4:00PM (EDT) Urban Studio 2 W 13th 1108

Urban Colloquium 2 Alumni Panel: Shaping Critical Urban Practices April 19, 2023 @ 5:00 PM

As a part of the Urban Colloquium 2 speaker series, we will host alumni from Parsons Urban Graduate Programs. Urban Colloquium 2 investigates what exactly is meant by ‘design’ and ‘designing’ in the dual context of urban ecologies and urban practices. Urban Colloquium 2 is structured around alternating guest lectures and group discussions, framed by…

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