Cities are living monuments. They express the past, localize the present, and herald the future. Yet, more often than not, we move through them without paying attention to their material reality or how that materiality and our identities interconnect. This track invites students to take in the capital in their backyard, Washington, D.C., as a designer and as a critic. Who decides what a city looks like? How does architecture shape the lives lived in it? How do the needs and dreams that people bring to it alter a city’s personality as well as its façade? In these courses, you will walk about, listen to, draw, and even reimagine the structures that support everyday civic life in the District. Seeking out unbuilt areas and learning what it means to benefit or suffer from cityscape design, you will consider the hopes and dreams of D.C. past and present. Join this track to explore the built environments we inhabit, and how they inhabit us.
