Reimagine Presentations

Recent design school graduates respond to the converging crises facing the discipline.

October 13, 2020

Reimagine was a unique gathering of 119 graduates from the class of 2020, representing 44 different design schools.

Twenty small groups of students met over three weeks in September to discuss ways to reimagine their role as designers relative to the converging crises of COVID, climate change, radical economic inequity, pervasive racism, and racist violence. The following short videos present their ideas.

Watch a video of the full event here.

Group A

Lives and Afterlives of Materials

Brian Witney (NJIT), Martha Kriley (UCLA), Neha Hegde (Pratt), Petra Salameh (University of Houston), Thuy Le (MIT), Violeta Jaya (Kean University)

Coordinator: Irina Verona (Verona Carpenter Architects)

Group B

Climate Change

Minehli Petrossian (USC), Brandon Blocker (UNC Charlotte), Marlena Fauer (MIT), Audrey Wachs (Cornell), Rebecca Siqueiros (Barnard)

Coordinator: Eric Bunge (nARCHITECTS)

Group C

From Crisis to Action: Architecture’s Housing Equity

Jean Carlos Guzman (City Tech), Michelle Bunch (Georgia Tech), Sritoma Bhattacharjee (Columbia)

Coordinator: Alexandra Barker (Barker Associates Architecture Office)

Group D

Adina Bauman (Columbia), Chaerin Kim (CCNY), Nancy Ai (SCI-Arc), Ryan Hughes (Princeton), Shaun Johnston (University of Kentucky), Tiffany Xu (Rice)

Coordinator: Sanjive Vaidya (City Tech)

Group E

What If?

Angel Coleman (University of Nebraska–Lincoln), Daniel Alexis (Harvard), Juntao Huang (Syracuse), Morgan Parrish (Columbia), Rachel Starr (Illinois Institute of Technology), Zai Cook (Virginia Tech)

Coordinators: Rosalyne Shieh, Troy Schaum (SCHAUM/SHIEH)

Group F

Designing Excellence

Afnan Al-Rashid (Ryerson University, Canada), Alejandra Zapata (CCNY), Nina Ndichu (Columbia), Steve Martinez (University of Houston)

Coordinator: Anya Sirota (Akoaki)

Group G

Alexandra Szybbo (McGill University, Canada), Andrea Batarse (Texas A&M), Hanneke van Deursen (Syracuse), Irene Nguyen (University of Houston), Madhurya Udayakumar (Pratt), Ryan Thomas (Harvard)

Coordinator: Neyran Turan (NEMESTUDIO)

Group H

Reimagine Agency

Akhila Arakkal (Cornell), Arielle Lawson (Hunter), Beatrix Ngia (University of Oregon), Blake Hageman (Illinois Institute of Technology), Carmen Chee (WUSTL), Joey Reich (Texas A&M)

Coordinator: Mark Gardner (Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects)

Group I

Could We Work This Way

Abirami Nachammai Manivannan (University of Michigan), Emma Sumrow (Texas A&M), Jacob Soley (Cornell), Mahsa Malek (Princeton), Sophie Chien (RISD), Stephen Cortez (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Coordinators: Ivi Diamantopoulou, Jaffer Kolb (New Affiliates)

Group J

Public Private Spatial Continuum

Cheryl Kuo (USC), Laurin Moseley (City Tech), Logan Halterman (Rice), Seneca Gray (Tulane)

Coordinators: Miriam Peterson, Nathan Rich (Peterson Rich Office)

Group K

https://youtu.be/tmsd9eF6EQw

Daniella Maamari (MIT), Gwendoline Albight Ndikumagenge (Andrews University), Isabella Joseph (CCNY), Jonathan Wilkinson (Rice), Nika Teper (Columbia), William Smith (Harvard)

Coordinators: Leslie Lok, Sasa Zivkovic (HANNAH)

Group L

Jack Murphy (Rice), Jaya Eyzaguirre (MIT), Limy Rocha (Yale), Lucy Navarro (Columbia), Sean Pickering (Virginia Tech), Vivian Kuong (Harvard)

Coordinators: Brandt Knapp, Jerome Haferd (B R A N D T : H A F E R D)

Group M

Defiant Optimism

Alex Pineda (Yale), Annie Kao (UCLA), Gabrielle Heffernan (MIT), Jack Lynch (Columbia), Jamie Lipson (Princeton), Tommy Yang (Parsons)

Coordinators: Alison Von Glinow, Lap Chi Kwong (Kwong Von Glinow)

Group N

Complicit

Benjamin Pollak (Harvard), Christopher Loofs (Texas A&M), James Piacentini (Columbia), Matthew Ledwidge (MIT), Nadeen Hassan (CCNY)

Coordinator: Sunil Bald (studio SUMO)

Group O

COMMON +

Catherine Lie (MIT), Daham Marapane (University of Michigan), Marvel Delva (CCNY), Megan Tan (Yale)

Coordinator: Paul Lewis (LTL Architects)

Group P

Open Pavement

Anna Renken (Princeton), Christine Khouri Sader (Florida Atlantic University), David Jesus Garza (Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey Superiores, Mexico), Davis Butner (Yale), Molly Davis (Cornell), Yi Zhang (Columbia)

Coordinators: Nancy Hou, Josh de Sousa (Hou de Sousa)

Group Q

Reimagine the Role

Emma Schumacher (University of Oregon), Quoc Dang (University of Louisiana at Lafayette), Rebecca Lausen (CCNY), Vasanth Mayilvahanan (Columbia)

Coordinator: Chris Marcinkoski (PORT)

Group R

Ann Yang (Pratt), Jeremy Son (Cooper Union), Katie Reyes (Texas A&M), Ting Lau (City Tech)

Coordinator: Jon Lott (PARA Project)

Group S

Urbanism x COVID

Farida Saleh (UCLA), Jonathan Grinstein (Florida Atlantic University), Naomi Ordonez (City Tech), Sushmita Shekar (Columbia), Yasmina El Gezeiry (The American University in Cairo, Egypt), Yuheng Zhu (Cornell)

Coordinators: Athar Mufreh, Gabriel Cuéllar (Cadaster)

Group T

Reimagine Cities’ Streets

Hayden Bernhardt (Virginia Tech), Myles Zhang (University of Cambridge, UK), Natsume Ono (University of Michigan), Peter Heller (RISD), Tak Ying Chan (Pratt), Tal Fuerst (Columbia)

Coordinator: Julio Salcedo-Fernandez (Scalar Architecture)

Explore

Sarah Whiting: It’s About Time

The dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design interrogates architecture’s response to the converging crises that define this period of great uncertainty and rapid change.

2020 Annual Meeting Video