School of architecture

Big year for the Building Project

The 2017 Jim Vlock First Year Building Project marked the 50th year of the Building Project at Yale. Students built a modular structure prefabricated on Yale’s West Campus in the first year of a partnership with Columbus House, a New Haven–based homelessness services provider. The two constructed units are now home to tenants who were formerly dealing with homelessness. In December, the house was named one of the four best buildings of 2017 by the Wall Street Journal

Advanced studios have big impact

Our Fall 2017 advanced design studios often involved teaching beyond the corduroy walls of Paul Rudolph Hall. Students in the “Baseball Studio” taught by Professor Alan Plattus, critic Andrei Harwell ’06MArch, and Bass Visiting Fellow Janet Marie Smith worked in teams and presented designs for a new home stadium for the Pawtucket (Rhode Island) Red Sox to city and team officials in November. Smith, who is the vice president for planning and development for the Los Angeles Dodgers, also asked students to reconsider components of Dodger Stadium.

Students in the advanced studio taught by Davenport Visiting Professor Frank Gehry and critic Trattie Davies ’94, ’04MArch, were asked to explore architectural alternatives to mass incarceration; as part of the research component of the studio, students worked with advocacy group Impact Justice and were invited by Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy to visit the Cheshire Correctional Institution and to use it as the site for their projects. The project was reported on by Bill Keller, executive editor of the Marshall Project, in the New Yorker

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