Theodore Sawruk and Jill Bambury presented papers at the International Architecture, Media, Politics, and Society (AMPS) conference, "Local Cultures-Global Spaces: Communities, People, and Place." The conference was jointly conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of Melbourne.
AMPS is an international, interdisciplinary research organization that brings people from different disciplines together, finding their points of contact in the places we inhabit, how we teach, and how we interpret the world around us. Its global conferences attract delegates from over 40 countries.
The United Nations Human Rights and Habitat programs aim to establish a connection between our way of life and the environment we inhabit. This association is based on the premise that cultures, communities, and societies are intertwined and mutually beneficial. The "Local Cultures: Global Spaces" conference seeks to explore this concept further, bringing together experts from various disciplines such as cultural studies, sociology, human geography, architecture, and urban planning.
Assistant Professor Jill Bambury presented a paper entitled "Travelling Without a Visa—Building Intercultural Knowledge through Studying Global Urban Issues." The paper explores issues addressed in a graduate course in Advanced Urban Issues. While the course has traditionally addressed a variety of complex issues through the utilization of texts of urban theory and their role in shaping urban culture and their meanings in cities, it has not always included a variety of world cities and the wide range of critical issues they face. For example, while in New Orleans, racial issues and natural disasters were at the forefront; in Cairo, the issues surrounded water shortages; in Beirut, critical urban problems surrounded post-war economics; Lima was a city 'on the edge.' Bombay was suffering problems related to an overly dense population, while Detroit was an empty city.
Through sharing these explorations in a series of exercises, both the similarities and differences in the cities of the world were investigated. The paper discusses both the ideas developed in the framing and teaching of the course but also aims to solicit and explore ideas for further deepening the investigations. The paper promises a methodology that will provide a new vision and extrapolate from specific formal architectural and urban contexts to consider the importance of these contexts to cultural knowledge.
Associate Professor Theodore Sawruk presented a paper entitled "Florence 2040: Tradition, Density, Innovation, Ecology, and Diversity, A Pilot Study." This paper is the first of four papers related to the design of a new neighborhood for Florence in 2040. It presents a pilot study derived from the work of a six-week graduate study-abroad urban design studio. In 2019, four graduate students took up residence in Florence, Italy. They spent the first two weeks traveling throughout Italy, documenting their urban experiences via a series of sketches, photographs, and journals. Their first week in Florence was spent researching and analyzing varied precedents, everything from urban theory, planning examples, Eco infrastructure, and relevant Italian architecture.
Four districts in the historic center of Florence were also analyzed to better understand the phenomenology of Tuscany. Based on this scholarship, students were asked to make value judgments and evaluate schemes, realizing two preliminary urban design proposals. The designs expand much-needed housing for locals, incorporate the needs of the growing Muslim community, and address the effects of flooding and climate change while proposing a critically regional, sustainable future. While not fully resolved, the student proposals from the research charrette made significant advances to attaining a new residential district for Florence by 2040.