How an architecture school shapes, and is shaped by, its city
Documentary showcases how students of the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning learn from and rebuild the Rust Belt city around them
Once a city that epitomized the American Dream, since the latter 20th century, Buffalo has been confronted with enormous challenges stemming from its industrial decline. In the face of sharp population loss and inequality, Buffalo is rising once again. A new kind of city is being built, and students and faculty of the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning are an integral part of this process. The students use the city itself as a laboratory, deeply embedding themselves in the community and the challenges it faces. Situated on the shores of Lake Erie on the western edge of New York State, Buffalo offers the parameters for intervention through design and urban planning, whether that’s working with local refugee entrepreneurs or revitalizing local fabrication and industry.
Their work is being showcased at the Time Space Existence exhibition in Venice through a new film that tells the story of how an architecture and urban planning school can be directly involved in the future of the city it calls home. Their reciprocal and symbiotic relationship is an entirely new way to rethink design and urban planning, one that remains with the trouble of its challenges.
The film, and an accompanying catalog highlighting sites of faculty and student engagement throughout Buffalo will be exhibited at Time Space Existence at Palazzo Bembo in Venice, until November 25, 2018.
Interviews with key protagonists from the school, alongside documentation of the exhibition, have been captured in a short video, available to watch here: https://vimeo.com/279658930/
See It Through Buffalo was produced by Paget Films and directed by Gregory Delaney, clinical assistant professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, in association with faculty and students at the school. Buffalo community leader Robert Skerker served as executive producer.
ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING
A professional school within a flagship research campus of The State University of New York, the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning advances the study and practice of our disciplines through experiential learning and research. Embedded in our urban context in Buffalo, N.Y., and around the world, we are guided by a culture of experimentation, a core belief in learning by doing, and a spirit of public service and inclusion. Our pursuit of research as core curriculum is situated with a broad interdisciplinary approach that reaches across the University at Buffalo, the. largest research university in the Northeast U.S. and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities.
TIME SPACE EXISTENCE
Time Space Existence is an international exhibition organized by the Global Art Affairs Foundation and the European Cultural Centre and runs in parallel to the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale.
