Aseem Inam: On December 12, 2013, the Urban Colloquium at Parsons The New School for Design presented "Transforming Cities / Transforming Practice" in New York City. On the occasion of the official release of Designing Urban Transformation, there was a book signing and reception, presentation, and panel discussion around the following questions: How can we transform cities by transforming the practice of urbanism itself? What are the kinds of truly creative strategies needed to generate fundamental urban change? The panelists included Christine Gaspar, Executive Director of Center for Urban Pedagogy, Shin-pei Tsay, Research and Development Director of the Transit Center, Matthew Delsesto, Urban Activist and Scholar-Practitioner at Parsons , and Aseem Inam, Director of Graduate Program in Urban Practice at Parsons. The event was extremely well attended, with excellent questions and comments from the audience. The discussion demonstrated that there is a real hunger for truly transformative modes of practice that extend far beyond the sometimes facile tropes such as technology, innovation, sustainability, resilience, or community participation in design. There is a lot of truly hard--and rewarding--work to be done. AI
Poster design: Anze Zadel