Copenhill – Reimagining Social Infrastructure

Our public infrastructures for transport, industry, energy, waste, water, sewage etc. are major investments in our public budgets. However they always appear as grey areas on the city map. Like black holes in the urban fabric lost for the public realm, they are big ugly boxes that cast shadows on the neighbors or block the views.

What if we could harness those massive investments and imbue them with positive social side-effects from the get-go rather than in retrospect? What if the massive volume of a waste-to-energy power plant could become a mountain with ski slopes in a city full of snow but without hills? By proactively cross-breeding public infrastructure with social programs we can inject new urban life forms in to the heart of our cities, and leverage a city’s infrastructure budgets to also fund their urban social philanthropy.

This lecture is part of the series Beyond the Envelope organized in the context of the course ARCH 791 Beyond the Envelope: Pioneering Technology in Architecture, taught by Professor Tom Verebes.

Design Dialogues

In times of global crises, education, collaboration, and dialogs can represent positive “game changing” factors.

Through dialogue with international universities, industries, and practicing designers, the NYIT School of Architecture and Design Lecture Series will nurture dialogue on the education of the creatives of the future and will challenge the more conventional university curricula, and the narratives and communication strategies of the current professional practice.

Introduction and Moderation

Tom Verebes

Professor, NYIT School of Architecture and Design

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Speaker

Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA, RIBA

Partner at BIG

Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA, RIBA is a Partner at BIG who brings his architectural expertise to proposals around the globe, including work in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Kai-Uwe heads up BIG's business development--which currently has the office working in over 40 different countries. He also oversees BIG's Urban scales projects and supports BIG’s. Landscape projects. Kai-Uwe most recently contributed to the resiliency plan BIG U to protect 10 miles of Manhattan's coastline.

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First envisioned through the Rebuild by Design competition to develop proactive responses to Superstorm Sandy, it is now being constructed with a completion date in 2026. Further projects include Reimagining Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, Queens Park, Smithsonian Master Plan, Pittsburgh Master Plan and Miami Beach Square. He complements his professional work through previous teaching assignments at Georgia Tech, Pratt Institute, University of Pennsylvania, IE University in Madrid, and his alma mater the University of Virginia. Kai-Uwe formerly was on the Board of the Van Alen Institute, participates on numerous international juries and lectures globally on the works of BIG.

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