 So also I want to say hi to everyone that is going to see this in the future with recording this so that it can be shared with others that whatever reason could not join us today, which actually is, as I said, it's very common being such a global school. Let me share my screen now. So, perhaps it's very important to identify yourself as a school that is really ready for change. Our school is not fixed. We don't have, let's say, the wish of remaining in mobile or kind of fix on our own ideas but rather we are embracing change and innovation, and we want to anticipate what the future of architecture is. That's why our logo expresses this permanent transformation and we don't have a logo we have sort of an evolving way of identifying ourselves. The AD is actually the most experimental part of the school. It's the program the program that that allows itself to go deep into research and also to understand how design is an opportunity to reinvent the world. So we're here in a very whole every hall is a historical building, but actually for it for us it feels very much the opposite very lively, then full of ideas of people, but also a container of the knowledge that architecture in this whole diversity. It's produced and accumulated in the in the last centuries. And that's why we are literally standing on the Avery library, which is the library of reference in the world for architecture so so so for you this is this means that that you're automatically connected to this knowledge and that everything that will happen during the time that you're here and beyond in the future as an alumni of the of the school is very much constituted by the and connected by all this diversity of knowledge in architecture and knowledge and architecture that the Avery library captures our pedagogies are designed to provide you an ecosystem where you can explore how architecture, it's part of the most important tensions that are reshaping the world societies climate, equity, data and technology. These are basically the pillars of our, of our pedagogy, and we basically do it not as a form of instruction but rather providing you a very complex ecosystem of possibilities where you can choose and navigate how you want to track your path. And that's something that of course it's requires a lot of attention on our end, but that translates into basically making sure that everything that is happening in the world. Climate crisis environmental crisis social tensions new ideas of how we work together, the way bodies are extended in technologies new ways of understanding nature as something that these architectural lies, even the notion of human are something that is designed and constructed in the communities that that are produced to this process, social media technology data, AI, also new forms of understanding gender ecology not as a problem but rather like the paradigm in which we operate but also the risk societies are facing now and the way architecture minimize reduce adapts to it. It's basically what what the context for architecture is. But we do these two structure and design, and we have eight tracks eight lines of work eight tensions that are accumulating our efforts and that allowed you actually to find people that can help you getting deep into many of the sensitivities and questions that you already bring to the school. So we're not expecting you to come as an empty, let's say person that we will start but actually we're very interested on your personal stories what is important for you, your cultures, your sensitivities, and we, we want to make sure that whatever is important for you, you can find in our school lines of work that can help you grow and develop your already existing concerns and abilities and sensitivities and and the first of this track, it's the environmental engagement, which of course it's not unique, there's many, many ways of understanding how architecture helps producing environmental engagement and we actually want to map all of them and to see how different they are to design to research to information to lecture seminars. The second is how to turn technologies accountable and that's of course a crucial point and and Dibor at the time that of course we're seeing very rapidly machine intelligence over passing the capacity of human intelligence. And so this question of how we turn accountable our technologies how we make social media space for democracy how we understand the way technological systems can empower individuals and communities and ecosystems. There's also a line of work that how could we not be paying attention to the third one is the articulation of the societal. This is crucial, we believe that one of the key capacities of architecture, it's to operate socially and by this I don't mean to just be, let's say supported of these franchise, but also how the actual societal alliances are produced at all different levels in all different situations so how architecture works as a mediator as a facilitator as an assemblage a society itself, are part of long traditions that we can we can build on. And that is of course a crucial part of also what architecture is now in the tensions of evolution how it is going to be reinvented in the future we want you to have the tools to do that and to immediately be at the highest level in that discussion. There's a totally different way to approach materiality now in the past materials were selected in architecture mostly through their aesthetics or capacities, but now the discussion is much more complex, it's about this long span like life span. The precedents that what are the labors that are included in its production mobilization installation, but also what is the future of materiality, once placed in a building, how materiality connects to bodies and environments at the time that is already mobilized as part of the production. So, so all these very complex questions require also research laboratories, new theories concentrations but also design forms of design, and that's what we do here we bring all these so that you have the capacity to very rapidly operate on material cyclabilities. The fifth line and track of work, it's inter species relationships in the past architecture has been promoting anthropocentricium. But of course that came to an end, we know now that our future is intrinsically linked to the future of many other species, and actually biodiversity became a way for humans to work under the possibility of their existence, we actually know now that there's no autonomy of the human body, the human body, it's 70% composed by other species so we basically are ecosystems, and the way we negotiate our relationship with other species is actually a big focus of architecture of experimental and avant-garde architecture now that we definitely have a voice on and we want also you to be empowered by by by being able to become an expert on how to do that. The sixth track and line of work and tension for evolution of architecture societies ecosystems is the connection and the articulation of the online with the offline. How could we not address this question. The part of our life is now delegated to automatized systems and to I a systems and to digital systems, and we want to make sure that we are not working with a notion of architecture of the 19th century, but that we immediately install everyone's practices and research and knowledge. What happened right now, we will see that we have a number of faculty that are working on these issues and that you and you, those of you that are interested on this, you will find the opportunity to, to go deep into this. The seventh track and line of work is an acting identity, and that has to do with the decolonization of our practices. So, discussions about racialization and racism across the world but also non binary gender identities gender tensions feminism, weirdness and radical forms of echo and queer ecology. And of course a very, very intensive field of work now and debate, but also very intensive field for design. And, and we want to make sure that that everyone in the, in the, in the program. It's familiar with how to and cast the tools, and it's a power to navigate these discussions and these possibilities for architecture. You know, if you might at the end, moving all the tracks. And the last one is geopolitics in the making architecture it's operating across scales. It's no longer something that operates only at the scale of the building, but the buildings by looking at building buildings we also expand in the tiny scale of bacteria and the large scales of geopolitics. And that's something that we, we've seen through infrastructures to the expansion of cities to the architectural devices that are designed to, to address a specific geopolitical questions. And, and of course we want to make sure that this is again something that we bring to this to the program so that you many of you have the possibility of exploring become experts on this. I must say that this is basically the way we do this is that everyone in the first semester becomes very familiar with all these tools, these ways of doing mobilizing design these ways of research and this very diverse ways of addressing individual practices, so that everyone in the first semester become actually experts on on all these lines of work. But then you start deciding how you want to decide your trajectory in the program. The professional definition that or academic definition that you want to have when you graduate and you will start choosing how to mix how to take pieces of these tracks and how to actually be shaping your own expertise. Ultimately, what we're basically with these programs stands for is to understand but the, that when we see buildings like this when we see an architectural setting like this in New York. It's full of ideas, it's full of conflicts, it's full of disputes and arenas where different notions of the future are being experimented. And this is crucial. We want to make sure that we don't approach architecture in a superficial way, but rather than we mobilize the entire power of design that we really are able and prepare an expert on mobilizing the power of design to transform the future, and to transform it in a way that it helped us address the fundamental questions that are shaping the times we leave and that will define what the future of humanity will be in the next decades. We do it through a very simple structure, simple so that you can use it easily, and that you can basically make it yours. The first semester is the semester that we actually make sure it's very intense. So even before you come here you will get already some text that we want you to read and to participate in some of the first week discussions and experiments. But it's also very fun, I must say, and everyone remembers this first semester as the moment of opening and ideas and meeting your peers and discuss with them, lively, but also imagination fun. But basically this is the moment that the class comes together. We start with a multicultural welcoming where everyone is really celebrated and we want to make sure that we all know what is unique about each of you. We actually even celebrate the way each one express themselves and what are your languages your idioms your references what is important either very elevated or very simple what is that that each of us like and it's an opportunity to know each other from what makes us different. We highly believe in the uniqueness of everyone and we want to preserve that. So we have advanced architectural design studio transhumanities and arguments and these are courses that are taken by transhumanities arguments by the entire class so it becomes an opportunity to know each other. And then we have two semesters, the fall semester and the spring semester that are also very intense, each of them very different, where you have the capacity to choose. I'm on a large pool of courses. Let's explain a little bit better than the first semester. The first semester, the, the most intense course is the advanced architectural design studios, you will have to choose I'm on a pool of 10 studios, very different. These lines of work that I was presenting before, they are represented in the studio so you will see that for instance some of you will want to work with an area Calvillo on the development of interspecies relationships to design others others will work with Marco Ferrari on projects that are at the scale of architecture at the scale of buildings operating climatically and intervening climatic crisis. Others will want to work with with Elias and Joseph Anastas on the way stone the carving of stone is actually a form of, of communal empowerment in the middle list. You will want to work with Dan Wood, revisiting the way architectural typologies and towers of buildings that are mixing uses become an opportunity to reinvent the way societies articulated. Others will want to work with other people that looking at the way the existing materiality of architecture can be mobilized and, but we have basically 10 very different studios, all of them incredibly intense all of them. We are very devoted to connect design with research as an opportunity to to turn the studio laboratory with notions future notions for architectural practices are are invented by each of you. Some of these studios will be working in groups some will be working in allowing or promoting students to work individually, but you will basically be in the lottery you will get in advance all the syllabi of these studios. In the first day of classes, you will go to a lottery, you will see a thorough presentation of each of the studios and then you will indicate what are your preferences what's your first option your second option, and through a student run process that is run by the representatives of the previous AD class, you basically will be assigned to one of your top options. And, and that is that you'll see it's very horizontal the studios have from six to 12 students and one or two instructors and a teaching assistant. It's a large team of faculty with a small number of students, so that there's the possibility for you to develop a very strong relationship with your peers and with your instructor to work together to do something that is very sophisticated, very needed, very innovative, and at the same time that represents what is important for you and gives you an opportunity to grow and sharp the kind of architects that you want to be. And then we have a second course that is Transcalarities. Transcalarities is a course that is composed by two parts. It's one part is a workshop in small groups with instructors that are experts on research, and that will have you basically get very rapidly. So one of the tools that you need to do high academic research, you will be introduced of course in how to do searches, bibliographical work, also experimental research use of media, but also you will be trained on academic writing, academic in the way to argue and how to build arguments and to provide evidences for it. So this part is very much helping you to very rapidly get to the level of high academic work and, and then the second part is discussion that I myself together with Jean Paul, Jean Paul Paulman curate, where we basically discussed in the course of the semester, more than 300 cases of architecture, and we do it in detail, which to a huge detail. And we, we basically, this is a huge opportunity for you to expand your architectural knowledge by, by knowing very well, the most important architectural designs of the last decades the ones that are shaping all the contemporary discussions. And this is really fun, we do that on Fridays in the afternoon and normally people go for drinks afterwards. So it's very, very, very, I would say heated discussions about the most important projects of the last decade so it's really fun but at the same time very, very helpful. Then we have arguments arguments is, it's very intense as well. Oh, sorry, I must say that for trans characters you have amazing people coming, we have Keller Easterling, Lydia Calipoliti, Mark Suramaki, people that have done, you know, let me show you some of the books for instance. Mark Suramaki will be working with us looking at he, he just launched this amazing book, and it's, it's looking at the way materialities it's now been applied massively to experimental projects across the world. And we will be basically looking at all the different lines to, to understand materiality, Lydia Calipoliti it's the expert on on ecological systems and again we will be looking from this 1970s to to nowadays, the whole. Hi, hi is experimentally, let's say innovative buildings in the in the terrain of ecology beyond the culture of sustainability of course and getting much more into the, the, the whole ambition of ecological thinking we also have Keller Easterling is coming to also work with us analyzing the way structures of market and capitalism and mobility, the forces of globalization have also been experimented through architecture in the last decades. And what I try to say is the transfer it is really the moment for you to understand how architectural design in the last decades, it's been advancing the possibilities that now we can anticipate for the future. Arguments is very different arguments is, is also composed by a part that is. Verso in smaller groups, and it's really, and then a lecture with entire class where we discuss together with with each way with a different visitor or guest speaker, and we basically invite the people that have produced the most important studies and practices on architecture for the last two years, very recent. And we half of them are architects. Half of them are people that were from other fields discussing architecture working with architecture. So I think that the work is very important because it's a worsen on interrogation. How to pose questions how to, how to basically destabilize destabilize knowledge. How do we find the cracks that allowed us to innovate in existing. And that we do in a very fun way also in the morning you basically meet with your instructors in small groups, and you prepare your questions prior to these meetings you have read all of you a text that is or a film or an exhibition you have consulted something that was previously sent by the by the speaker and then we meet all together in the in wood auditorium, and we have a very intense conversation with the speaker, we also have lunch there. And it's really fun because it's actually like a very active two hour meeting where we really interrogate the speaker find where the potential and the cracks of the discourses are and it's very very much also building the connection of the entire class to these discussions. And what we basically make sure is that all these lines of fire of these tensions that I was referring to the environmental engagement that colonizing the center and architectural accountable materiality and the cycle abilities of materiality, architectural as the articulation of the society at all the connections of the online of the offline the interspecies relationship, all these are basically dealt with in all these different courses. The course is incredibly different to each other, but they all have the, they're all mobilizing these lines of work and choir and innovation. So what is great is that by the end of the semester, both each of you becomes an expert on all these different topics, but also as a class, you have gained the culture of its own that that allows you to channel all your uniqueness and your specific sensitivities, individual sensitivities, your culture, your previous knowledge, but also connected with discussions that are shaping the identity and the capacity to work together of your of your cohort. The advanced science studios are very lively. They you are given for those that that are far and could not be with us in the last days. The studios are you're giving a place in the studio each group is actually together in one of these long tables and then you have places where you can meet as you see there is always very lively and very intense very densely populated. And it's really fun. I must say that you spend a big part of your time here, you have the opportunity to know each other very soon you, you know, you have lunch here if you want you can, you know, it's really the place where the, you know, everything clicks and you work together with the rest densities very important so it's inevitable to know everyone and to get to be friends with many many of your peers. And but also this is if it's here when where you meet often with your instructors. And of course sometimes you have been absent there's a room that is where you're meeting and that, but so each group meets in different rooms but the, but you know the life of the studio is something that is incredibly beautiful. It expands into other facilities this is for instance, are making studio that is also a place that I think is is part of the student life in a very intense way. And also this is a place that offers jobs so if you have the training to use this or you can I mean the first day that you arrive you will be offered in the orientation, the possibility of getting training I would encourage you to do that as soon as possible so that you can fully do the making studio and even if you want to get the job there you're prepared for that you can write to the director even now if you if you if anyone wants to be considered for jobs is right now for this. We also work across campus and across the city and globally with experts, you will see that each studio is already producing connections with many experts that help you. But rather, whatever research you're doing in the aim of the of the studios. And what is very important is that whatever you do, it's at the center so we really are a student center school, and we really want to know what is that that is important for you and what is that that your work. So anticipating we are very very much paying attention to all you say to all you do because we know that the future of our world is resides there. And the way we do it is that you permanently present your work in front of a large community of faculty express visitors. Good discussions where basically you get to understand what else what's the potential of the world that you're doing in conversation by by explaining yourself and by by responding to questions and by getting comments from many others. We want to make sure that you have everything that is needed to develop your work is the presentation of a student that produce these huge other things and then as you present we're ready to have a bunch of incredibly clever people. Reacting helping you taking it farther clarifying what you're doing getting the tools that you need. And that's what we do all the time. In arguments we have, as I said we bring the people like Jack Halberstam for my fantasmac or Easterling. Laura Poitras and Henry Molke basically to have discussions you basically you meet in the morning I said in groups like the one in this photograph there will be like this to discuss the. groups like this you have meetings like this when you will be discussing together what how to interrogate the speaker and then the speaker comes and we have these very fun discussions. And this is this course that is also called arenas of design. It's also crucial because it's the moment in which you take the mic and have the opportunity to get as a class in conversation with me with by John Paul man with color is telling you to do the ability with Marshall Maki to interrogate architecture and with this I mean close environment so the, you know all these very very different architectural traditions that have been shaping architectural discourse and designing the last the case, we will be interrogating in detail in this in this to transfer this. The second and the third semester are very exciting. It's the moment that is very different, whereas the summer feels very intimate you take over the school you're the owners of the building. The fall is full of other people, which is actually great. And it's the moment that you melt in the studios, this also means that in the fall you have 20 studios from which you decide what are your first second options. And then you also have and you are in the studios mix with people of the MR program. So that's great opportunity because normally the students bring all this critical knowledge that has been nurtured to the summer and that's a great moment for also let's say discussing it with the students that that have been in the school for two years already. So they can also help you navigate the school the university the city in a very intense way. And then you have a large pool of courses on history and theory and technology and representation courses that you can take. You're required to take one advanced studio one history and theory elective and one visual technology electives, but that's only the minimum, and we encourage you, you know the program allows you to take more courses without paying tuition. There's a limit of 19 points right to see that you can take without paying tuition, meaning that you can take more courses and I would encourage everyone to take as many as possible, because it's, it's a great opportunity to make the best of the pool of possibilities that is here in Columbia, you can also take courses across the campus. Sorry, before we get here, and the spring is very exciting is that the moment that we travel. So you will be traveling with the with your studio and doing field work engaging with communities across the world and doing a research that allowed you to elevate your the global impact of your of your work. This is also very important moment is when you're completing your portfolio. So this is crucial and of course we have on that and the school base for this term. We have a very large and very impressive pool of faculty. I mean we have probably a Stephen Hall, but not to me kind of front and it's not teaching but he's still here and there's all these different generations of very important voices of the in the field of architecture that have saved actually what we think architecture is now and that are the Benjamin in amazing work on ecology Hillary sample with moss. And Juan Herreros with all these corrections of typologies for them keeping with the thinking of the next steps of of parametric thesis and Lola been alone the director of the natural material lab inventing materials that are alive that they contain live themselves and that's a laboratory that they encourage you to be part of and be connected with It's very easy. But basically the work we do its work that it's not replicating the architecture that we know, but rather using complex discourse and technology to empower yourself as designers should do projects that other people could never do. This is for instance a project that is using machine learning to identify components that are really existing in buildings in New York and that could be relocated to increase the overall sustainability and energy efficiency of the city. And of course it's something that could not have happened 10 years ago and that is at the, at the avant garde of what can be done to the sensitivities and conflicts that we're facing now with intelligence with design, or for instance this award developed by again by a students that it's in the way different species relate to each other from human stomach to to the city to insects bacteria animals so that basically the notion of waste can be removed. And what is waste for one species what what becomes toxic for humans becomes the habitat of other species and, and that is the way to to mobilize nature in a city like New York. To basically eliminates its its impact by redefining the way humans relate to others. And this is for instance work that was done in the studio of bernard should mean studio. We have all these amazing people like Bernard that it's, it's shaped the way architecture is unfolded in less the case of course now it's 40 years since the construction of the lovely late Park in Paris that changed the future of architecture radically. And these are projects that his students are doing to to mobilize architecture as an agent for climate mitigation. Oh, this is for instance Michael Bell Studio Michael Bell is of course the, the expert and author of all these different books on materials on steel on glass, you probably know these books are the reference for material studies in architecture. And he's now thinking for instance of the way machine learning can transform daily life and actually cater to human agendas. This is for instance a studio with Amanda Williams and if a one of all that is looking at the tools of interior design as an opportunity to confront a structural racism. And that's something that was a Amanda Williams of course the, the brilliant artists and top artists, top world artists and that working with if a one of all that that was a very, very unique studio also. Well, for instance, these studio this work by Farah, a hurry and a graduate now that was very conscientious originally from Iraq and force migrant to Canada. And that she worked with the develop an architecture and infrastructure that would allow to reclaim the reins that were polluted. And so, so this is again like a way to mobilize architecture so needed. There's so much needed resources, appetite commissions for for works like this, and that we but also it definitely requires very advanced architectural development and across the world doing research studies associations. And that's something that as I said the school funds we have a specific endowment, the kidney endowment to work with this. And, and there's also opportunity for you to, to apply for for specific research for grants for specific research that you want to do that also involves traveling. But this is something that we do all the, everyone does, all of you will be asked to do this in the spring of 2024. All studies are, we're probably, I mean, I want to be pretentious but I think that we have probably the best team working with with visuals and representation led by Laura Kurgan, the, the, the, there's, we have a lab that is specifically working on these this is a work, for instance, that is developing G7 that was presented at the fence by any of the technology sequences run by low level alone and it's, but it has a large pool of professors that are experts on climate or materials on of interspecies and relationships, many of the things that I already mentioned, and this is where incredibly strong here there's so many amazing works that every year are developed by our students and also that support the way you can work in other courses and, and come up with with ideas that are addressing difficult, also critical questions of our time and, and, and we have also tools for you to self educate I mean we have workshops where we can get familiar with software but also we have tools like this is a skill trial, trials that allowed you to, to determine the kind of tools that you need to learn and to learn them online basically easily. And that's something that of course is run also by the, by the results that is a sequence. But this is crucial for us because we work with very complex information and come and conflicts and situations and realities. We want to make sure that we have that you have the, you're equipped with the tools to represent them to, to, to discuss them to work with them and also to produce new imaginaries new images new forums new aesthetics for architecture and this is again something that that is very proud of. We have among the AD graduates, some of the most important architects like Charles Renfro that it's right here shaping proximity to the shed that you know like so many important buildings that, that are bringing new imaginaries to what architecture can, can do, and how it operates and this of course, a very large number of possibilities and you will, you will decide which ones you, you take. But this is our core, and we also think that it's important to produce books. We have a publishing house, Columbia books on architecture and the city that is right here. We also we support students to produce publications and to launch them and to prepare them. We have writing workshops, we have events on writing. So writing is important for us books knowledge is important and we also want for those of you that have an inclination and an interesting in teaching in the future or you already teaching. You have teaching experience. We also have programs that allow for you to to to get a teaching experience in Columbia in G sub. And we offer the shapes every semester, but also, once you graduate you're offered the possibility of teaching in the in the first semester of the of the incoming class. You can be working with graduates from the program now in your studios will be teaching assistants, and you will have the opportunity also to teach in the future by applying to to an open call and there's 10 positions is normally, either at this moment or before normally those that have the, the interest of teaching they get opportunities to do that of course is to open cause not guaranteed but I must say that in the past, those that wanted to do it, I believe that they, they got an opportunity to do it. All these I want to insist is intended to make sure that that we render our discipline and design architectural design a way for you basically to to to move your sensitivities and to mobilize them to transform the world, let's say, and to to have a say in the in the in the future of humanity ecosystem societies. And that also reflects on your, the way that you relate to each other. The school has a large number of student groups that are very much specialized on things that are important to our students. You probably will find one that several that that are connected to your sensitivities to your, to your interest, but you can also do new ones every year we have new 80 groups of old school groups that are born, and the school supports them financially you can organize your lecture series, you can have guests you can do publications and that happens all the time and it's a great opportunity for instance, a few years ago, group of students launched the radio. And, and that became a great opportunity for for the class to be gaining a new voice I encourage you to look at the episodes you can find them in the, in our website, but this is very very, it's been a very very fun way for the class to, to work together. This is New York, and this is crucial for us. New York is probably the, as many people have claimed the most important laboratory for architecture in the, in the last centuries. And it keeps spinning each year is different each year there's new things going on here, and we work with the city very intensively. We actually work as the city I would say because of course our faculty are important people in the city they're connected to the firms, the laboratories, the authorities, the, the intergovernmental agencies, the museums, the cultural cold runs the artists groups, the underground networks. So by being here, you, you basically are in the city. And, and we also facilitate that once you graduate you also can continue being part of the city the ad program is a stem designated, meaning that you can apply to an OPT and allows, and it allows you to work in this in the city or, or across the country. And, and I mean being New York a place that has the most important architectural agencies or the intergovernmental organizations like United Nations so that has the groups of activism, also the proximity to many of the most important PhD programs. That's something that is very intensively used like the possibility of staying here preparing for working for a firm that you're excited about, or either independent or big or small, working many people with NGOs, working for intergovernmental organizations, but also preparing maybe getting a job that you're excited about while you prepare to apply for a PhD program. In an Ivy League institution is also something that we do all the time and we have many, many of our students are very proud to say that they're very successful when applying to PhD programs in either in a school or in other schools. So here we are in Avery Hall and where I hope to welcome you very soon.