 Well, hello, everyone. Thank you very much for being here, wherever you are, and whether it's evening or morning or afternoon. My name is Andres Hake, and I'm the director of the Advanced Architectural Design Program at Columbia G-SAP, and I'm also the dean of the school. So for those courses in the AED program, it's actually great, because you have a very good direct access to everything that happens in the school. I want to introduce also C.R.C. Chen, that is the assistant director of the AED program and the fundamental member of our community at Columbia G-SAP. C.R.C., maybe you want to? Hi, everyone. Nice to meet you, and I'm looking forward to meeting some of you. I've probably corresponded with some of you via email. And if you guys have any questions after today or after the fact, I'll be very happy to answer them in the coming days. OK. So this could be a conversation. So please jump in whenever you want or raise your hands, either physically or electronically. And also, C.R.C., please just jump in whenever you want. But we're very happy about this program. This is a program that has helped many people that have already a professional background and have an experience and already have a training architecture, not to learn the basics of architecture, but actually to go deeper in what is that that they want to contribute to and to become professionals or academics or scholars or all of the above. Simultaneously, normally, that's normally the case. But in a way that you have the capacity to develop your own voice and to change the way we do architecture, we think about architecture. So it's not about what is the way that architecture has been thought of in the past, but actually, what is the potential that we have to use it to produce change? And by doing that, also position ourselves as sort of leaders in the evolution of our fields. And this is something that we do from Columbia historically. We've done this successfully from the AD program. It's a program that has nurtured the emergency of digital practices in architecture. It's a program that has anticipated the notion of contextual modernity with Franton. It's a program that has helped also introduce the metropolitan culture to architecture. And now it's deeply connected to what is happening in the world from climate to societal divides to the geopolitical tensions that are saving the times we're living to the technological defiance and not only the potential of it, but also the frames of power where technology is happening. And that's our notion of advancement. We claim this is about advanced architecture because it's the advancement of architecture. We're preparing talented people from around the world, many people from New York, many people from the US, many people from many other places in the world to lead the change and the evolution and the next steps, the future of architecture. And we do it from Avery. Many of you were here a few days ago. And Avery is this building, which actually is very well known in the world of architecture because of its library that is called the Avery Library that is, for most people, considered the most important library in architecture and built environment in the world. And actually, it's the library of reference for architectural publications. We believe that practice, pedagology, and research are intrinsically interconnected. And that's what we do all the time. Basically, what we teach, what we practice is fueled by research and innovation. And that's what makes AED so helpful to understand how architecture is part of the most pressing issues that are happening now in the world. And we do that through design, through writing, through research, through activism, through mediation, through many, many different things, through community engagement, through scientific mobilization, through many, many forms of technological development, through policy, but all of that coordinated to design. And we believe that there's eight principles that are very important. The first is the environmental engagement. This is something that is unavoidable now. And it goes from climate to ecology and that's basically the paradigm in which we live. The second is that we definitely want to mobilize technology. And we want to integrate technology in what's the potential of contemporary technologies. But we also want technology to be able to accountable. We want to see what are the different technological scenarios that we're basically exposed to and can mobilize. And we can also think that there's different uses and different technology, different technological uses and different technologies that can be mobilized. We love very advanced technology and we interrogate it and how it operates and what is the systems of power it caters to, what is possible to them. But at the same time, we also have a very, an eye for the technopunk or steampunk culture and recycling cultures and surf culture and all of those are cultures that are relating to specifically, they're developing in a specific ways to, or relating in two specific ways to technology. We really want to acknowledge all that ecosystem. We also believe that the great capacity of architecture is to re-articulate the social. And this is very important. We don't think architecture is just a neutral container like a box where you put societies. But actually architecture articulates what we can understand for the social. So the social is composed both by humans and non-human entities and it's that alliance that we can sustain in the long run of time or in the short time of interaction, what we could call architecture actually. And that means that when we look at buildings and when we do buildings and design buildings and beyond buildings, many other things, infrastructures, practices, cultures, basically we understand that that is what the social is in conjunction with the human and non-human forms of life. And but we also are specifically interested in the times that are shaped by climate emergencies and ecological, the job of ecological biodiversity on a different culture of material and it's a culture of cyclabilities. We don't look at materials as something that we buy from a catalog and we just put in a building. But rather we look at the whole, the entire cycle, where is it sourced? What is the mining that is related to it? What are the communities that are affected by its production and distribution and recycling? What is the second life of materials? How do we intervene those different processes so that basically the action of architecture, it's empowered to be irrelevant in the entire cycle. And that's a totally different culture, material culture that we do from the lab. We have the natural material lab that many of you saw the other day that is working with the molecules of proteins and animal and vegetable proteins like the fish proteins that are released in the water and that are in the natural material lab are collected and used as a glue to mix with natural fibers and mat to produce materials that can be reprinted or to the assemblage and disassemblage or the logistics of the materiality or what it means to reuse to all those from very high tech to very low tech cultures of the material cycling that are fundamental to operating contemporary processes. We go beyond the notion, the modern notion of anthropocentrism. No longer we can sustain an idea that the human is at the center and the rest of the species are sacrificable. We understand that the world in which we're living basically requires us to develop interspecies relationships and relationships that are long-term sustained. If we are building with wood, we want to make sure that we have a good alliance with the forest and the life in the forest and the communities that are part of the forest. So for us with the notion of communities much more complex that what it was in the 1960s in the first experiences of participation and enrollment we think that our communities are complex communities that are ecologically constituted. For instance, if we relate to the mud we want to know what are the communities around the mud? What is the people that are living through that earthy realities? What are their practices? But also what are the bacteria that are there that are fundamental for their well-being? What are the that they used to cook? What are the that overall compound of communities being multi-species and our action to be distributing benefit not only to humans and not only to powerful humans but to the entire ecosystem is a total change of paradigm that are shaping the times that we live and that we deeply engage with. We also of course, how could we know understand that the realities that we're living are constituted in the assemblage of online and offline urbanities. And that it's something that we have naturalized but often in most schools of architecture we only design the offline realm as autonomous. For us there's no way we could do that relevantly unless we really understand that the material world is also mobilized and infiltrated and infiltrating online realities that also have a material dimension with their farm, with the servers, with the data centers, with the data farms, with infrastructure, it is part of but with the realities also how it affects bodies or landscapes or ecosystems. That's basically what design needs to or that's where design operates now. And we have very people that are incredibly expert on these topics and we have studios that you can take that are specifically addressing these multimedia or multi-medium urbanisms. And we also pay close attention to all the developments that have been done in the last decades on identity issues. And this goes from feminism and parenthood and care and childcare to aging population, a healthy aging and to racialization and all the colonization and all the tensions and segregations and inequalities resulting from that. And what is the way that architecture both participates on them and can also be a force of confronting this dividing dynamics to queer studies and what it means not only in terms of LGBTQ activation that of course is safe cities around the world but also what it means from a post human perspective a human form of human that is constructed as trans theory help us to understand that of course it's the connection also with ecology and technology and that field of let's say inquire design operation is very much shaping a big part also what we do. And finally, I think that geopolitism we're living a moment where this is incredibly present in what is happening now of course in the Middle East but also what is happening in the US border with Mexico but also what happens in Ukraine and we see that for instance gas, the use of gas is the fundamental which is so architectural like how we use gas, how we distribute it it's very much an architectural endeavor and responsibility and that is shaping the tensions in Europe, the war in Europe and the redistribution of borders and that is something that we have people that are really experts on like Marco Ferrari and listen to others and we deeply engage with that and make the best of that. Eventually what makes the AD program unique in the world is that we look at something like this New York that is our laboratory is where we operate and we understand that this side of embedded criticality criticality both in the sense that it's incredibly relevant what is happening here but also that is loaded with this course with activism, with confrontations with different models of the future that are disputing and the work of design has the huge capacity to make the best of this criticality to mobilize it as a force for change in both societies and ecosystems. This is very unique the way we do it and of course we do it through a very calculated and I would say tailored curriculum but also curriculum that is totally intended for you to use it, for you to inhabit it and navigate it. This is not, let's say a template for instruction. Each graduate from the AD program is totally different totally different but part of a community of people that discuss together that share references that share the same ambition of being relevant. And I think what is really good is that you have a huge flexibility to define your track within the program. At the same time the program is helping you to define and to find what is that that you want to do. The first semester is the summer and it's kind of an injection of complexity. It's very intense, get ready for it but it's fun and not you don't suffer basically. That would be my summary. Like it's really intense. It's changing like in less than three months you totally change your way of thinking, your way of doing your capacities are multiplied I would say and I'm not exaggerating. I mean, I hope you can talk to with our students because it's basically for a period of time of yeah, two months and a half basically you are reading every week at least two or three crucial pieces of architectural thinking and imagination and criticality. You're writing all the time, you're writing pieces but very short, you're writing like 500 word things that are then reviewed with your instructor you have advisors that are helping you with your readings, through your writing. You're designing, you're developing a project in a super ambitious environment and you have time to discuss as a group in moderated sessions. You have lectures all the time. So it's super intense moment of immersion in all the complexity that I was describing before. So by the end of this, you are really well aware what is their horizon? What is the leading edge of architectural evolution and in relationship with urban practices with the spatial practices with buildings and you become experts on what is the contemporary leading edge of all these discussions. And that's incredibly, I would say it's incredibly effective and then we help you find what is your next steps. And the second semester, I mean first in the advanced architectural design studios you will see that you have 10 studios, each of them in one of these lines that I was explaining and you basically do the lottery. You choose which ones you're taking with that. I mean of course, you spread your first and second option and third option and normally people get one of their first options and then we have transferlarities that will explain arguments. And once you go through this, which is amazing and we also make sure that everyone meets each other you basically have the second semester, the third semester to navigate the school which becomes a huge panorama from which you can choose. This is the way it works. Basically we have, it's very simple the summer. We have the advanced studios, we have arguments and we have transferlarities. And all the topics that I explained before are basically crushing the different courses. So you will be able to basically get design on one of these topics. On each of these topics you will see the work that your peers are developing. In arguments you will have people that are coming to present their work on these directions and you will have the opportunity to discuss with them and discuss their work and it's about interrogating them and how to learn to make questions and interrogate and being in conversation with the most important thinkers and doers in architecture and urban practices now and transferlarities that I will explain that looks very specifically to how the architectural culture can be expanded by looking at many, many, many cases of architecture of the last decades through all of these different perspectives. The advanced design studios are incredibly lively. They look like this and they are placed and each of you have a position of course and you have your space but your space is also part of a larger group of your studio and there's areas when you discuss it's like an urban system I would say that is permanently active. I mean you can, we have the maker space of course the fabrication center for the school that is the place that you can both come to develop your work but also come to work actually to get jobs from and it's incredibly lively. It's a large ecosystem that actually has two floors. Well, let's see, it's kind of fun. We permanently work with experts and that's a constant thing in the school, experts from across the university. We have for those that are not familiar with Columbia University, we have the climate school that also has the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory which is the most important scientific center dedicated to climate and to ecology and it's right here. You can visit it, you can work with it. We have like institutions that are reshaping the way we live and our bodies, what's the way our bodies are constituted and what does, both in the school and across the university. So the presence of experts is very, it's constant but it's your work what is at the center. So the work of students being presented in the school and discussed by large communities of faculty, experts, crits from different researchers from the university and from beyond the university from the city of New York. So basically we mobilize people to discuss your work. So this is an actual presentation, you see CRC here and this is produced by a student that then once, you have your time to produce, to develop your projects in conversation with many, with the support of many and when you present it also, you have a community of people that is willing to contribute to it, to help you taking farther to understand what is that that your project is challenging and really people that, as you see in this photograph are paying attention to what you say and do their best to help and some of these people are the most clever people in the world thinking about architecture now. So it's really luxury to be in something like that. For arguments, we basically bring people from all around the world that are the ones that are doing the most important works on architectural discourse in relationship with design and we have basically half of them are people that are directly related or identifying as architects like Keleristan Lim for instance, they're all designers like for Mafantasma and the Anzimone but there's the other half are people that are not coming from architecture but doing research and working and mobilizing architecture. So it's a moment for interdisciplinary alliance and we have people for instance, like Laura Poitras here that did an amazing work of research of the birth of NSA and wiring in the AT&T building in New York or Jack Halberstam for instance, Rufa Benjamin and this is the way it works. We have the second pillar course for the summer is the is transcolarities, arenas of design and this is like that. We take wood auditorium the entire class and each week we decided we studied in detail maybe 15 cases of architecture of the last decades that are specifically addressing different responses or they are providing different responses to the state areas of work that I was mentioning before and this is an immense opportunity for you to get familiar to the complexity of design and to expand your design culture and your design capacities by looking in detail to the most important cases of architectural design of the last decades. This is incredibly helpful because basically what we do is that each of you is studying in detail some of these cases and by the end of the summer we have studied more than 300 cases of architecture in detail that there's something that immensely expands your immediately your critical capacity and your capacity for design. This is something that we do in both in the big classes and small groups with our instructors and when it comes to that and then you have a few days off but the intensity comes back in the fall and then you have the opportunity to melt with the entire school with the MR program in their final year. So the good thing is that the 80s students are people that already have a professional degree like you and basically you would immediately jump into the last year of the year market will melt in the advanced studios with them but you're already prepared because you already gone through this huge immersion that makes the 80 students the most intellectually prepared actually of the school I would say and that's very exciting because they go through all this moment and I mean of course there's so much super prepared people all around but I think the 80 students have a very unique voice of what the contemporary tensions are and the capacities for architecture to test them and you have many courses you have then you have electives and the electives are your tool also to save your own trajectory taking into account that we have so many electives I don't know exactly the number because it's growing and growing and thus you have technological electives representational computational electives we have history and theory electives but beyond this you can take courses in other programs you can take courses in the GSAP programs across the board and beyond that you can take courses in the school you can take courses in engineering you can take courses in the law school you can take courses so your electives are your tool to navigate the complexity of Columbia University and GSAP and shape your own trajectory and this has a great capacity of course there's complexities that you need to navigate to register and we're happy to support you and help you on that so it's very important guidance to get guidance that we provided but you can take how many points can be taken without paying additional tuition? C.O.C. 19 so you are required to take 15 points but you can take up to 19 my advice take the 19 points if you don't have the time you do have the course but make the best of your tuition and your courses and your points because this is really the opportunity to enhance your expertise and your capacities and we have an amazing pool of designs and faculty and not only design history and theory faculty I mean we could go on and on with each of these people but each of them are basically leading a part of our profession and our discipline each of them very different so it's kind of amazing that we can bring to the same building many of the most important voices around the world and this is the kind of work that is produced these are actual works that were produced very recently for instance this is a use of machine learning to analyze the material stock of a city so that components of the buildings could be reorganized so the entire city could be reconstructed by using the same materials by mining the materials in the existing buildings so that the overall energy efficiency could be multiplied this is something that is incredibly I mean it's probably the only possible place like Columbia like GISA where we have these computation courses so close to the design studios or for instance it's a project to remove or basically remove the notion of waste within our societies and in the city of New York by creating these infrastructures that are like vertical parks that are bringing together different species so that the waste of humans basically the waste produced by humans becomes the habitat in which other species live and vice versa so we could close the material cycles by designing the relationship between relationships between different species so that there's no need to mobilize the notion of garbage or trash in the city of New York this was awarded with the Paris Prize so for many, many other projects these are projects developed in the Invernasium Music Studio that are climatic devices that are helping to regulate New Year's climate and mitigate the impact of climate change as floating islands that would be on the east and Hudson Rivers or this for instance is a project developed in Michael Bell Studio that is looking at the capacity of robotics to generate performative environments that could change permanently according to the conditions that are required for the activity or for instance in a very different tone this is a studio by Ife Wannable and Amanda Williams the artist a collaboration between the two of them that is looking at interiors and what is the use of interior decoration to make a political transition of interiors and the way gender is performing them or I mean we could go on this is an amazing work by Harrah Al-Fukhori that developed this infrastructure to reclaim the land of post-war environments specifically the one of Iraq looking at what is the way that the metals the radiation that is the toxicity that is produced to war that as we know is huge basically can be progressively removed from the sides of the post-conflicted sides and we travel you this is a very important component of our pedagogy in the spring everyone engages on field trips and field work that is happening wherever we go basically the studios are this is for instance a field trip that XSE and I did with our students to Iceland and that was amazing we could basically first hand understand what is the effects of climate crisis on the glaciers and what is the way for instance that in Iceland the sea is not racing because the weight of the glaciers is disappearing and therefore the land is emerging and we could work with scientists from the Arctic Circle and that was a very intense experience and every year all the students are doing this and this is also funded by the school so everyone we have an endowment the kidney endowment that provides the students the possibility to travel with funding from the school I want to also underscore the computation and representation sequences that are probably leading representation and the use of computation in the world this is a work developed by Laura Purgan who's the director of computation at GESAP and you will see also the sequence the technology sequence directed by Lola Ben-Alon the director of the Machia Lab that I already mentioned but that has an amazing pool of courses that I would encourage you to take a look at that are really impressive I would say we're very seriously taking into account questions of climate, questions of environment questions of interaction, questions of technology also we have tools so that it's not only the discourse but we support you to get all the tools that you need to do the work at the level that you want computational software but also theoretical also in all sorts of ways and that's something that we really dedicate efforts to so it's we are a graduate school with probably the highest level in discourse and design and activism in the way they intersect but we also make sure that everyone's equipped given the opportunity to acquire the tools that they need and that's this is work I mean we could go on and on with this representation to prototyping to the scanning you know we go back to the library because definitely we are into also theory and books for those that are interested number of every year number of graduates from the AD program successfully are admitted in Ivy League PhD programs and I think this is very important because also and but everyone not only those ones you know if you are trying to develop a relevant innovative practice also you will benefit from the intellectual pedigree of the school which has I mean the some of the most important thinkers of the of the last decades are definitely here and we produce books all the time Columbia books it's doing this all the time we discuss books and we have the libraries open that is presented books at the lunch time with lunch every almost every week now and in the middle of the of the staircase so it's a very lively thing that we do and we organize events around books and with books and reading and research the AD program has a unique possibility of once you graduate to apply for TACs in the summer associate positions to co-teach or to be teaching assistants of the studios and this is a unique opportunity there's 10 positions at least that are offered through open call and there's other positions across the year and all these to basically make sure that you can each of you can nurture your career for those that are interested in having a both a design and teaching profile we make sure that you you're equipped for that and you get prepared for that those that want to be researchers or material researchers or innovators we really make sure that you take the right courses for that those that want to do it innovative and let's say leading edge forms and ground breaking forms of design to the conceptualization the the use of form the use of technology the material ideas the societal components that whatever in each case is something different we make sure that you have the right track to succeed on that we also care for for students as citizens this is crucial for us and we have we offer the possibility for students to open student groups and that's something that the school funds so if you get together with a few of your peers and you want to open a new student association we they definitely will support you and we have a large pool of of them also that you can join easily and we have the radio for instance that is very successful and that every year produces new episodes it's really fun and with the support of professional technicians and it's it's a great I mean I encourage you to take a look it's very lively it's totally student run it's it's amazing and we're in New York and we are in New York I think this is very important whatever we do we use New York as our home as our ecosystem as our you know like faculty our New York students our New York what we do it's in New York and New York is for us the world because it's totally it's a city that is probably the city with best connected to everything that happens in the world we have the most multicultural neighborhoods in the world and the the and the presence also of the most important architectural offices NGOs intergovernmental associations and and agencies and from United Nations to I mean you you name them so being in New York I would say not it's not for us it's not being in New York it's being New York being a component your faculty you'd see there important people in New York and we we facilitate that those that come without a US citizenship can stay here for a period of three years to a stem and that's crucial for those that would like and seventy percent of international students graduating from the AAD stay in New York at least for a period of two years because of course New York is an amazing professional and activist ecosystem where the most radical practices in all different directions can be found and the opportunities for jobs in them is of course very very appealing to to many of the people who apply here so we're here in neighbouring hall at this point both CRC and I to to respond your questions and to and we will be here through the time of the application cycle and when you enroll and come here it will be with you working with you every day or every weekday hopefully and and that is something that we we do with huge entusiasm because for us the AAD it's it's really the place where architecture can be now change innovate take into the next step and its future can be anticipated so I'm happy I do not see if you have things to add that I'm missing and otherwise we can also have it but but probably you have things you want to say so if you guys have seen there's such a rich let's say terrains of work for the program and I mean I think that's the most exciting parts and also I want to underscore that there's an amazing cohort that you'll be a part of every year the class that is formed basically including the instructors the students you basically form relationships that would last pretty much your lifetime in the people that you will work with that you'll be you know you might want to start projects or firms with and all the while while you're sort of expanding your notion of what architecture can do and you're creating really let's say work that can only be situated in such a place in such a cauldron of ideas and you're going to be able to add continuously to this ecosystem and in relationship to all the incredible alumni that we have in the past in this way that's also so interesting you know meeting everyone and speaking to everyone because in essence it's always a living sort of ecosystem and of course you'll be here in New York and really every sorts of constitutional sort of constituted body or institution is here so and there are people basically doing the most interesting work and that are happening you know they're sort of creating the world that doesn't exist already but we want to see and I think that's crucial right and also there is such a rich environment for transdisciplinary work and also action and you can see how all the different ways that we're thinking about academia or design or activism they're really being shaped and worked upon and constantly sort of growing from from basically what you will contribute to and you will be in allyship with so that's what I like to add