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David Gamble, Alex Krieger, and Dennis Pieprz to present at AIA symposium on future of urban design

The Harvard Graduate School of Design’s David Gamble, Alex Krieger, and Dennis Pieprz are among the presenters on tap for “Mind the Gap,” a symposium to be hosted by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Regional and Urban Design Committee (RUDC) on January 25 at the AIA’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C. The trio will join a roster of other urban design experts, professors, and practitioners from Gensler, AECOM, Sasaki Associates, and elsewhere to discuss the future of urban design education and practice.

Gamble, Krieger, and Pieprz each teach within the GSD’s Department of Urban Planning and Design. Gamble is a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design and principal of Gamble Associates, while Krieger is Professor in Practice of Urban Design and principal at NBBJ, and Pieprz is Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design and a partner at Sasaki. Gamble is also a member of the AIA’s RUDC.

As the AIA writes, this one-day symposium will gather leading educators in urban design programs across the country and the firms that are implementing plans for structured conversations around the intersection of urban design teaching and practice. The question at the heart of the symposium is how to more closely and carefully bridge academy and practice in urban design.

“Many of the challenges we face today as architects transcend the scale of a building. Issues of social equity, environmental degradation, resiliency, mobility and community need creative strategies and design solutions,” writes the AIA in describing the symposium’s mission. “Both the academy and the profession have a role to play in providing peer, community‐based and applied learning opportunities in the field of urban design.”

Gamble will open the symposium with an introductory address, after which the Rhode Island School of Design’s Anne Tate will moderate a panel on pedagogy, and Kent State’s Terry Schwarz will guide a panel on social equity. Pieprz is scheduled to participate in a panel entitled “Culture/Local-Global: The context gap,” while Krieger will moderate a closing panel.

Registration is required for the symposium, and full details are available via the AIA.

Featured image of Washington, D.C., by Meng Jiang (MArch ’19) from the trip for the fall 2017 option studio “The Monument,” led by visiting critics Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein.