Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community

School of Architecture Announces Fall 2023 Visiting Critics

Monday, September 18, 2023, By Julie Sharkey
Share
School of Architecture

Each semester, upper-level architecture students participate in the visiting critic program that brings leading architects and scholars from around the world to the school. Four studios will be held on campus this fall.

Li Han and Hu Yan (Drawing Architecture Studio)

Li Han and Hu Yan, co-founders of Beijing-based Drawing Architecture Studio, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Building Stories: The Poetry in Everyday Space,” where students will showcase how architecture and space transcend their utilitarian functions to become integral components of storytelling.

Li Han and Hu Yan, architecture visiting critics

Li Han and Hu Yan

Inspired by the backdrop of the multi-family house featured in the graphic novel “Building Stories,” the studio is conceived as an experimental exploration of a design approach based on narrative and sensitivity. Beginning with the interior design of a multi-family house and gradually expanding to encompass various scales and design domains, ranging from everyday items and furniture to architecture and urban landscapes, students will embody different roles and derive inspiration from everyday spaces in Syracuse, defining poetic moments through design and telling their own building stories. The entire design process—emphasizing intricate observation, detailed representation, multi-threaded storytelling and collage—is viewed as a comprehensive study of multi-family housing, spanning from the functional layout of living spaces to the lifestyles of residents, and from the cultural aesthetics of architecture to the historical memories of the city.

Han and Yan will give a presentation and lecture, focusing on their upcoming exhibition, “A Little Bit of Syracuse,” on Sept. 21 at 6 p.m. in the Hosmer Auditorium at the Everson Museum of Art.

Da-Un Yoo (Ewha Womans University)

Da-Un Yoo, archiecture visiting critic

Da-Un Yoo

Da-Un Yoo, professor in the Department of Architecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Extreme Living: 22nd Century Seoul Housing,” which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the publication “Towards a New Architecture” by Le Corbusier by exploring the ‘new architecture’ for the 22nd century.

Just as Le Corbusier explored the various housing typologies and lifestyles that new technologies would change in the era of automobiles, airplanes, ships and mass production about 100 years ago, students will imagine the future of urban housing based on the latest technologies such as autonomous vehicles, drone taxis and online telecommunication. Using Seoul as the site for their investigations, students will research scenarios for extreme living and design a high-density urban housing proposal for 22nd-century Seoul. In addition to typical studio sessions, students will travel to Seoul in the fall, as part of a one-week sponsored trip, to gain a greater understanding of the city’s extreme housing culture—the high-rise apartment buildings and neighborhoods resembling ‘towers in the park’—reminiscent of the city Le Corbusier predicted 100 years ago.

Yoo will give a public lecture on Sept. 28 at 5:30 p.m. in the atrium of Slocum Hall.

Bing Bu (Syracuse Architecture and INCLS)

Bing Bu, director of the Syracuse Architecture Three Cities Asia program, will teach the visiting critic studio, “Project Promised Land,” where students will examine “managed retreat” as a necessary measure in response to climate change induced natural hazards in the contexts of social, technological, economic, ecological and political aspects.

Bing Bu

Bing Bu

Climate change now feels more real than ever as we have witnessed New York City covered by wildfire smog or California deserts flooded by a hurricane in the past summer. Whether or not we have lost the tipping point in the war against global warming, it’s time to take actions to adapt to these new climate patterns. Structured in two phases, the research phase and the design phase, the studio will focus on a relatively new approach to increased coastal hazard risks—managed retreat, the purposeful and coordinated action to move infrastructure and people away from areas of high-risk of negative impacts due to climate change. In phase one, students will research climate change and managed retreat for Lake Ontario communities in upstate New York and represent their findings through visual mediums. In phase two, working in site-specific project teams, students will identify issues and challenges from a local view and establish their managed retreat frameworks, design proposals and means of implementation for the built environment in both sending and receiving sites.

This studio is a part of the “University Partnership for Innovative Climate Solutions” initiative launched earlier this year by the New York Department of State (DOS) to engage graduate and undergraduate students in DOS programs and projects that focus on climate change and climate justice. During the semester, students will access a wide range of data and information provided by the DOS and meet twice a month with DOS officials and regional staff, as well as in-house experts and trusted partners. The final works produced by students will be shared with policymakers, program managers and decisionmakers from the Office of Planning, Development and Community Infrastructure as a visual tool, and incorporated into statewide policy and program guidance to be utilized by both DOS and other state agencies working on coastal and climate resilience.

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis (DAVIDSON RAFAILIDIS)

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis, co-founders of the architecture practice DAVIDSON RAFAILIDIS, will teach the visiting critic studio, “House for Everyone,” where students will look at an adaptive reuse project that exemplifies how architecture is both a private matter and a public good.

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis

Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis

In this studio, students will examine a property located at the southern edge of the Adirondacks. Owned by a family with ties to Syracuse University, they have expressed an interest in opening up the use of the property, which has historically been a private summer home, and finding new ways that it can serve their private needs and serve a wider community. Students will analyze the existing buildings on the property: their materiality and construction, their apparent tectonic logics, the types of spaces they offer and their relationship to the landscape of the Adirondacks and the climate of upstate New York. They will study existing spatial typologies that have—either through design or happenstance—proven to be spaces for everyone: radically inclusive, and not bound to a specific program or user group, as well as a typology specific to the Adirondacks: “Great Camps.” Following these investigations, fragments of these studies will crosspollinate with documentation and exploration of the site—detailed measurements, exhaustive photos and an inventory of materials—taken from a sponsored site visit during peak fall foliage season. Through the complex process of adaptive-reuse, students will create outcomes that are typologically unclassifiable and alive, informed by the past and imaginings of the future, hopeful and provocative, populist and joyful.

  • Author

Julie Sharkey

  • Recent
  • Chancellor Kent Syverud Honored as Distinguished Citizen of the Year at 57th Annual ScoutPower Event
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By News Staff
  • New Maymester Program Allows Student-Athletes to Develop ‘Democracy Playbook’
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • From Policy to Practice: How AI is Shaping the Future of Education
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Christopher Munoz
  • Kohn, Wiklund, Wilmoth Named Distinguished Professors
    Thursday, May 8, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • Major League Soccer’s Meteoric Rise: From Underdog to Global Contender
    Wednesday, May 7, 2025, By Keith Kobland

More In Campus & Community

Chancellor Kent Syverud Honored as Distinguished Citizen of the Year at 57th Annual ScoutPower Event

Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud was recognized by Scouting America, Longhouse Council, as the Distinguished Citizen of the Year at the organization’s 57th annual ScoutPower dinner. The annual fundraiser is one of the biggest scouting events in the nation and…

Kohn, Wiklund, Wilmoth Named Distinguished Professors

Three Syracuse University faculty members have been named Distinguished Professors, one of the University’s highest honors. The designation is granted by the Board of Trustees to faculty who have achieved exceptionally distinguished stature in their academic specialties. The newly named…

Syracuse Athletics Records Highest APR Score in 4 Years

Syracuse University Athletics continues to demonstrate its commitment to academic excellence, as shown in the latest release of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Academic Progress (APR) data. The University earned a single-year score of 989 (out of 1,000) for the…

SOURCE Enables School of Education Undergraduates to Research, Explore Profession

Through a research project funded by the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE), School of Education (SOE) seniors Denaysha Macklin ’25 and Emma Wareing ’25 are continuing research to investigate barriers women of color face in advancing…

Commencement 2025: What You Need to Know

It’s time to celebrate, Syracuse University Class of 2025! Bring your family and friends and join in all the excitement and pomp and circumstance during Commencement Weekend 2025. The University’s Commencement exercises will be held in the JMA Wireless Dome…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.