At a glance
“The trip exposed the students to one of the most densely populated cities in the world and engaged the students in the competition,” Simpson said.
Three Alfred State professors in the Architecture and Design Department recently took some of their students on an educational one-day field trip to New York City, where they toured a number of sites such as the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.
The group consisted of Professor Rex Simpson and his 16 fourth-year architectural technology students in the Urban Design Studio, Associate Professor Alex Bitterman and his 15 interior design students, and Professor Richard Carlo and his 15 sophomore Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) students in Design Studio 1. They departed for Manhattan on Sept. 15 and returned to Alfred in the early-morning hours of Sept. 16.
Simpson organized the trip because his students are participating in the Vision 42 Design Competition, which encourages architects, planners, and urban designers from around the world to develop creative proposals for remaking New York City’s traffic-clogged 42nd Street into a world-class pedestrian environment and public space.
“My students spent four hours photographing, measuring, and studying 42nd Street,” Simpson said. “They took 1,000 photos and then we went down to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, had dinner downtown, and then worked our way back up to 42nd Street.”
According to Simpson, his students have been working on their project for the last four weeks and a group submission is due Oct. 1. Simpson said the majority of his students are from small towns in western New York and do not have a perspective on true urban life and the issues associated with it.
“The trip exposed the students to one of the most densely populated cities in the world and engaged the students in the competition,” Simpson said.
Simpson had sought others to accompany him and his students on the trip, so Carlo and Bitterman elected to go along with their pupils. Carlo said he and his students visited the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Times Square, and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which included Memorial Park, the Freedom Tower, and the World Trade Center transportation hub.
One of Carlo’s students, Shirleejae Illsley, a BArch major, from Whitney Point, NY, said prior to going to New York City, she had done a research project on Daniel Libeskind, who won the competition to be the master architect of the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site.
“I thought I got the maximum education through researching all of his work, knowing his style and his career and the purpose of his master plan to redevelop the World Trade Center Memorial and then being able to visit the site and see the work first-hand,” she said.
Bitterman said he and his students also visited the MoMA, the High Line, Grand Central Terminal, the New York Public Library, and Times Square, covering six miles in 12 hours.
Carlo said the trip to New York City is part of a department initiative to “get the students out” of Alfred to places such as Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester, where they can view impressive and noteworthy work by masterful designers and architects. The trips, Bitterman summarized, promote active and engaged learning.
“Our students, from ocean to lake in New York State, are out exploring the work of the masters that is in our backyard and at our back door,” Bitterman said. “Rather than just sitting in a classroom and learning about something, they’re actually standing in it and experiencing it.”