State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

urban design lab2

  • Seeking an Urban Sustainability Graduate Research Assistant

    Seeking an Urban Sustainability Graduate Research Assistant

    Are you a full-time Columbia graduate student interested in urban sustainability and equity? Do you have superb writing, analytic and research skills? Apply by December 9 for this part-time research assistant position.

  • New York Lets a Thousand Bioswales Bloom

    New York Lets a Thousand Bioswales Bloom

    In an effort to curb sewage overflows, New York City has turned to green infrastructure: right-of-way bioswales, green roofs and rain gardens, among other practices. These measures help decrease stormwater runoff by increasing pervious areas and introducing water-loving plants that can absorb some of the water and encourage evaporation.

  • Housing in New York City: Updating the History

    Housing in New York City: Updating the History

    “Beyond doubt the large question facing New York housing production today has to do with a market that can not provide for the half of our households that are low income.”

  • New Faculty: Nilda Mesa joins the Urban Design Lab

    New Faculty: Nilda Mesa joins the Urban Design Lab

    Nilda Mesa joins the Earth Institute to launch a new program in urban sustainability and equity planning at the Urban Design Lab.

  • Map Your Food

    Map Your Food

    Where does London get its fruit? Where are the “food swamps” in Los Angeles? Where do tomatoes from Spain wind up? Where are the composters in New York City? For lovers of geography, and of the sociology of food, “Food: an atlas” offers lots of informative and curious distraction.

  • A Sustainable Strategy to Deal with Urban Poverty

    A Sustainable Strategy to Deal with Urban Poverty

    When architect Fernando Arias first arrived in Kumasi, Ghana last year, he saw unpaved roads, trash burning, garbage everywhere, and shoeless children running all around. He knew he needed to act on their behalf.

  • Architecture and Urban Design Students Present Innovative Upgrading Plans for a Millennium City

    Architecture and Urban Design Students Present Innovative Upgrading Plans for a Millennium City

    Graduate students in architecture and urban design recently presented their findings and design work issuing out of a collaboration between the Urban Design Lab (UDL) and MCI in the Millennium City of Kumasi, Ghana. At the city’s invitation, and with MCI’s facilitation, the UDL came to Kumasi in early February, to devise solutions to revitalize…

  • Opening the Door to More Rooftop Farming?

    Opening the Door to More Rooftop Farming?

    The NYC Department of City Planning has proposed new zoning rules to make it easier to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency – including a provision on rooftop greenhouses.

  • In New York City: 5,000 Acres and a Mule?

    In New York City: 5,000 Acres and a Mule?

    It is no surprise that New York City holds one of the world’s densest agglomerations of people and infrastructure; but according to a new report, it is also hides a huge archipelago of potential farmland.

  • Seeking an Urban Sustainability Graduate Research Assistant

    Seeking an Urban Sustainability Graduate Research Assistant

    Are you a full-time Columbia graduate student interested in urban sustainability and equity? Do you have superb writing, analytic and research skills? Apply by December 9 for this part-time research assistant position.

  • New York Lets a Thousand Bioswales Bloom

    New York Lets a Thousand Bioswales Bloom

    In an effort to curb sewage overflows, New York City has turned to green infrastructure: right-of-way bioswales, green roofs and rain gardens, among other practices. These measures help decrease stormwater runoff by increasing pervious areas and introducing water-loving plants that can absorb some of the water and encourage evaporation.

  • Housing in New York City: Updating the History

    Housing in New York City: Updating the History

    “Beyond doubt the large question facing New York housing production today has to do with a market that can not provide for the half of our households that are low income.”

  • New Faculty: Nilda Mesa joins the Urban Design Lab

    New Faculty: Nilda Mesa joins the Urban Design Lab

    Nilda Mesa joins the Earth Institute to launch a new program in urban sustainability and equity planning at the Urban Design Lab.

  • Map Your Food

    Map Your Food

    Where does London get its fruit? Where are the “food swamps” in Los Angeles? Where do tomatoes from Spain wind up? Where are the composters in New York City? For lovers of geography, and of the sociology of food, “Food: an atlas” offers lots of informative and curious distraction.

  • A Sustainable Strategy to Deal with Urban Poverty

    A Sustainable Strategy to Deal with Urban Poverty

    When architect Fernando Arias first arrived in Kumasi, Ghana last year, he saw unpaved roads, trash burning, garbage everywhere, and shoeless children running all around. He knew he needed to act on their behalf.

  • Architecture and Urban Design Students Present Innovative Upgrading Plans for a Millennium City

    Architecture and Urban Design Students Present Innovative Upgrading Plans for a Millennium City

    Graduate students in architecture and urban design recently presented their findings and design work issuing out of a collaboration between the Urban Design Lab (UDL) and MCI in the Millennium City of Kumasi, Ghana. At the city’s invitation, and with MCI’s facilitation, the UDL came to Kumasi in early February, to devise solutions to revitalize…

  • Opening the Door to More Rooftop Farming?

    Opening the Door to More Rooftop Farming?

    The NYC Department of City Planning has proposed new zoning rules to make it easier to retrofit buildings for energy efficiency – including a provision on rooftop greenhouses.

  • In New York City: 5,000 Acres and a Mule?

    In New York City: 5,000 Acres and a Mule?

    It is no surprise that New York City holds one of the world’s densest agglomerations of people and infrastructure; but according to a new report, it is also hides a huge archipelago of potential farmland.