Architecture is inseparable from the life of a place. It is shaped by geology, climate, settlement patterns, and the cultural traditions that accumulate over generations. In the Hudson River Valley, a place where Mohican peoples, early Dutch settlements, urban grids, industrial waterfronts, and 19th‑century picturesque ideals intersect, architecture records the long arc of a region’s identity. When practiced with care, design can strengthen these continuities; when divorced from context, it risks erasing them. This studio begins with the belief that architecture must engage the histories, landscapes, and communities that define a place.
Our work this semester centers on Hudson, New York, a small riverfront city whose architectural character reflects more than two centuries of American building traditions. Hudson’s architectural character reflects more than two centuries of evolving American building traditions. Its streets and neighborhoods contain early residential forms, later 19th‑century expressions, and 20th‑century revivals, all layered alongside the industrial structures that once powered the city’s maritime and manufacturing economy. These overlapping histories give Hudson its distinct identity and complexity. Yet, due to its proximity to New York city and recent “discovery” by the region’s design and art communities, Hudson today faces pressures both unique and familiar to many American towns: tourism, second‑home ownership, affordability, and the displacement of long‑term residents.
Students will be asked to confront Hudson’s mounting challenges and extraordinary potential by transforming the town’s underutilized and disconnected northern district into a civic gateway that centers a new identity while affirming the dignity, continuity, and lived experience of its residents.
Our work over the semester will encompass zones largely within Hudson’s waterfront west of Second Street, extending west to include the old Antique Warehouse. The sites encompass industrial blocks, historic structures, and the Amtrak station. Students will consider how public life, culture, housing, and landscape might come together to establish a new “front door” for Hudson and Columbia County. The 3studio will explore housing, civic uses, adaptive reuse, and key infrastructural moments while remaining attentive to the region’s architectural character and broader landscape traditions.
The studio will utilize another historic American river city, New Orleans, as a lens for research, comparison, and inspiration. While in New Haven and during travel week, we will study neighborhoods such as Tremé and Bywater, places where cultural identity and community resilience have persisted through significant change. These districts offer useful lessons in climate adaptation, neighborhood life, and housing patterns that support affordability and cultural expression. Our study of New Orleans will provide a way of sharpening our understanding of how architecture and urbanism can serve communities navigating transition.
Throughout the semester, we will move from historical and urban analysis into programmatic studies and ultimately to architectural resolution. Students will work through drawing, analytical mapping, precedent research, and iterative design, engaging both the pragmatic and the poetic.
Our intention is that each project, no matter its scale, reflects a deep engagement with local identity, a responsible use of resources, a commitment to equity and inclusion, and an awareness of the cultural and architectural traditions that define the Hudson Valley. The hope is that you leave this studio with a clearer sense of how thoughtful design can support communities and contribute to the long‑term wellbeing of Hudson with empathy, integrity, and imagination.