We have finished our first two semester of the new Master of Science program with emphasis in Landscape + Urbanism at Woodbury San Diego. We are very excited to begin our summer thesis semester with a project in the city of Lima, Peru, where we will be focusing on the urban renovation of an underuse warehouse district in downtown Lima. We visited Peru last semester and began conversations with the city authorities and collaboration with the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria to work together on such an important project for the city. While in Lima this spring, we also took on the challenge to research and create a video of the experimental housing project PREVI built 40 years ago. The project showcased work of famous international and Peruvian mid century architects. Our work focused on the sentiment towards the 4-decade evolution of the project from the perspective of the user/owner and from architect/academic. The video can be seen here https://vimeo.com/65442438
We are now in the process of looking for candidates for our 2013-14 class to continue our research and work in contested territories and urban renewal projects along side our great faculty and their courses in GIS, Theory of Globalization, Urban and Economic systems across regions. The second year will continue to focus on foreign study and challenge our student to work with government and academic institutions as well with community groups. Our candidates should seek to engage new proposals regarding the disciplines of landscape and urbanism as well be motivated and take advantage of Woodbury’s regional context of the US/Mexico border it finds itself in. This is a program with a global perspective and yet at the same time focuses on the dynamic and volatile contexts in developing regions.