Riya's Riyaaz

The Fall 2021 Urban Design studio was focused on developing a district scaled framework for Newark's civic center. The project included working in collaboration with the United States General Service Administration (GSA), the City of Newark and local stakeholders. The district consists of an "urban ensemble" of buildings including the Rodino Federal Building, the Lautenberg Post Office, the MLK Courthouse, Newark City Hall and two privately-managed housing towers.  Our work was also featured on Archinect -  https://archinect.com/features/article/150291080/njit-s-hillier-college-of-architecture-and-design-fall-2021-super-review-showcases-civic-engagement-and-climate-action The studio was divided into three phases. The first phase included urban analysis, site assessment and stakeholder visualization. We began by taking a site tour with the members of the GSA around the civic center. The use of term 'civic center' mainly because of the fact that these buildings fall

All the books I have made and used during my undergrad years

  Maps produced using GIS(Geographic Information System) © Riya Parekh

The first master's design studio was based in the Dayton neighborhood in Newark. We were put into teams by Justine Shapiro Kline, our studio professor and assigned topics based on our preliminary research interests at the beginning of class. This is the first time I would know the meaning of team effort. Apart from the group work, there was important base work to be done for the class, for which students volunteered happily.  We began by modelling our site on GIS(Geographic Information System) and Rhino, two software's that I was unfamiliar with but eventually got a hang of. The semester was structured in a way that we get plenty time for research in the beginning, create a narrative for our future goal, work at a larger scale to understand the context of the site, which would transition into familiarizing ourselves with the site, discussing various stakeholders and precedents; the knowledge of which would help us design and work towards our stated goal. Our group - The Data an