The Pratt Sustainability Center is delighted to announce upcoming Pratt Earth Action Week (PEAW) for Fall 2025, scheduled to run from October 20-25, 2025. PEAW is a celebration of the innovative and impactful sustainability work happening across our community of artists, designers, and architects. This week-long series of events highlights the critical role of creative practice in tackling local and global environmental and social challenges. This week is an opportunity to showcase the ideas, research, and projects that are shaping a more sustainable future within and beyond our campus. Through exhibitions, hands-on workshops, panel discussions, and collaborative design interventions, PEAW fosters cross-disciplinary conversations and solutions that push the boundaries of art, design, and architecture.
Virtual Foundation LCD Independent Projects
Monday, October 20 – Saturday, October 25 Online
Presented by: Pratt Foundation Students
For their weekly Independent Projects, Prof. Alice Zinnes’ freshmen LCD students generally choose their topics and materials. For PEAW, though their independence remains, they must focus on sustainability and/or environmental justice, with the intention to demonstrate their power as artists to advocate for, and express concerns about, issues important to them. Though small, non-research assignments, these projects help students to acquire a sense of empowerment. Their projects will be posted on the PEAW website for public viewing.
Saturday, October 18 – Monday, November 3 Pratt Studios, 2nd Floor Lobby
Presented by: Students from the Interior Design Department
The nominated work by Interior Design Students (both BFA & MFA) from SU 25 and SP 25 will be displayed in the Pratt Studio 2nd flr Lobby. Various student works from studios/elective courses will be displayed on the wall. Plus interactive Mycelium sample work by Prof. Sarah Strauss’s class will be available on the table. Come, learn and be enlightened by the innovative and responsible design possibilities!
GiveTake Donation & Raffle
Donate to GiveTake During GiveTake Hours (Mon 2-9pm, Tu 5-9pm, Thu 9am-12pm, Su 3-9pm) 5 Winners will be selected on Monday, October 27th, and announced on Instagram
Presented by: GiveTake and the Pratt Sustainability Center
Got extra art supplies? During Pratt Earth Action Week, we’re inviting all students, faculty, and staff to donate gently used or unused art materials to GiveTake during open hours. Every donation helps keep creative materials out of the landfill and in the hands of fellow artists. As a thank-you, you’ll be entered into our GiveTake Raffle, where five lucky winners will each receive an exclusive GiveTake mug. Come share the love, support sustainability, and make space for new inspiration.
NYC Ballot 2025: What’s at Stake for Public Review in Land Use Decisions?
Tuesday, October 21st | 12:00 – 1:00 pm Online
Hosted by: Pratt Center for Community Development
Confirmed Panelists: Alexa Aviles, New York City Council Member, District 38 Karl-Henry Cesar, Chair of Brooklyn Community Board 14 Brianna Soleyn, Treasurer, East NY Community Land Trust Chris Walters, Senior Land Use Policy Associate, Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development
Moderator: Tara Duvivier, Senior Planner, Pratt Center for Community Development
New York City is made up of strong communities that have substantial expertise about where they live. In the absence of a long-term, city-wide plan, community input generated through the public review process is critical to ensuring that land use projects take community needs into account. How can a robust process for public input help ensure equitable development while also addressing the affordable housing crisis?
When voters turn over their ballot this November, they will have the opportunity to decide how community input shapes future affordable housing and land use decisions through a series of ballot proposals to amend the City Charter.
Proposals 2, 3, and 4 include changes to which types of land use applications may be expedited, how affordable housing projects are reviewed, and how different perspectives are balanced in the land use process.
Pratt Center and invited speakers will unpack how these proposals will impact the ability of community members to have a voice in land use decisions. We’ll also discuss the ways that public review can strengthen efforts to ensure affordability and ensure that land use decisions meet the needs of neighborhoods most at risk of displacement. Join us and our panel of experts so you can make an informed decision in November.
The Great Imagining: Creating Resilient Communities
Wednesday October 22nd at 2:30pm Online
Presented by: Professor Melissa Eidson and students from HMS101A-32 course
Join Pratt students from HMS101A-32 who will share their imagined communities of resilience, spreading ideas and creativity, contributing to society’s environmental think tank.
In the midst of “the great turning” — as Joanna Macy and David Korten described as the urgent, global transition from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization that prioritizes ecological balance, justice, and community well-being — we look to ourselves, to each other, and notice the place we are standing, as new communities of resilience must be created, of sharing, honoring and offering to the community. “Emergent Strategy” by adrienne maree brown helps us create new systems of relationships to each other and the environment. “Bioregioning Is Our Future” by Richard Heinberg lends us ideas for learning how to live anew amidst a great societal shift. We are the way…the metamorphosis begins.
Intended audience: Pratt and local Brooklyn neighborhoods
How in virtual setting: Powerpoint presentation with live and/or student recordings
Guests are free to come as they are, no requirements.
Fall Showcase Presenters: Design for Sustainable Systems – Ian Lambert, College for Creative Studies
MassArt Climate & Justice Teach-In – Marjee Levine, Massachusetts College of Art & Design
Sustainability & Production: Project-based Teaching – Frank Millero, Pratt Institute
Art Meets Energy Efficiency for Climate Action – In Cho, Pratt School of Architecture
Frontiers of Natural vs. Nature-Inspired Materials in Design and Technology – Istem Ozen, ArtCenter College of Design
Connection to Nature – Art Projects By Seema Lisa Pandya, New York School of Interior Design
Learning through co-design: an expansion framework for community composting- Yuliya Dzyuban, Pratt Institute
The Art of Enough: The Innovation of Going “Backwards” – Xue Bai, Pratt Institute
Thinking through material exploration from day 1 – Natalie Moore, Derek Haffar, and Corinne Ulmann; Pratt Institute
The Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability (PALS) promotes academic sustainability in art and design higher education institutions. We believe it’s vital that creative education places sustainability at its core, preparing artists and designers to lead in shaping a more sustainable future.
PALS PRESENTS
This is a new, semi-annual virtual event, showcasing the work of our PALS partners throughout the year.
Faculty and academic staff working on sustainability in art & design higher ed will share their work and experiences.
Come to connect, gain inspiration, and get excited for the PALS Summit in February 2026.
Presented by: Sam Asher, MS in Sustainable Environmental Systems graduate student Tony Gelber, Pratt Facilities’ Director of Administrative Sustainability
Curious about how the dirt beneath our feet contributes to urban sustainability? Join Pratt research collaborators Sam Asher and Tony Gelber on Friday, October 24th, to learn about their project, Soil First Aid, which uses interdisciplinary techniques to explore and engage with the soil in Pratt’s Dye Garden. Through interactive research demonstrations and collaborative workshops, this event will focus on collective knowledge-sharing about cultivating urban soils for public health and ecological resilience. *Open to the public!*
Soil First Aid seeks to learn more about the soil health, quality, and carbon sequestration capacity in Pratt’s Dye Garden. The event will include an introduction to soil, progress updates on Soil First Aid, a tour of project test sites, a soil testing workshop, and a discussion. Developed soil chromatograms and jar tests will also be on display. Made possible by Pratt’s STEAMplant initiative, Soil First Aid is a project by Sam Asher, MS student in Pratt’s Sustainable Environmental Systems program, and Tony Gelber, Director of Administrative Sustainability in Pratt’s Facilities Department.
Friday, October 24th | 1:30 – 3:30pm Gowanus Canal Meeting at Lowlands Nursery at 25 9th St, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Presented by: SES-635B Water Quality Management Gowanus Canal Conservancy
This event will be an opportunity to learn about the history, present, and future of the Gowanus Canal and Watershed and how the Gowanus Canal Conservancy works with students and the community to assess water quality conditions as part of their robust citizen science program. Attendees will have an opportunity to hear from GCC staff and gain hands-on experience with water quality sampling methods, including how to analyze and assess data collected.
