This collection of student work collected for the Spring ’23 Pratt Earth Action Week is centered around issues of sustainability. Students explored a broad range of design strategies from thoughtful form-making to playful education approaches. Projects focusing on the built environment explored the integration of sustainable materials and the application of circular design strategies. The projects were gathered from across the Institute and were completed within the last year.
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Blurring Boundary
Blurring boundary is trying to explore a new way of living. Instead of the enclosed spaces of traditional houses, this project attempts to blurring indoor and outdoor spaces, bringing the natural environment inside.Driving residents out into the larger shared space and nature, allowing for more interaction. Protect the city’s damaged ecology and rebalance the relationship…
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Bringing New Life To An Old House
Existing buildings are given new life through adaptive reuse interventions that are transformative. The greenest building is the one that already exists, and adaptive reuse provides opportunities for design leadership: being able to make imaginative proposals in existing structures means fewer buildings on greenfields. A rain pit pools water away from trees to ameliorate flooding.…
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City of the Post-Anthropocene
Industrial infrastructure once defined Red Hook–economically and visually–as the center of commercial shipping in New York City. However, the decline of that industry, as well as the looming climate crisis, has led to questions of how Red Hook can be revitalized and refortified in the 21st century. This project transforms an old cement carrier–the Loujaine–into…
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Decomposition & Restoration (biomaterials, landscape, and construction waste)
Whereas traditional architecture is a negotiation between building and site, modular architecture fractures the site from factory-built modules. This relationship led us to focus on the impact of construction on the land, and how this one-directional flow of delivered material can fit in with architecture’s evolving role in supporting the environment. We designed biomaterial packaging…
