In collaboration with Parsons School of Design | The New School, the MSc Urban Design Workshop “Designing Infrastructures of Inclusion” studied and compared New York’s public spaces in private developments and those created by citizen-driven placemaking initiatives. Led by Prof. Hendrik Tieben (CUHK) and Prof. Miodrag Mitrasinovic (Parsons), students from both universities teamed up in May 2019 and explored different public space topics along the Number 7 Subway Line, aka “the International Express”, linking the latest Hudson Yards development and the High Line Project with immigrant communities around Diversity Plaza, Corona Plaza, and “Little Hong Kong” in Queens.

The collaboration continued with an online workshop in 2020 that reflected on COVID-19’s impact on New York and its public spaces. Launched as part of the “2020: A Year without Public Space”, a joint initiative with the Journal of Public Space, a publication supported by UN Habitat, the online workshop also served as an experiment to explore the learning format of remote global design studios, and to discuss its challenges and opportunities.