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The United States has given the world notice that it can re-invent itself in the face of unprecedented challenges. Record un-employment and the collapse of its Industrial and financial base, compounded by its dependence on oil, have pushed the United States and its citizen designers to search for new solutions. Their desire to create and harvest new sources of locally generated energy in radically re-designed cities, and their resolve to personally spend less energy, have given shape to the projects of the 2008-09 GFRY studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with generous funding from the Motorola Foundation.

Cities in the developing regions of the world are exploding. Cities in the old world exhibit complex patterns of increased intensity and challenges to cultural traditions. Other cities are shrinking against the background of economic, social and political reconfiguration and increased technological mobility. The decay of large tracts of urban and social fabric is for the most part a slow and reflective process – in some cases these fractures appear without hope, in other cases with an acute awareness of the fear and desire that accompany such processes.

SAIC faculty member Martha Frish Okabe gave a talk at a freshman orientation class at DePaul University on September 1, entitled French Cultural Influences in the Physical Development of Chicago.

Thomas Kong has been invited by the Aformal Academy to participate in the 2015/16 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen, China.

AIADO's Extreme Furniture class is a hands-on studio that questions conventions of furniture design and construction, exploring alternate materials, typologies, contexts and production methods. 

This fall's graduate and undergraduate critiques were an exciting end to the semester.