In 2008, the School of Design Strategies at Parsons the New School for Design launched a comprehensive and systematic approach to the study of urban phenomena, processes, practices, conditions and forms that attempts to integrate design, humanities, the arts, social sciences, and policy. In order to achieve this, the School formed strategic partnerships with a range of organizations across NYC—from large governmental agencies to small, non-profit and community-based organizations— to address complex urban-centered social and ecological questions in New York City. As part of this initiative, we had initiated the Urban Play and Recreation course in collaboration with NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Created to explore the relationship between urban play and recreational practices in New York City this course is an attempt to develop a holistic and interrelated framework for understanding, engaging with, and acting in relation to emerging practices of urban recreation. This paper will describe the first edition of this course, its methods and results.
Parsons – The new school for design
Miodrag Mitrasinovic is an architect, urbanist, author and Dean of The School of Design Strategies, Parsons The New School for Design. His professional and scholarly work has been published internationally, including the Journal of Architecture and Building Science of the Architectural Institute of Japan , L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and Metropolis . He is the author of Total Landscape, Theme Parks, Public Space (Ashgate 2006), and co-editor of Travel, Space, Architecture (Ashgate 2009). Both books are recipients of the Graham Foundation Grant in 2004 and 2005 respectively. He is a member of the international editorial board of Design and Culture (Berg), and has also served in a variety of scholarly, professional and editorial roles.
