Urban Room

Ongoing

Education Partnerships

Van Alen Institute has a long history as an educational institution. Founded in 1894 as the Society for Beaux-Arts Architecture, the organization provided free design education for American architects for decades, with teaching methods originally modeled after France’s École des Beaux-Arts. With these roots in education, we continue to work with teachers and students through in-depth collaborations, independent research projects, and classroom field trips.

To inquire about educational partnerships, contact Shiloah Coley, Program Manager at scoley@vanalen.org.

Princeton University School of Architecture (2026–present)

Inaugurating our Urban Room as a venue for thought-provoking design exhibitions, Van Alen is currently hosting The House Transformed. Organized by the Princeton University School of Architecture (SoA), this exhibition presents new ideas for domestic architecture and is accompanied by a series of public programs with exhibition participants and SoA faculty. The House Transformed is curated by Mónica Ponce de León, Princeton School of Architecture, with Shoshana Torn and Massimo Giannone.

Baruch College (2025–present)

For three semesters, Baruch students in the Information Sciences department have been building a data collection platform to help track the impact of Van Alen’s projects in public space. The Spring 2025 class build a proof-of-concept and demo for the application, and the Fall 2025 class successfully built out the app’s back end. The Spring 2026 class is now finalizing the front end, with plans to pilot in Spring/Summer 2026. Van Alen also plans to make this app available for our community partners across NYC, helping us all gain insight into how the public is interacting with our work.

The New School (2025–present)

In partnership with Professor Junali Carrión, co-creator of public design installation With Your Voice, Van Alen is collaborating with graduate students in the New School’s Resilient Mutual Development course. Students conducted field research in Gowanus and implemented mapping frameworks (such as sociograms, landscape analysis, and economic ecologies) to propose community engagement strategies for activating our Urban Room.

They proposed Gowanus Yearbook, a living portrait of the neighborhood featuring long-time residents and newer arrivals. Students Rida Chaudhry, Ananaya Singh, and Kaye Yuvallos are now taking this project forward, and have collected more than 50 community portraits.

MS 447 — The Exploratory School (2025)

As part of our Common Build initiative, Tiffany Baker’s public art installation The Dear Neighbor Project was incorporated into the Art for Social Justice curriculum at local middle school MS 447 – The Exploratory School. With instruction from educators Cheryl Grau and Davielle Morton, students designed symbols exploring themes of flooding and community support. Baker then incorporated these symbols into her design for an outdoor mural at the school.

Pratt Institute (2023)

Graduate students in the Transformation Design program at Pratt Institute worked with Van Alen to identify pressing questions for community members in the Gowanus neighborhood. Students designed and implemented three exploratory research stations at Van Alen’s 2023 Block Party and collected data to gauge impact of the event.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2026–present)

As part of an independent study, undergraduate students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are collaborating with Van Alen to conduct condition assessments of select materials from our archive. Focusing on design competition boards from the 1950s and 60s, they’re also exploring how AI‑assisted cataloging methods may support preservation planning and improved access to unique archival materials.

Baruch College (2024–25)

Then an undergraduate student at Baruch College, journalist Valerie Conklin conducted archival and qualitative research to help contextualize the current state of public housing in Gowanus with the original goals of public housing in the 1940s. Valerie had the opportunity to share her research with participants in Urban Design Forum’s Global Exchange fellowship, which held a Gowanus-focused learning day at Van Alen Institute.

Van Alen hosts field trips from classes at the K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels. We collaborate with educators to present on our work or create more tailored learning experiences. Recently we’ve welcomed visits from Atlas Workshops, Berkeley Carroll School, Columbia GSAPP, MS447 — The Math & Sciences Exploratory School, Pratt School of Architecture, and the School of Architecture at the University of Arizona, among others.