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David Smiley teaches in
the architecture and urban studies programs
at Barnard and Columbia Colleges. He is
an architect and an architectural historian
and has published articles on the American
single family house, shopping centers,
the growth of suburbs and on architecture
in Perspecta, CAA
Reviews, Lotus, Domus and A+U
Magazines. He is the editor of
Redressing the Mall:
Sprawl and Public Space in Suburbia, published by the National
Endowment for the Arts in 2002. He has
taught at Columbia University Graduate
School of Architecture, Yale University
School of Architecture and Washington University.
Until 2003, Smiley was the Research Director
of Design+Urbanism, an urban design firm
that completed studies and plans for neighborhoods
internationally as well as for New York
City, including Hells
Kitchen South: Developing Strategies (co-author), 2001, published
by the Design Trust for Public Space. Smiley
is currently completing a Ph.D. in Architectural
History and Theory at Princeton University,
where he is focusing on modernist urban
theory and the emergence of the American
shopping center, 1940-1955.
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Personal Statement
My DT fellowship for was a dramatic and
exhilarating immersion in the rush of
urban change. The project, Hell's
Kitchen South, provided an
opportunity to participate in the web
that connects urban design to the diverse
regional and local actors who have a stake in the spaces of the
city and to the policy frameworks that
regulate and guide government action.
Unique among neighborhoods in New York
City, Hell's Kitchen south is overlaid
with a remarkable array of urban elements – from
small businesses and tenements to the
hustle of Ninth Avenue's many food stores
to the traffic system of the Lincoln
Tunnel and the Port Authority, to the
Hudson River – so changes to the
area were, and remain, contentious and
potentially exciting. Our Hell's Kitchen
South project sought to insert into the
development process a dose of urban design
ideas that emerged from the scrutiny
of the unique features of the area as well
as from discussions between residents,
businesses, planners and architects.
Defining a role for urban design as integral to the process
of planning for the future of the area
proved to be a continuous negotiation,
with design always "on
call," thus
making the process rewarding and enlightening
for all.
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