Filmed in fall/winter 2017 with a smartphone and a microphone during Marco Ranzato's visit to Parsons The New School, the video Socio-Ecological Design in Post Sandy Reconstruction. Two Reconstruction Projects In New York City offers a brief overview of two post-Hurricane Sandy (2012) architectural reconstruction projects in New York City that followed different participatory trajectories.
It collects interviews with the designers involved in the two projects but also with some New York academics committed to fusing social and environmental issues through design.
The enthusiasm of the inhabitants and the commitment of the designers emerge, but also the frustrating contradictions involved in opening up the space for deliberation, especially when collaborative design risks becoming a sterile institutionalised procedure.
Image credits Flore Herman, Marco Ranzato Editing Vincent Van Grevelynghe
The video was shown during the evening titled Socio-Ecological Design: A Right Imperative? which took place on 3 July 2019.