Oct 26: Sustainable Urbanism talk at CMU

Sustainable Urbanism, a talk by Professor Julio Cesar Perez Hernandez, architect and urban planner.

Sustainability encompasses the whole human activity so when it comes to place making a holistic approach must guide the analysis and provide the necessary frame that takes into account both tradition and innovation to create healthy places with economic balance and social integration. It must reconcile human needs with ecological imperatives. Three projects by the author –one in Spain and the rest in Cuba- are displayed as case studies to show some urban planning and urban design tools and strategies. A Master Plan for 21st Century Havana aimed at preserving the city’s historic, urban and architectural legacy and also at encouraging its future urban and economic development expresses the author’s vision for the future of the only Caribbean Metropolis with a European influence.

Professor Julio Cesar Perez Hernandez became the one and only Cuban Loeb Fellow at Harvard University Graduate School of Design during 2001-2002 in Advanced Urban and Environmental Studies and he received his degree from the School of Architecture of Havana, Cuba in 1982, where he was an Adjunct Professor from 1998 to 2006. He has lectured widely in the US, Canada and Europe about Cuban architecture and he’s also taught courses in the US and in Europe. He’s the author of a major book about Cuban architecture ‘Inside Cuba’ published by Taschen Editions, 2006, and also of ‘A Master Plan for 21st Century Havana’, a comprehensive urban plan registered at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. He is the founding Chairman of the Cuban chapters of C.E.U and INTBAU and a member of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and the recipient of several international and national awards. His writings have been published in Progressive Planning, the New York Times, Alinea Editrice, Caleidoscopio Ediçao The Journal of the Royal Institute of the Architects in Ireland, Arquitectura Cuba and Arquitectura y Urbanismo. He is currently writing the book ´The Magic Landscapes and Urban Design of Havana´, a comprehensive essay about the history and evolution of the capital city of Cuba to be published in 2011.
He organizes and leads the Havana International Charrette every Spring, an urban planning and design workshop aimed at the regeneration of the city of Havana, its harbor and its waterfront.

6:30pm in Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall) at CMU. Co-sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture and the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education & Research (SEER).