Bridging the Gap Studio is an urban design studio taught collaboratively by a US and an Iraqi professor of architecture. It is a project-based learning environment in which US and Iraqi students collaborate together to create design proposals for similar programs in each other's cities. We will begin with a research module, in which students investigate, document, analyze, and present a district in their own city to their counterparts abroad. Based upon information exchanged, students will embark upon urban design explorations in their counterparts' cities. The course will culminate in a pair of design proposals in the two cultures. Students will collaborate as a virtual team to foster the success of both projects, serving as information sources for one and information processors for the other. Projects will serve as vehicles for cultural exploration, as students propose settings for each other's daily lives. This experience mirrors work that students will encounter in globalized architectural practice, where projects are often executed in collaboration between US and local offices, with success dependent upon inter-cultural communication skills. This particular international collaboration, coming at a time of tremendous strain between US-Iraqi relations, has great potential to instill global understanding through person-to-person diplomacy.
