A&E System: Eddy Almonte and Emma Leigh MacDonald

GSAPP Conversations

In the fourth episode of the A&E System mini-series, Eddy Almonte (‘19 MSUP) and Emma Leigh Macdonald (‘20 MSCCCP) discuss their involvement in “The A&E System: Public Works and Private Interest in Architectural and Engineering Services, 2000–2020,” a publication developed by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia GSAPP from 2017 to 2020. Almonte is currently a Neighborhood Planner at the New York City Department of Housing and Macdonald is a New York City-based writer, editor, and researcher. The A&E System" project initiated at the Buell Center asked: Who will design and manage the green infrastructure needed to combat climate change? In the United States today, whether this infrastructure is financed publicly or privately, it would most likely be designed and managed by public-private partnerships led by large architecture and engineering (A&E) firms, or what we are here calling the “A&E System.” The resulting publication, a resource for students, teachers, and professionals in the arts and sciences of the built environment, is available on the Buell Center’s “Power: Infrastructure in America” website: www.power.buellcenter.columbia.edu (http://www.power.buellcenter.columbia.edu)