Students from The Big Squeeze

Students from The Academy of Urban Planning participated in an Urban Investigation on micro-units in New York City. Those students were Antonio Capellan, Miguel Ruiz, and Christopher Viquez; with help from Marcus Carlos and Bernardo Nuñez.

The Bronx Defenders

The Bronx Defenders provides innovative, holistic, and client-centered criminal defense, family defense, civil legal services, social work support and advocacy to indigent people of the Bronx. In the Bronx and beyond, The Bronx Defenders promotes justice in low-income communities.

The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund

Brooklyn Community Bail Fund secures the freedom of New Yorkers who would otherwise be detained pretrial due to their poverty alone. They are committed to challenging the criminalization of race, poverty and immigration status, the practice of putting a price on fundamental rights, and the persistent myth that bail is a necessary element of the justice system. CUP collaborated with Brooklyn Community Bail Fund to create Bail’s Set, What’s Next?, a guide that helps bail payers understand the difference between the four types of bail, and navigate the process of paying. https://brooklynbailfund.org/

The Legal Aid Society

The Legal Aid Society is a 501© non-profit legal aid provider based in New York City. Founded in 1876, it is the oldest and largest provider of legal aid in the United States. Its attorneys provide representation on criminal and civil matters in both individual cases and class action lawsuits. The Legal Aid Society works throughout New York City to ensure everyone has access to justice. CUP teamed up with the Legal Aid Society to create Yours to Keep, a poster that breaks down the key steps in the foreclosure process and helps homeowners in NYC understand their legal rights and options to keep their homes. https://www.legalaidnyc.org/

The Natural Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501© non-profit international environmental advocacy group which was founded in 1970, the NRDC has over 3 million members, with online activities nationwide, and a staff of about 700 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts. CUP collaborated with NRDC  to create Breathe Easier at Home, a guide that lets tenants have the right to live in a safe and healthy home and how to hold public housing management accountable. https://www.nrdc.org/

students from There’s No Business Like Small Business

Students from the School for Legal Studies in class worked with CUP and Teaching Artist Sam Holleran on an Urban Investigation that investigated the future of small businesses in NYC. 

Mahkeddah Thompson

Mahkeddah Thompson is a two time Public Access Design alum. Thompson works at Housing Court Answers, a group that provides eviction prevention services to pro se litigants in NYC Housing Courts. Thompson is a passionate social justice, crochet and roots reggae records. She runs a small handmade business, Konjo Crochet.

Thumb

Thumb is a graphic design office that works on both commissioned and speculative projects, usually in the areas of architecture and urbanism. They collaborated with CUP on The Cargo Chain MPP.

Phillip Tiongson

Phillip Tiongson is a founder of Potion, a design and technology firm that employs the latest technology to create smart, delightful interactions. A leader in the field of interaction design, Phillip has worked for the past decade creating interactive installations for every setting from high-traffic museums and public spaces, to intimate lounges and private dining rooms, to ubiquitous mobile apps. He combines his training from the MIT Media Lab with his MFA from Columbia University in Film Directing to bring the craft of storytelling together with the toolbox of a software engineer.

Annie Tor

Annie is one of CUP’s fall 2020 interns. Originally from the Bay Area, she studies Engineering and Design at Olin College in Massachusetts. She’s interested in exploring how art and design can help people understand different realities, as well as how we experience technology and its role in our world. She aims to create things that prioritize people. In her spare time, she can be found making clothes, writing letters, and slowly cultivating a mullet. She’s very excited to be learning from and working with CUP!

Mark Torrey

Mark Torrey was a Community Education Program Manager for CUP, working on Making Policy Public and the Envisioning Development Toolkits. Previously he spent a good long while working as an Information Technology Specialist (computer guy) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, but then decided to firm up his understanding of cities by getting a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. He wears his pants in the Highwater fashion, which most of the CUP staff find to be ridiculous, but it keeps his pants from getting caught in the bike chain.

He was a CUP staff member 2011-2020.

Chat Travieso

Chat Travieso is a Brooklyn-based artist, designer, and educator. He creates architectural public art projects that reinforce social bonds in our public spaces. His most recent works were commissioned by or organized in collaboration with The Architectural League of New York, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Lower East Side Waterfront Alliance, Design Trust for Public Space, and the NYC Department of Transportation. He has worked as a teaching artist with the Center for Urban Pedagogy and Hester Street Collaborative. He is currently a Smack Mellon Studio Program Artist and a recipient of a New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship as part of his Smack Mellon residency.

Valeria Treves

Valeria Treves is the Executive Director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), a community based organization and workers center in Jackson Heights Queens that works to ensure that new immigrants can build social, political and economic power in their communities and beyond. As Executive Director, Valeria has overseen the transition of NICE into a member led organization streamlining programs and campaigns to more closely fit the needs of the member base, newly arrived low wage undocumented immigrants working in the unregulated sectors of the construction, domestic work, and service industries. Prior to coming toNICE in 2006, Valeria worked as an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College-CUNY and was an adjunct organizer for the PSC-CUNY. Before that she worked as a Middle School Teacher in Oakland, California and was active in teacher organizing in the fight against high-stakes standardized testing. Valeria holds an M.A. in Geography from Hunter College-CUNY and a B.A. in Development Studies from UC Berkeley. Valeria is a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and grew up in Mexico, Argentina and Los Angles, CA.

Rich Tu

Rich Tu is an award winning designer and art director working in New York City. He is a recipient of the prestigious Young Guns award through the Art Directors Club, and has exhibited at galleries and festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Miami. Commercially, his clients include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Business Week, Alfa Romeo, Bombay Sapphire, G-Shock, Converse, NPR, NorthFace, Purple Label, Skype, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Fuse TV, and Bravo TV, among others. Rich is a graduate of the Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts.

Teachers Unite

Teachers Unite is an independent membership organization of public school educators supporting collaboration between parents, youth and educators fighting for social justice. TU organizes teachers around human rights issues that impact New York City public school communities, and offers collaborative leadership training for educators, parents and youth.  We believe that schools can only be transformed when educators work with and learn from parents and youth to achieve social and economic justice. TU collaborated with CUP on the MPP “Schools Are Us.”