Reclaiming Power and Ground: Two Projects in Urban Repair

This talk brings together two projects that frame repair as a collective, spatial, and political act—across energy systems and the urban ground. Energies of Repair: Visualizing Community Power in NYC by Andrea Johnson and Ashley Dawson examines how grassroots coalitions are reshaping New York’s energy infrastructure, using design and visual practice to make struggles for public power, environmental justice, and democratic control visible. DEPAVE: An Ecological Repair of the Ground by Friends Making Work (Christine Giorgio, Amelyn Ng, and Gabriel Vergara) explores depaving as a strategy of designed subtraction, reimagining streets, sidewalks, and surplus pavement as sites for ecological resilience, social repair, and new forms of urban infrastructure. The projects will be on view at the Center for Architecture from May 7—September 2 as part of their Lab residency program, which elevates underrepresented perspectives in architecture and design. 

 Speakers: 
Christine Giorgio, Designer and Filmmaker; Co-founder, Friends Making Work 
Andrea Johnson, AICP, Planner, Collective for Community, Culture, and Environment 
 
Moderator:  
Mark Gardner, AIA, NOMA, 2026 President, AIA New York; Principal, Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects 

About the Speakers: 
Mark L. Gardner, AIA, NOMA, is a Principal at Jaklitsch / Gardner Architects (J/GA), an award-winning design practice and studio that works across scales from product design to interiors to buildings. His firm has won an AIA National Honor Award and numerous AIANY, NOMA and Architizer design awards. Gardner is the Assistant Professor of Architectural Practice and Society at the School of the Constructed Environments, Parsons School of Design / the New School. He is the past Director of the Graduate Program in Architecture. Gardner is on the Board of Advisors for the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, where he advocates for issues of diversity and inclusion. He also currently serves on the Board of Youth Design Center (YDC), a nonprofit on a mission to reduce the number of disconnected youth in Brownsville, Brooklyn by lowering their barriers to entry to the STEAM professions and increasing their relevant experience in the innovation economy. He is a Vanguard Member of the Van Alen Institute’s Board of Trustees and a Fellow of the Urban Design Forum. Gardner is the 2026 President of AIA New York and is a Past Co-Chair and current member of the AIANY Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which he helped to restart with Venesa Alicea. 

Before pivoting to architecture, Christine Giorgio was active in the NYC independent film scene as a director, producer and editor working across documentary and fiction formats. Her films have been recognized by international film festivals and nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Giorgio’s design practice synthesizes narrative concepts with spatial design, employing experimental approaches to excavate material truths. In addition to being a co-founding member of the design collective Friends Making Work, she also works with clients on commercial and residential projects through her design practice, Means of Egress. Recent projects include a hemp-lime thermal retrofit in NYC and a new single-family residence, designed in collaboration with Gabriel Vergara, currently under construction on Long Island. Christine earned her M.Arch from Columbia University, where she was the recipient of the Lowenfish Memorial Prize. 

Andrea Johnson, AICP, is a landscape designer, planner, researcher, and educator. She is currently a member of the Collective for Community, Culture and Environment, where she works at the intersection of climate adaptation and urban landscape infrastructure, with a commitment to collaborating with communities to address complex socio-environmental challenges. She held fellowships with the Center for Architecture, the Regional Plan Association, and the Landscape Architecture Foundation, contributing to Public Power NY’s campaign and a planning effort to envision Rikers Island as a repurposed green-infrastructure hub. Previously, as Research Director at the Terreform Center for Advanced Urban Research, Johnson partnered with neighborhood activists to develop alternative development studies and counter-plans. She was the lead designer of Home Grown, the first volume of Terreform’s NYC [Steady] State series—a speculative proposal for the city’s food systems outlining strategies from adaptive urban agriculture to local waste processing.