Begun in 2018, the Havana Studio is an ongoing collaborative research project supported by The New School and Pratt Institute in New York, and the Ciudad Universitaria José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE) Technical Institute in Havana, Cuba. The project aims to conduct a visual analysis of self-help constructions within the historic fabric of Centro Habana through a 1,000-building photographic survey.
I participated in the building survey while living in Havana from January to March 2023. Upon returning to New York, I joined a team of four graduate students at Pratt Institute to conduct a GIS analysis of the data we collected in Havana. The project was supervised by former Commissioner for the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Anthony Tung and funded by grants from the Studley Fund and Friends of Havana.
The more than 7,000 photographs taken in the field were organized and used to conduct a visual analysis of street fronts, as well as a quantitative analysis of historic patrimony in Centro Habana.
