Cool Course: Planning and Design Issues in Development

An aerial view shows homes destroyed in the Eaton Fire along with lots cleared of debris on March 28, 2025 in Altadena, California. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that they have cleared debris from 490 homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades Fires so far. Some homeowners are opting to have their lots cleared by private contractors. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Even under the best of circumstances, cities are beasts of labyrinthine complexity. But what happens when a crisis decimates a huge swath of a densely populated area-for example, as the Eaton Fire did to Altadena, California on January 7, 2025?

In an area with a population of around 42,000 spread across roughly 8.5 square miles, the disaster killed 18 people and destroyed approximately 9,400 structures including homes, businesses, schools, and houses of worship. How to rebuild is the question now facing residents and politicians, and this semester, students in Rob Daurio and Jeremy Alan Siegel's class at the School of Professional Studies' Schack Institute of Real Estate pivoted from their focus on New York to research some novel solutions to Altadena's complex problem.

"A lot of cities went through processes of redlining," says Daurio of the practice of lenders discriminating against neighborhoods with large populations of racial or ethnic minorities. "Altadena became a place where the Black community in Los Angeles had a space to purchase homes and create a life for themselves." The Eaton Fire destroyed or damaged nearly half of the Black homes in Altadena.

This section of Los Angeles represents "the risk climate change brings to communities of color particularly, and the risks of post-disaster market dynamics that might further create displacement pressure in the wake of wildfires," notes Siegel, a native Angeleno. As a case study for their master's degree-level class, "It was a natural place to look at the intersection between climate risk, housing affordability, and displacement as three key challenges facing cities today."

The two adjunct lecturers first met when they both worked for the Rem Koolhaas (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2008. Today, their two firms-WXY Studio (Daurio) and Bjarke Ingels Group (Siegel)-are collaborating on several projects including reconstruction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Jeremy Alan Siegel and Rob Daurio, instructors for "Planning and Design Issues in Development," where students researched approaches to rebuilding after the Eaton Fire for their midterm project. Photo by Tracey Friedman

The two longtime friends and colleagues brought their industry experience to the classroom when they developed "Altadena is Not for Sale," the title of the course's experimental, and experiential, midterm project. "We knew that we didn't want students to sit around a table drawing grand plans for a neighborhood without considering the complex interplay between residents, government actors, non-profits, the insurance industry, and other sectors," says Siegel. "So we decided to simulate that interplay as an exercise in itself."

Students were first tasked with considering a list of baseline questions covering a wide range of topics related to the catastrophe: Where are people who were displaced presently? How much longer do they plan to stay there? Who is paying for their housing (residents themselves out of pocket, FEMA)? How much did individuals lose and how much will they get from insurance or FEMA? Who wants to move back and rebuild, and who doesn't? What construction methods would expedite the process and make it more affordable (prefab, modular, other)? What are the regulatory hurdles? What is the future fire risk?

Next, each student selected from one of 15 topics to make their focus, including people, businesses, schools, employment, housing supplies, transportation, open space, zoning, fire, earthquake, and flood risk.

They needed to research that aspect of Altadena and hypothesize what the fire's impact would be on their chosen area.

The third step was selecting a role to play at a mock town hall: resident; business owner; government official (county, state, or federal); developer (for-profit or not-for-profit); community advocate; architect/planner; or tenant union rep. For their selected character, they needed to outline their part in the aftermath of the tragedy, what tools and/or powers they had, their greatest concerns, and the outcomes they most wanted to avoid and achieve.

On the night of the midterm, students assumed their roles and, relying on their research, advocated from varying positions for their vision for a recovered Altadena. Guests in attendance-developers, engineers, and Schack's Associate Dean Marc Norman, himself an urban planner and community developer-offered their reviews and critiques. Three of these panelists had direct connections to Altadena.

The goal of the midterm "was to introduce the actors and try to get into their shoes," notes Daurio. The results exceeded the lecturers' expectations. "It was a super-dynamic dialogue," says Siegel, "and the fact that we had folks in the room with real stake in Altadena meant that the class was learning from them, but they were also learning from the class-and are likely to bring insights back into their rebuilding efforts in the community.

The final will delve even deeper, "trying to come up with some real, concrete proposals," says Daurio. Students have been instructed to form partnerships, and then to make in-depth project proposals. By doing so, "we hope to explore the real practicalities and challenges facing residents as they rebuild, but also envision a number of opportunities that might inspire our panelists, who will be rejoining, and others in rebuilding resiliently, but also equitably, sustainably, and with civic ambition," says Siegel.

And there indeed are "some really exciting concepts coming out of this class," says Daurio, such as "rethinking the insurance system, resilience hubs, fire breaks in novel ways, and coordinating that with landscape."

Beyond ideas for Altadena, Daurio and Siegel wanted to demonstrate to their students the importance of collaboration. "The ability to synthesize multiple inputs, and visualize potential futures, puts the field in a useful position to help communities and policymakers make decisions about the built environment," says Siegel. "We wanted to explore that potential with our students."