Urban Research (UR) is a book series devoted to speculation about the conditions and the future of the city. We publish projects ranging from the practical to the utopian, from community-generated plans for neighborhood transformation to outstanding outcomes from academic studios, visionary speculation by designers burning the midnight oil, and collations of arguments about the most urgent issues of urban growth and survival. Our remit is to get the word out about solutions that exceed the imaginative reach of "official" planning and design and to encourage the most vigorous debate.

Michael Sorkin, president of Terreform, is an architect and urbanist whose practice spans design, criticism, and pedagogy. He is principal of Michael Sorkin Studio, an international design practice. Since 2000, Sorkin has been distinguished professor of architecture and director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design at City College of New York. He is the architecture critic for The Nation, contributing editor at Architectural Record, and author or editor of twenty books. Sorkin is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the recipient of the 2013 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Mind Award, and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow.

Maria Cecilia Fagel, executive editor of UR, is an architecture/urban researcher, critic, and writer. She has a BArch from the University of San Carlos, Cebu; a BBA in Design Management from Parsons, The New School for Design, and a MFA in Design Criticism from the School of Visual Arts. Prior to Terreform, she was a market research analyst for the New York City-based advisor to Dentsu Japan. Her work was published in The Architect’s Newspaper, Verlag form GmbH & Co. KG, and by Cooper-Hewitt’s DesignFile.

Isaac Gertman, design director of UR, is a graphic designer and educator. He leads design direction at the Independent Group, and is a member of the full-faculty at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). He previously taught at Parsons, The New School for Design; City College, in the Graduate Department of Landscape Architecture; and Rhode Island School of Design. He was named a Public Access Design Fellow by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (2014) and was Design Fellow of the Wassaic Project (2013–2014). His work has been recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Society of Publication Designers. His writing has been published in venues such as Print and Design Bureau, Gertman received an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a BFA from MICA.

Deen Sharp, senior editor UR and codirector of Terreform, and a post-doctoral fellow at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the coeditor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Urban Research, 2016).

Vyjayanthi V. Rao is senior editor of UR and codirector of Terreform. She held research and teaching positions at The New School and at University of Chicago, where she also received her doctorate. Her current work focuses on cities after globalization, specifically on intersections of urban planning, design, art, violence, and speculation.

Nic Cavell, senior editor of UR, recently completed the translation and editing of the UR book, Letters to the Leaders of China: Kongjian Yu and the Future of the Chinese City. He is currently working on our Open Gaza project, and is a contributing member of the New York City (Steady) State editorial team. He is a graduate of Brown University.

Hilary Huckins-Weidner, associate editor and development manager, is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts. She is managing editor of forthcoming UR book, Gregory Ain: Low-Cost Modern Housing and the Construction of a Social Landscape. Her personal work—be it writing, editing, art, or curating—explores the roles of gender and art in built environments and contemporary media.

Dalia Stoniene, communications consultant, has over a decade of publicity and communications experience in design, architecture, art, and publishing fields. Known for stellar project management, Stoniene brings authenticity, clarity, and originality to all forms of creative communications.

UR Advisory Board: Tom Angotti (Hunter College CUNY); Kazi Ashraf (University of Hawaii); M. Christine Boyer (Princeton University); Teddy Cruz (Estudio Teddy Cruz); Mike Davis (UC Riverside); Ana Maria Duran Calisto (Estudio AO); Edward Dimendberg, UC Irvine; Anthony Fontenot (Woodbury School of Architecture); Susanna Hecht (UCLA); John Hill (New York Institute of Technology); Walter Hood (UC Berkeley); Cindi Katz (Graduate Center CUNY); Romi Khosla (Romi Khosla Design Studio); Thom Mayne (Morphosis Architects); Suha Ozkan (World Architecture Community); Quilian Riano (DSGN AGNC); Colin Robinson (OR Books); Jonathan Solomon (School of the Art Institute of Chicago); Tau Tavengwa (African Center for Cities); Srdjan Weiss (Normal Architecture Office); Eyal Weizman (Goldsmiths College); Mabel Wilson (Columbia GSAPP); Kongjian Yu (Peking University)

Terreform is an urban research studio and advocacy group founded in 2005 by Michael Sorkin. Its mission is to investigate the forms, policies, technologies, and practices that will yield equitable, sustainable, and beautiful cities for our urbanizing planet. Terreform works as a "friend of the court" dedicated to raising urban expectations and to disseminating innovative and progressive ideas as widely as possible. We undertake self-initiated investigations into both local and global issues and make research available to community and other organizations to support independent environmental and planning initiatives.