Claudia Bernasconi

Claudia  Bernasconi

Director, Graduate Architecture Program
Professor

Claudia Bernasconi
Contact Info:
Campus: McNichols Campus
Building: Loranger Architecture
Phone: 313-578-0551
Claudia Bernasconi
Areas of Expertise:
Design Pedagogy
Engaged Learning
Critical Service-Learning
Environmental Aesthetics
Urban Landscape Perception
Transit and Pedestrian Transportation Studies

Degrees

  • Post-professional Master in Design, La Sapienza University in Rome, Italy
  • M.Arch, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre
  • B.S.A., Università degli Studi di Roma Tre

Biography

Claudia Bernasconi is a professor of Architecture and Community Development at University of Detroit Mercy, and a registered architect in the Ordine deli Architetti of Rome, Italy. At the School of Architecture & Community Development (SACD), Professor Bernasconi serves as director of the Graduate Architecture program, coordinates the graduate thesis studios and teaches the Thesis Research Methods and the Thesis Preparation courses. She is also the faculty advisor for the Dichotomy Journal, a nationally award-winning student-led journal of SACD, advancing the mission of the school and the discourse on design, architecture, urbanism and community development. Bernasconi is the recipient of the 2024 UDM Faculty Excellence Award, awarded to the most outstanding faculty member that year based on lifetime achievements and activities during the past five years in teaching, research and service.

Previously, Professor Bernasconi taught multiple graduate electives, with focus on analysis and representation, graphic design, advanced digital fabrication, video-installation and interactive design. Through the years, her main focus in teaching has been critical and engaged learning. Between 2011 and 2019, she designed and led graduate courses focused on engaged learning/critical service-learning that brought graduate Architecture and Community Development students to facilitate design activities in elementary, middle school and high schools in Detroit. When she is not teaching the engaged-learning course, Professor Bernasconi strives to include outreach and real-world projects and opportunities in her courses, including the graphic design course, through which students collaborated in 2020 with Live6 Alliance and local businesses for the development of design concepts and logos. In the past, she has collaborated with the Performing Arts department and the Detroit Mercy Theatre Company to assist with the scenic and video design for the "Autobahn" and "Check Please" productions, bringing students from her studio and electives to work side-by-side with directors, actors, costume designers and stage managers. Prioritizing interdisciplinary collaboration is at the center of Professor Bernasconi’s teaching and research, through collaborations with faculty from the Master of Community Development program, the Detroit Collaborative Design Center, the Psychology program, the Mechanical, Civil and Environmental Engineering programs and the Mathematics program at Detroit Mercy.

Bernasconi’s research interests have developed around two areas of focus over the years: pedagogy and engaged learning in the field of design, and environmental perception and transportation. She worked on Department of Transportation (DOT) and Michigan DOT sponsored research grants, and numerous internal grants, and presented and published in both areas of research. Her studies include mix-methods research on transformative and engaged learning, as well as perception studies on automated people movers, walkability, landscape evaluation through eye-tracking technology, and transit public opinion studies exploring correlations between opinions, behaviors, and support for transit. She was the Editor-in-Chief of the EDRA52 Conference proceedings, and also serves as external reviewer for various journals, and numerous research conferences.

In addition to her work at Detroit Mercy, Bernasconi has served in board of directors of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), and also served as chair for the EDRA/PPS Great Places Award committee, coordinating an international design competition on placemaking through practice, research and art, and chair of the 52nd EDRA international conference.

Through her work as an academic at Detroit Mercy and her service, as well as in her teaching and research, Bernasconi strives to educate towards, promote and enact ideas of equality, social justice and sustainability. Bernasconi joined Detroit Mercy in 2009. She appreciates the mission-driven, value-based approach at the University, as well as the small class teaching and small group discussions with students at the School of Architecture & Community Development. In her "free time" she is a mother of four wonderful children, and wife to a dedicated husband.