News

November 2023SITU Research's Brad Samuels presents at BUILD with Mapbox

Brad Samuels, Partner at SITU, participates in a live panel on What AI Means for Location Strategy at Mapbox's BUILD conference.

November 2023SITU's Brad Samuels participates in lecture, "The Education of an Architect," at National Arts Club

Distinguished professors present a panel exploring the intersection of architecture, design, and pedagogy.

May 2023SITU at RightsCon 2023: Beyond Open Source

As part of this year’s RightsCon, we're excited to co-host the conversation, “Beyond Open Source,” which brings together panelists and attendees to co-establish what constitutes a holistic vision of human rights investigations, including an array of practices in which OSINT, and technology in general, is de-centered in service of a collaborative, multidisciplinary model for making human rights claims. Co-organized with The University of Chicago Law School's Global Human Rights Clinic.

May 2023SITU Research's Recent Projects, Announcements and Upcoming Programs

Historic NYPD settlements, new reporting on Russian attacks, closing arguments at the ICC, and more.

March 2023SITU Research's Bora Erden presents at Media Forensics Symposium

Bora Erden, Technical Lead of SITU Research, participates in a panel on "Forensic Practice and Its Critiques" at Dartmouth University's Media Forensics Symposium.

December 2022Bora Erden, Technical Lead of SITU Research, Presents at "Towards Greater Accountability With Open-Source Information" Panel

SITU Research's Bora Erden presents at a Geneva Academy panel on the use of open-source information in investigations of international crimes and serious human rights violations.

October 2022Beyond the Frame: Exhibition and Lecture

Partner Brad Samuels and researcher Gauri Bahuguna present a lecture at The Cooper Union on methodologies for event reconstruction, alongside the opening of an exhibition of SITU Research's recent visual investigations.

June 2022SITU Research launches Codec, a collaborative tool for managing video evidence

On June 7, 2022, SITU Research will hold a workshop to release a beta version of Codec, a newly developed digital platform for managing, analyzing and presenting video evidence.

March 2022SITU Research joins European Human Rights Advocacy Centre panel

Partner Brad Samuels presents alongside experts in the fields of human rights law and open source research at European Human Rights Advocacy Centre’s “Challenges of Open Source Investigations in Human Rights Litigation” panel.

September 2021SITU Research joins International Committee of the Red Cross panel on forensic technology

Partner Brad Samuels presents methodologies and emerging tech tools used in forensic archaeology at the ICRC’s roundtable event, part of their Digital Dilemmas Debate series.

June 2021SITU Research organizes panel on innovation in investigative human rights reporting for RightsCon 2021

SITU Research convenes a panel of experts to discuss “The Anatomy of a Visual Investigation: Innovation in Human Rights and Investigative Reporting” for the 10th anniversary of RightsCon.

April 2021Sharing ‘Multidisciplinary Spatial Workflows’ with Rutgers’s landscape architecture students

SITU presents to students in Rutgers University’s Department of Landscape Architecture, sharing current work and processes in each of our divisions, and speaking to how our multidisciplinary approach reinforces the creative and social impact of our work.

March 2021Exploring surveillance and agency in the era of 3D data and 5G broadband

Director of Research Brad Samuels joins a panel hosted by MIT’s Transmedia Storytelling Initiative, focused on the ethical constraints and opportunities presented with the acceleration of 3D mapping capabilities and 5G broadband service.

March 2021SITU shares multidisciplinary practice with landscape architecture students at UPenn

Andrew Emmet and Bora Erden introduce landscape architecture students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design to our Studio, Research and Fabrication divisions.

February 2021Director of Research Brad Samuels speaks at Harvard’s 2021 RealityxDesign conference

Student organizations at Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard Business School host RealityxDesign—a conference exploring how design shapes the multiple, blended realities that we move through everyday. Brad Samuels joins the panel of “Constructing Reality”, aimed at challenging the value of designers reinterpreting and reimagining the present.

February 2021SITU Research presents reconstruction methodologies to KSU’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative

SITU Research has recently shifted its focus to investigating police violence and excessive use of force against protesters in the U.S. This presentation explores how our investigations have leveraged citizen documentation of each event and merged it with digital reconstruction techniques to isolate and analyze key interactions from multiple perspectives and spatial contexts.

January 2021SITU hosts virtual First Friday with the Architectural League

As part of the Architectural League of New York’s First Friday series, we are hosting a virtual tour of our practice and latest projects in studio, research and fabrication.

September 2020SITU Research joins virtual panel discussion on “Digital Evidence and Police Brutality”

Researcher Bora Erden discusses recent work at this virtual panel examining effective techniques for using digital evidence to litigate human rights violations, hosted by the UCLA Law's Promise Institute for Human Rights and The National Lawyers' Guild-LA.

May 2020SITU joins AIA Brooklyn panel to discuss how Brooklyn’s design community is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

Alongside the Van Alen Institute and Bjarke Ingels Group, SITU explores how architecture and urban design can help NYC strengthen public health in the post-COVID era, and in the process, deepen the city’s resiliency for decades to come.

May 2020SITU presents at NYC Builds BIO+ event on NYC’s response to COVID-19

NYC Builds BIO+ hosts a virtual roundtable on how professionals across the life science, construction and real estate industries have shifted their businesses to crisis relief. As part of the discussion, SITU presents strategies for improving COVID testing centers and distributing them more broadly across the five boroughs.

January 2020SITU Research joins UCLA roundtable on “Cultural Destruction, Technology, and the Future of Human Rights Practice”

Director of Research Brad Samuels joins Andras Riedlmayer, Hariz Halilovich and Robert Farley for roundtable presentations and discussion at UCLA, centered on exploring the use of geospatial technologies in human rights documentation.

October 2019SITU speaks at Dartmouth’s Neukom Institute for Computational Science

Partner Brad Samuels shares SITU Research’s recent casework at the intersection of design, technology and human rights.

October 2019Partner Brad Samuels presents at UC Berkeley’s Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning Lecture Series

Highlighting a range of recent projects in Ukraine, Mali, Nicaragua, the U.S. and elsewhere, this lecture discusses SITU Research's work at the intersection of design, technology and human rights.

August 2019The Alaska Design Forum features SITU in their multi-city lecture series, titled Polar Shift

Founding Partner Brad Samuels spends a week in Alaska, giving lectures about SITU’s interdisciplinary business model at cities across the state.

May 2019Partner Brad Samuels joins international workshop on the destruction of cultural property during conflict

Bringing together practitioners across fields, this two-day event explores how evidence is gathered and used to prosecute intentional attacks on cultural property.

April 2019SITU Research participates in a multi-disciplinary roundtable on open source investigations at The Hague

Organized by Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, this symposium is part of an ongoing initiative to create international protocols for open source investigations.

March 2019SITU hosts Cooper Union Spring Trustees and Alumni Reception

SITU cohosts the Cooper Union's Spring Trustees and Alumni Reception alongside fellow Cooper alumni and Brooklyn Navy Yard neighbor Crye Precision.

February 2019SITU Research presents work on human rights violations in Nicaragua at Columbia University

SITU Research joins members of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) to discuss their report on the violent repression of public protests in Nicaragua in April and May of 2018.

January 2019Partner Brad Samuels presents SITU’s interdisciplinary work at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture

As part of the Spring 2019 Lecture Series at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture, Director of Research Brad Samuels presents the interdisciplinary work of SITU Research reflecting on the expanded agency of the architect and the implications of technology across different disciplines.

December 2018SITU shares its interdisciplinary practice as part of Harvard GSD lecture series

Partner Brad Samuels joins Harvard Graduate School of Design for a second year to unpack SITU's interdisciplinary approach to architecture.

October 2018SITU discusses new tools for human rights accountability at UC Berkeley

Director of Research Brad Samuels speaks at UC Berkeley about harnessing the power of technology towards the advancement of human rights accountability.

October 2018SITU presents at Georgia Tech's Digital Building Lab Symposium

As technology is increasingly shaping our experience of the built environment, Partner Brad Samuels presents how SITU's interdisciplinary practice leverages digital and physical design methods to shape the built environment.

October 2018SITU speaks at The University of Utah’s School of Architecture, presenting new metrics for success within the field

As part of their School of Architecture Lecture Series on ETHOS, SITU discusses the role of user empowerment in architecture projects.

October 2018SITU hosts Workplace Wednesday event with Center for Architecture

We host a Workplace Wednesday tour of our fabrication shop and design studio as part of Center for Architecture's Archtober event series.

October 2018SITU Research presents work at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute

SITU Research is invited by Security Force Monitor to take part in the 20th anniversary event series "Resist | Decolonize | Create" at Columbia Law School's Human Rights Institute.

September 2018MIT Design Club: A Conversation with SITU

SITU joins the MIT Design Club for an overview of SITU’s interdisciplinary practice and a broader discussion on design-thinking as an opportunity for entrepreneurship and problem-solving across a wide range of industries.

August 2018Partner Brad Samuels speaks at Columbia Law School with the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and AAAS

Joining the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program, Brad is included in a presentation and dialogue about the future of geospatial evidence in international human rights litigation.

April 2018Partner Brad Samuels speaks at the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting

Joining a panel on new technologies for criminal and human rights investigations, Brad presents SITU Research’s interdisciplinary work at the nexus of advocacy, fact-finding and technology.

November 2017Lecture on SITU's interdisciplinary practice at Harvard GSD

SITU’s Brad Samuels will give a lecture on SITU’s interdisciplinary approach to architecture at Harvard on Monday, November 27th. Sharing SITU’s story as an alternative firm model, Brad will explore how this nontraditional perspective has informed the firm’s output, staff and vision.

November 2017SITU Partner presents new architectural solutions for commercial real estate at WORKTECH 17 Toronto

SITU’s Director of Design, Aleksey Lukyanov-Cherny shares new approaches to updating and activating spaces within commercial buildings.

October 2017Partner Brad Samuels presents at Yale University Art Gallery

What role can the visual arts play in fact-finding and reporting on human-rights issues? This question will guide Brad Samuels’ lecture at Yale University Art Gallery on October 12th. Presenting casework from SITU’s research division, Brad will discuss emerging methods, tools and technologies for visual and spatial analyses of human-rights violations, focusing on the interdisciplinary nature of these efforts.

March 2017SITU presents L+ project at SXSW

Our L+ project to re-envision NYC libraries competes in SXSWedu's Learn by Design competition. 

December 2016Partner Brad Samuels delivers keynote at the American Association for Advancement of Science

AAAS—the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society— invited SITU partner Brad Samuels to speak at their annual Human Rights Day breakfast in Washington, D.C.

October 2016SITU wins the Center for Architecture's First Annual Pumpkitecture Contest

Our "concrete pumpkin void" earned a "Pritzker Pumpkin" from the AIANY.

October 2016AIA — "Architects, designers thrive in Shark Tank-like competition"

The AIA reports on SITU Research competing at SXSWEco with our Spatial Practice for Evidence and Advocacy initiative.

October 2016SITU Research earns runner-up prize at SXSWEco

We presented our Spatial Practice as Evidence and Advocacy (SPEA) initiative at conference's Place by Design competition.