Michael Di Pasquale

Michael Di Pasquale, AIA, AICP is a registered architect and certified urban planner with a small practice in Northampton, Mass. He has extensive experience in the revitalization of America’s “Legacy Cities”, the country’s once great manufacturing centers. He recently collaborated with Davis Square Architects, Boston on the design of a mixed used development in Northampton, Mass.

At UMass Amherst/LARP Michael teaches courses and coordinates community outreach activities. In 2009, Michael founded with Professor Frank Sleegers the UMass Amherst Design Center in Springfield and later, the “Make-It Springfield” collaborative maker space in the city’s downtown business district. These facilities  provide opportunities for both Springfield residents and UMass students and faculty to engage in a range of creative design and “maker activities”.

Michael currently teaches the fall "Research Issues in Sustainable Community Development" and the spring graduate "Urban Design Studio". He has also served as co-instructor for several graduate planning studios. Special interests include community participation and the role it plays in the equitable redevelopment of older industrial cities. His research has included the impact that transportation has on economic development and the influence that geography and race have on the revitalization of America's "legacy" cities.

Michael is a member of the Board of Directors of the Citizen Planner Training Collaborative (CPTC), an outreach program of UMass Extension that provides learning programs for members of Planning Boards and Zoning Boards of Appeal statewide. Other experience includes design studio instructor at the Boston Architectural College, and architecture instructor at several elementary schools including Citizens School, Boston, MA and Stearns School, Pittsfield, MA.

https://designcenter.umass.edu/

Make-It Springfield facebook page

http://www.makeitspringfield.org/

Courses

• SUSTCOMM 205 -   Dynamics of Human Habitation
• SUSTCOMM 394RI -  Research Issues in Sustainable Community Development

Recent News

• Governor Baker Visits Make-it Springfield | UMass Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment Governor Baker visited Make-It Springfield in Springfield Massachusetts on December 11, 2018 to hear about expansion plans for the busy downtown makerspace supported by the UMass Amherst Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and by MassDevelopment.
• Students brighten up dingy downtown lane in display of  ‘tactical urbanism’
• UMass Springfield Design Center students envision downtown's future
• Michael Di Pasquale takes over downtown parklet, Northampton, MA 
• Local Urban Design project featured in Daily Hampshire Gazette
• Extension Assistant Professor Michael Di Pasquale has been working on an Urban Design project with Davis Square Architects to create new infill housing in Northampton, MA.  Read more.
• Make-It Springfield pop-up community 'makerspace' workshop coming to downtown
• Make-It Springfield opens downtown 'makerspace' with do-it-yourself bike clinic
• Making it in Downtown Springfield: Pop-up makers’ space in the city