Caroline Lavoie Studies Urban Planning at Fulbright in Baku, Azerbaijan

Like most people, Caroline Lavoie had to look up Azerbaijan on a map when she first heard there was a Fulbright opening there. Azerbaijan shares borders with Russia to the north, Iran to the south, and Armenia and Georgia to the west.

“I knew little about the country before going there the summer of 2023,” Lavoie said. “I was listed as a Fulbright specialist in urban planning, and it was just serendipitous that the position and the September-October time frame worked out.”

The Fulbright Program was created to allow academics to explore different parts of the world safely and to build lasting connections between people in different countries by building mutual understanding among nations. The organization’s slogan is, “World Learning: Education, Development and Exchange.” It is a U.S. government-led partnership among 160 countries meant to build lasting connections among people in different countries by building mutual understanding.

Lavoie is a professor in Utah State University’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and specializes in urban design. She spent most of her four weeks at Azerbaijan Architecture and Construction University in Baku. The city is located on the Caspian Sea and is home to 2.1 million people, which is about 30 percent of the country’s population.

The city of Baku, like many U.S. cities, is looking at new concepts of urban design to handle growth.

“It has post-Soviet elements along with striking modern architecture that defines the coastal skyline,” Lavoie said.

If you look up photos of Baku, the three Flame Towers stand out. The towers were designed to look like flames or natural gas fires. The Flame Towers, completed in 2012 symbolize natural gas, the country’s largest export. The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center has a distinctive wave appearance that flows into public spaces.

Lavoie co-taught several classes in an urban planning and architecture department specializing in sustainable urban design. About the language barrier, she said, “I tried the Google Translate app, but I still needed a lot of help.”

Drawing and sketching are among Lavoie’s artistic and academic strengths, and she used those skills along with photography to convey urban design concepts to her students and fellow faculty. Lavoie sketched many aspects of the Baku public spaces as she took students around the city. Also, other tools such as Google Earth Pro, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn helped with communications.

“They teach classes in three tracks, English, Russian and Azerbaijani,” she said. “So I was able to teach some of the classes in English and had the help of someone translating for me in the classes not offered in English.”

Though most technology was available there, Lavoie said there were some challenges with things we take for granted such as printers and projectors. The college structure there is more staid than in the U.S. There were classrooms, but no studio spaces where students could work in a design-focused program like urban planning, which made it challenging to share and discuss work in progress.

It was an interesting time to be in Baku, as the city is undertaking a redevelopment master plan to manage changes that come with major growth, Lavoie said.

One thing she hopes to bring back to students at USU are some urban design concepts not based on a grid system. Baku is very walkable with public spaces integrated throughout. Among the features she found unique were the pedestrian bridges and underpasses that allow people to safely cross busy roadways. She was also impressed with the dense tree-planting areas that have become urban forests.

Lavoie said she plans to continue communicating with students in Baku and would like to work on a common urban design studio project with students there and at USU. Lavoie has also done sabbaticals and academic programs in Mexico, Australia, and India as well as many faculty-led trips for students to various European locations.

Learn more about the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at laep.usu.edu.