Gia Wolff, an architect and professor at the Pratt Institute, brought other countries’ Mardi Gras celebration to University students at the College of Art and Design on Wednesday. 
Wolff’s research on the architecture of parade floats, titled “Floating Cities: Community Based Architecture of Parade Floats,” looks into the preparation and construction of the floats seen in Carnival.  
Samba schools, which are similar to the krewes of New Orleans, begin the building and preparation of Carnival floats a year in advance. A full-time design director is hired by each school to create complex, dynamic structures that are often only completely assembled minutes before the parade starts, Wolff said.  
Wolff started her research this year after receiving the Wheelwright Prize, a $100,000 research fellowship, from the Harvard                                        University Graduate School of Design. She said her presentation Wednesday showed only the beginning of the work. 
Wolff plans to look into the design of floats in Italy, India, Spain and Brazil. Carnival is a large part of the cultural identity of the people living in Rio De Janeiro. With 70 percent of the country’s tourists coming specifically for Carnival, it’s also a large economic force. She said her research has evolved into a larger project than anticipated.
The samba schools in Rio are divided into three tiers, with the top two parading in the Sambadrome, a specially designed linear arena. The third tier samba schools parade within the city and receive less funding than the others. Many of the samba schools have buildings that serve as community centers and raise money for the floats, Wolff said.
Carnival floats are not the same without the people, Wolff said, and the elaborate costumes go hand-in-hand with the overall design of each float, but beads and other goods are not traditionally thrown to parade spectators.
Wolff said she wants to look at Carnival floats from the inside out and follow the process of their design over the course of this year in preparation for Carnival 2015. 
The floats in the Sambadrome must be able to move under a camera platform while entering the arena and under an archway to exit, increasing the creativity of the float design architecturally, Wolff said. 
Wolff said as an architect, she is interested in creating dynamic architecture in her own work, something spurred on by her interest in Carnival floats.