The Milan Lounge Chair, designed by Fellow Matthias Sauerbruch and his partner Louisa Hutton, was recently named the “Best of the Best” in the German Design Council’s 2011 Interior Innovation Awards. We’ve been thinking about remodeling the IfUD HQ…perhaps we’ve found a good excuse!
Atlanta-based Developer/Architect and Fellow John C. Portman, known for massive projects like his hometown’s Peachtree Center (pictured at left), Detroit’s Renaissance Center, and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, was presented with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Americas Lodging Investment Summit in San Diego.
Congratulations are in order! It was recently announced that Fellow William Kelley, formerly the Director of Economic Development at New York City’s Union Square Partnership, will move a few blocks south to take over the recently-vacated helm of the Village Alliance as its new Executive Director.
We’ve been hearing quite a bit about the humble art of pencil sketching lately. After sharing a fascinating Huffington Post article on the subject (which included a quip from Fellow Ken Drucker) on the Institute’s Twitter page, a lively debate took place amongst our followers that pitted pencils against pixels. And tomorrow, Board Chair Michael Sorkin will join a panel, Architecture and the Dea[r]th of Drawing, at the Center for Architecture on February 22, at which he will discuss the place of drawing in contemporary architectural practice with Peter Macalpa, Lebbeus Woods, Nina Rappaport, and artist Steven Talasnik.
Engineering firm WSP Flack + Kurtz, led by Fellow David Cooper, was recently received the Best Overall Sustainable Design Award for 2010 Best Practices. Cooper’s firm is being recognized (along with project partners Ratcliff Architects) by the Energy Efficiency Partnership Program for Higher Education Buildings for the design for the California-based De Anza College Mediated Learning Center (pictured at left). Congratulations from the IfUD community to David and everyone at WSP Flack + Kurtz!
Developer Douglas Durst revealed the hotly-anticipated renderings of his W57 development (pictured at left), which is being designed by Danish rising star Bjarke Ingels; Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote a rave review in the Times for Patron Steven Holl’s design for a new Long Island City library; Chicago Tribune critic Blair Kamin spoke with Helmut Jahn about the unique pleasures and perils of airport terminal design; the University of Pennsylvania recently broke ground on the Michael Manfredi-designed Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology; Kate Orff’s “oyster-tecture” project has been popping up everywhere recently: in Grist, the Guardian, Metropolis, the PSFK blog, and on TED.com; Gregg Pasquarelli’s SHoP Architects was named as the architect of the first residential tower at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards megadevelopment; Board Member Saskia Sassen made a splash with the cheekily-titled (and highly-enjoyable) article “Talking back to your intelligent city”; and the Architect’s Newspaper took a virtual walk through Claire Weisz’s plans for the revamp of NYC’s Cooper Square/Astor Place, while the Times announced Weisz as the architect for an expansion of Soho’s Drawing Center.
Urban Omnibus will host a benefit party tonight in New York, including an auction featuring work by Linda Pollak (pictured at left); on 2/17, Fellows Bruce Fowle and Jack Nyman will participate in the conference Greening Modernism at Baruch College in Manhattan; Laurie Kerr will speak at the Center for Architecture’s Building Intelligence Project: Think Tank New York on 2/18; and if you missed Gregg Pasquarelli’s recent lecture on SHoP’s current work, the Architectural League has posted a podcast of the talk.
Fellow Richard Dattner’s firm was recently announced as the recipient of one of the General Services Administration’s 2010 Design Awards for the green modernization of the Peter W. Rodino Federal Building in Newark, NJ. Congratulations to Richard and everyone at Dattner Architects!
San Mateo’s Station Park Green development (pictured at left), designed by Karen Alschuler, received an enthusiastic thumbs-up from that city’s Council; Tom Angotti’s column in the Gotham Gazette looks at NYC’s new comprehensive waterfront plan, Vision 2020; the Epoch Times profiled a Thomas Balsley-designed rooftop forest in Lower Manhattan; Metropolis visited the Manhattan office of Craig Dykers’ firm Snøhetta; San Antonio’s KSAT-12 spoke with William Fain about the redesign of HemisFair Park; Kenneth K. Fisher interviewed Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer for CUNY-TV; Kate Orff’s work on “oyster-tecture” was featured in Harvard Design Magazine; in the lead-up to Gregg Pasquarelli’s Architectural League-organized lecture last Wednesday, the League published an extensive interview with the architect; Michael Stepner co-authored a call for planners to articulate a long-term vision for downtown San Diego; and NorthJersey.com talked to June Williamson about how suburbs can be retrofitted to create walkable, urban communities.
Peter Walker will be in Corona Del Mar, CA, on 2/1 to give a public lecture on the landscape elements of plans for the Newport Beach Civic Project; Sheena Wright will be a special guest lecturer at the Town of Hempstead, NYs African American History Month celebration on 2/8; Fellow Jeff Byles will discuss “unbuilding” with IfUD Board President Michael Sorkin in the Woolworth Building (pictured at left) on 2/9 as part of the LMCC’s Access Restricted series; Richard Sennett will give a talk about his new book at Schauspiel Frankfurt on 2/9; and John Hartmann’s “Light Hearted” will be unveiled in Times Square on 2/10.
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