Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Don’t forget: today we are exactly two weeks out from the deadline for submissions to the By the City / For the City design ideas competition! Thursday, July 14th, is the last day that we will accept entries, up until 12:00 midnight (EST). The competition invites architects, planners, and other urbanists to create design proposals that address the 550 ideas for improving New York City that we crowdsourced from New Yorkers this spring. All entries will be published in An Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York, & exhibited during Urban Design Week, (Sept. 15-20, 2011). Register here today! We can’t wait to see what you come up with…
Tags: By the City For the City, crowdsourcing, deadline, design competition, New York City, Urban Design Week
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Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
In a recent piece about the Barclays Center arena (pictured at left) in the NY Daily News, Gregg Pasquarelli explained that “We wanted it to be something very different from [Madison Square] Garden…[which is] a giant, impenetrable box.” Speaking of the Cooper Union, Board Chair Michael Sorkin enthused: “These are students who unreservedly pursue what I call the ‘Poetics of Architecture,’ which is a rare thing nowadays. The combination of beauty and weirdness that’s produced at Cooper is like no place else on earth.” And at a community meeting about the Waller Creek design competition in Austin, competition manager Don Stastny noted that “It’s rare that you have an opportunity to basically change the face of the city through one of these processes.”
Tags: Architecture, atlantic yards, Austin, Barclays Center, brooklyn, Cooper Union, design competition, design school, Don Stastny, Gregg Pasquarelli, Madison Square Garden, master plan, Michael Sorkin, New York City, Poetics of Architecture, Texas, Waller Creek
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Monday, June 27th, 2011
Congratulations to all three of the Fellows who will be honored next week at the AIANY’s 144th Annual Meeting: Daniel Libeskind with the Medal of Honor, Charles McKinney with an Honorary Membership, and Laurie Kerr with the Public Architect Award; and in the last update we announced that Richard Dattner would be receiving a 2010 Design Award from the City of New York’s Public Design Commission at a ceremony on June 20th; we’ve since learned that Deborah Berke will also be honored with a Design Award for the 122CC Community Arts Center project, and Patron Steven Holl will be honored for the Hunter’s Point Community Library. [PDF]
Tags: 122CC Community Arts Center, AIANY, awards, Charles McKinney, daniel libeskind, Hunter's Point, Laurie Kerr, library, Medal of Honor, New York City, Public Architect Award, Public Design Commission, public process, Queens, Richard Dattner, Steven Holl
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Friday, June 24th, 2011
We’re very pleased to announce that IfUD Founder Ann Ferebee, who led the organization for its first three decades, is preparing to release a newly-updated edition of her book, A History of Design From the Victorian Era to the Present. This compendium of design history, which was originally published in 1970, will be released in July. We’re eagerly awaiting our copy! Order yours today at W.W. Norton’s website.
Tags: Ann Ferebee, book launch, books, Design, History, Victorian, WW Norton
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Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
The Vanishing City, a new film on the gentrification of Manhattan, featuring interviews with Tom Angotti and Board Member Saskia Sassen, opened the Staten Island Film Festival; Angotti also spoke to the NY Daily News about his new research project at Hunter College trying to repurpose vacant residential units to shrink rates of homelessness; Mimi Zeiger profiled Thomas Balsley in the latest Landscape Architecture Magazine [PDF]; Jim Dart wrote briefly about progress on the Great Falls Arts + Revitalization Initiative at the Great Falls National Park in Paterson, NJ, a project that also involves Darius Sollohub and Claire Weisz; in nearby Nutley, NJ, Ken Drucker is designing a new pedestrian bridge at the Hoffman La Roche corporate campus; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston announced a shortlist of three firms for its planned expansion: Craig Dykers’ Snøhetta, Patron Steven Holl’s eponymous firm, and Board Member Thom Mayne’s Morphosis; hot off an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Ken Greenberg penned a requiem for a pedestrian bridge proposed in Toronto; Matthias Sauerbruch’s design for an office building on London’s Old Bailey (pictured at left) has been approved; and the Drawing Center has just launched a capital plan for their Claire Weisz-designed expansion.
Tags: Bronx, Claire Weisz, Craig Dykers, Darius Sollohub, Drawing Center, film screening, Great Falls, homelessness, Houston, Hunter College, James Dart, Ken Greenberg, landscape architecture, london, manhattan, Matthias Sauerbruch, Mimi Zeiger, Montreal, Morphosis, museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, New Jersey, New York City, Nutley, office building, Old Bailey, Paterson, pedestrian bridge, Saskia Sassen, Snohetta, Staten Island, Steven Holl, Texas, Thom Mayne, Thomas Balsley, Tom Angotti, Toronto, vacant space, Vanishing City
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Monday, June 20th, 2011
Our friends at the Design Trust for Public Space are looking for a new Executive Director, and have asked us to help spread the word. From their early support for efforts to save the High Line, to the newly-released High Performance Landscape Guidelines and current efforts in the Garment District, their work has made a real difference in improving the city’s public realm. If you or someone you know might be interested, the full description is on the Trust’s website.
Tags: announcements, Design Trust for Public Space, Garment District, High Line, High Performance Landscape Guidelines, jobs, New York City, public realm
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Friday, June 17th, 2011
We’d like to welcome our newest Fellow, Greg Haley, AIA AICP LEED AP, a Senior Architect at Grimshaw’s NYC office, where he is currently helping to oversee the construction of the MTA’s Fulton Street Transit Center. Greg received his Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.
Tags: Fulton Street Transit Center, Greg Haley, Grimshaw Architects, Harvard, MTA, new fellows, New York City, Urban Design
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Thursday, June 16th, 2011
We are thrilled to announce the addition of Janette Sadik-Kahn to the jury for the By the City / For the City design competition. Ms. Sadik-Kahn will join Kate Ascher, Barry Bergdoll, Ned Cramer, Toni L. Griffin, Thom Mayne, Denise Scott Brown, and Claire Weisz in evaluating competition entries based on how they address five conditions: accessibility, beauty, connectivity, enjoyment, and social equity.
Janette Sadik-Khan has served as the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Transportation since her appointment by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in April of 2007. Beginning with Sustainable Streets, DOT’s first strategic plan published in 2008, Sadik-Khan has implemented a series of innovative projects: the creation of Broadway Boulevard, the installation of 18 plazas, the addition of more than 250 miles of on-street bike lanes, and a new Street Design Manual requiring higher quality street designs for NYC.
For more information, visit www.urbandesignweek.org.
Tags: By the City For the City, design competition, janette sadik-khan, jury, New York City Department of Transportation, NYC DOT, Street Design Manual, Sustainable Streets
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Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
The Center for Architecture’s next Oculus Book Talk will focus on Michael Crosbie’s New York Dozen, featuring work by Andrew Bernheimer and Claire Weisz, on 6/22; and Board Member Thom Mayne will deliver the opening address at the International Architectural Education Summit on 6/26.
Tags: AIANY, Andrew Bernheimer, books, Center for Architecture, Claire Weisz, design school, Events, International Architectural Education Summit, Michael Crosbie, New York City, New York Dozen, Thom Mayne
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Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
In a chat with the Wall Street Journal about the Van Alen Institute’s new bookstore on 22nd Street, Olympia Kazi said of architects: “They’re books junkies, no matter how many Nooks and iPads. They still love their print, the hard copy.” In an article in the latest Americas Quarterly, Board Member Saskia Sassen detailed the ways that networked cities and citizens are changing the way business is done, stating in no uncertain terms that “There is no such entity as the global economy.” Moshe Safdie, meanwhile, reflected on the international atmosphere at the construction site for his Marina Bay Sands project in Singapore (pictured at left) at a press conference, noting that “One tower was built by Chinese workers, and another tower was built by a Bangladeshi team. It looked like the Tower of Babel.”
Tags: Americas Quarterly, Bangladesh, books, bookstore, China, construction, global economy, manhattan, marina bay sands, moshe safdie, networks, New York City, Olympia Kazi, Saskia Sassen, singapore, skyscraper, Tower of Babel, Van Alen Institute
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