Quoth the Fellows: Cathcart & Nyman

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

Speaking at the Center for Architecture’s Buildings = Energy symposium last month, Colin Cathcart noted that, while New Yorkers’ per capita carbon footprint was quite large when viewed at the metropolitan level, the central city’s high density provided a model for the future–both here and around the world–asserting that “Our first, last, best hope to turn this planet around is right here in New York City.” Speaking in support of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s new report on the need for an infrastructure bank, Jack Nyman noted the need for public education and outreach: “We must help every sector of the economy genuinely understand its own stake in infrastructure issues, and we must engage all sectors fully in building support for new financial models over the long term.”

IfUD On Screen: Enquist, Greenberg, Manfredi, Palmieri, & Terragni

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

A video by Philip Enquist’s Great Lakes Project (which, we recently discovered, has a great new blog) lays out a broad vision for the Great Lakes region; Ken Greenberg stopped by Global Toronto‘s Morning Show to discuss his international slate of urban design projects; David Manfredi spoke about his design for the Edgewater Hotel in a video clip about the Madison project; NJBIZ spoke to John Palmieri about his plans for New Jersey’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority; and Elisabetta Terragni’s Trento Tunnels project (image at left) was featured in a video about Future Mind Award winners.

It’s Competition Season!

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Finalists for the National Mall design competition in Washington, DC, were announced recently, and the IfUD is well-represented: Michael Arad, Craig Dykers, Rob Rogers, Peter Walker, Barbara Wilks, and Board Member Enrique Norten will all move forward. Donald Stastny is managing the high-profile competition, while Board Member Thom Mayne is one of the jurors. And speaking of juries, Arad and Joseph Brown both spent some time on that side of the competition process recently–the former for this year’s NYC iteration of CANstruction, and the latter for the Urban Land Institute’s Global Awards for Excellence. Coming up: June Williamson will judge entries for the CNU Charter Awards (entries due by January 25th!)

Fellows in the News: Blesso, David, di Domenico, Dubbeldam, Flint, Gans, Ginsberg, Hoal, Lancaster, McKinney, Sorkin, Stepner, Strauss, Walker, & White

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

The New York Times and WNYC both featured write-ups of last week’s Making Room symposium, which featured panelists Matt Blesso, Mark Ginsberg, and Mark Strauss, as well as the presentation of new work by Deborah Gans; Theo. David’s proposal for the redesign of the Old GSP Area in Nicosia (pictured at left) was featured on ArchDaily; John di Domenico’s firm has just opened a new DC office; work on Board Member Winka Dubbeldam’s Ports1961 flagship in Paris is just wrapping up; as the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities approaches, Anthony Flint reflects on the book’s legacy; John Hoal presented a draft plan for the reinvention of University City’s Parkview Gardens neighborhood, while construction on Chouteau Park, also designed by Hoal, got underway in nearby St. Louis; Patricia Lancaster joined NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate as a clinical professor; Charles McKinney spoke with DNAinfo.com about the NYC Parks Department’s selection of lanscape architect David Kamp for the design of a new city park, Sutton Place South; Norman Weinstein called Board President Michael Sorkin’s All Over the Map “a triumph of enlightened nay-saying and affirmation” in a review at ArchNewsNow; Michael Stepner published a letter in support of the San Diego Symphony’s plan to revamp their entrance and re-engage the street; KERA interviewed Peter Walker about “what makes a landscape a beautiful, pleasing, and functional space”; and work by Hank White is featured in the new book Shore Décor: Design at the Water’s Edge.

Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: November 15-30, 2011

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

On 11/17, D. Grahame Shane will lead the League-hosted panel Urban Design Since 1945 – A Global Perspective in New York; also on 11/17, Donald Stastny will lead a public forum on the master plan that he has been developing for St. Louis’ Grand Center arts and entertainment district; and Bruce Fowle will join the panel discussion Benchmarking in Action: Retrofitting New York at the Center for Architecture on 11/30.

Fellows’ Awards & Honors: Balsley, Durst, Portman, & Stepner

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

At the Waterfront Center Awards, Thomas Balsley was presented with an Honor Award for Manhattan’s Riverside Park South Waterfront (pictured at left), and his Gantry State Plaza State Park project in Queens was given a tribute for its 1999 Top Honor Award; Douglas Durst was presented with the “Green God” award at the New York Restoration Project’s Hulaween gala last week; John Portman was named an Industry Fellow at this year’s American Furniture Hall of Fame banquet; and Michael Stepner was presented with the Society of American Registered Architects’ Synergy Award.

Quoth the Fellows: Interview Edition

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

We’ve seen so many wonderful interviews with Fellows in the past couple of weeks; in lieu of pulling just a couple of quotes this time around, we recommend that you take a look at these recent interviews with Susan Chin (pictured at left) in Metropolis and the New York Observer, Board Member Winka Dubbeldam in Lookbooks, Daniel Libeskind in Time Out Hong Kong, John Portman in the New York Times, and Moshe Safdie on PBS’s Newshour. And to catch a Fellow on the other side of the table, don’t miss Ken Fisher interviewing political consultant Joseph Mercurio on the latest episode of his Citywide program on CUNY-TV.

On the Books

Monday, November 7th, 2011

Board President Michael Sorkin’s All Over the Map was just reviewed by Archidose’s John Hill; Frederick Steiner recently sat down to chat with The Daily Texan about his new book Design for a Vulnerable Planet; and an award-winning proposal by Barbara Wilks is featured in the new book Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park, which was edited by Jamie Hand and Kate Orff, and released by Olympia Kazi’s Van Alen Institute.

Fellows in the News: Angotti, Berman, Enquist, Fain, Flint, Griffin, Holl, Machado, Mayne, Pollak, Stastny, & Wakeman

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

In his latest Gotham Gazette column, Tom Angotti looks into NYC’s plans for its new bikeshare program; Matt Berman and his partner Andrew Kotchen launched SpruceBox, a new web platform to help homeowners visualize renovation projects; Phil Enquist won two competitions to develop master plans for a 2-kilometer stretch of the Yangtze Riverfront in downtown Nanjing and a new urban center at Duqm City in Oman; William Fain’s firm recently completed master plans for the Chinese cities of Chengdu and XiCheng; Anthony Flint argued for concentrating early development of a high-speed rail system in the US in megaregions like the Northeast Corridor; Board Member Toni Griffin joined in on the New York Times‘ most recent Room For Debate feature on the demolition of foreclosed housing; construction work has begun on Patron Steven Holl’s athletic complex for Columbia at the northern tip of Manhattan (pictured at left); Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, designed by Rodolfo Machado’s firm, has just opened; the National Mall Design Competition, led by Don Stastny, announced its jury, which will include Board Member Thom Mayne; Linda Pollak will serve as the Lead Juror for AIA Pittsburgh’s Design Pittsburgh awards; and Rosemary Wakeman spoke to the Baltimore Sun about gentrification in that city’s Union Square neighborhood.

Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: November 1-15, 2011

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

The World Architecture Festival, for which Board President Michael Sorkin chaired the Grand Jury, kicks off tomorrow (11/2) in Barcelona; Steven Handel will deliver the Benjamin C. Howland Jr. Memorial Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture on 11/4; that same day, Board Member Thom Mayne will speak at Architectural Record‘s 2011 Innovation Conference; also on 11/4, Board Member Enrique Norten will speak at Yale’s Catastrophe and Consequence symposium; on 11/5, Colin Cathcart will participate in the Center for Architecture symposium Buildings = Energy; on 11/7, Deborah Gans, Matt Blesso, Mark Ginsberg, and Mark Strauss will all participate in the Architectural League’s Making Room symposium; Craig Dykers will speak at La Ciudad de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico, on 11/11; Board Member Saskia Sassen is co-chair of the Committee on Global Thought’s Ecogram IV: China event on 11/11; Stuart Pertz will join a discussion on Planning the Future of Coney Island’s Amusement District, also on 11/11; the Reconsidering Postmodernism conference, to be held in New York from 11/11-12, will feature Robert A.M. Stern, as well as a session focusing on the work of Patrons Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown; Board Member Tami Hausman is a co-organizer of the 11/14 CfA panel What’s Your Story?; and on 11/15, Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute will host the Zoning the City conference in New York, featuring Rick Bell, Stern, and Board Members Mayne and Toni Griffin.