The Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at St. Louis’ Washington University announced its spring lecture series, with Craig Dykers set to speak tonight (2/1), and visits from Gregg Pasquarelli and Richard Sennett scheduled for later this semester; Rob Rogers will speak about Rogers Marvel’s recent work (including President’s Park South, pictured at left) at the National Building Museum in Washington on 2/2; Denise Hoffman Brandt and Board Member Toni Griffin have organized a panel, Defining Cultural Landscapes, at CCNY on 2/3 (with opening remarks by Olympia Kazi); the Center for Architecture will host the panel Freedom of Assembly: Public Space Today Redux on 2/4, with Thomas Balsley, Rick Bell, Lance Jay Brown, and Susan Chin all participating (Brown will be back at the Center, with David Dixon, for a discussion about Climate Change on 2/17); Bruce Fowle will speak at the Center’s Active Design 201 on 2/7; Board Member Claire Weisz will speak in New York, also on 2/7, at the Studio-X panel Trash Tubes of the Future; Board Member Enrique Norten will give a talk at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach on 2/9; that same day, in New York, Ernie Hutton will moderate a discussion on the Miami21 zoning initiative; and a new exhibit at the National Academy, featuring work by Robert A.M. Stern, has just opened and will remain on view in New York through 4/29.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: February 1-15, 2012
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012Fellows in the News: Arad, Chin, Dattner, Dixon, Fowle, Greenberg, Holl, Jahn, Orff, & Venturi
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Steve Rosenbaum spoke with Michael Arad about the 9/11 Memorial and his role in the reconstruction of Ground Zero (of which the Daily Mail released some fantastic construction photos); Susan Chin appears in a video from a recent University of Chicago panel on the role of architecture in building cultural vitality; Richard Dattner’s PlayCubes (pictured at left) were revisited by the Playscapes blog; David Dixon is developing a comprehensive 20-year master plan for tornado-ravaged Birmingham, Alabama; Architectural Record looks at how Bruce Fowle turned his firm’s office into a veritable art gallery; Ken Greenberg released a study with recommendations for the future of a busy stretch of Toronto’s Yonge Street; Lebbeus Woods wrote an enthusiastic piece on Patron Steven Holl’s Vanke Center in Shenzhen; Chicago Magazine’s Whet Moser called Helmut Jahn’s Mansueto Library a “[serious] reading room for the digital age”; Elle named Kate Orff as one of their Inspirational Women of 2011; and Domus featured archi-horoscopes by Dan Graham, including one on Cancerian IfUD Patron Robert Venturi.
Quoth the Fellows: Brown, Dixon, & Safdie
Monday, May 30th, 2011
In a post on bird-safe windows, Inhabitat dug up a great quote from Hillary Brown in a 2008 issue of Audubon magazine. Said Brown: “That’s really what good, sustainable, integrated design is–solving multiple problems with a single solution.” Contrasting showpiece City Beautiful-era public spaces like Indianapolis’ Monument Circle (pictured at left) with more dynamic contemporary spaces, David Dixon argued that “Public spaces have a new purpose, to bring a sense of shared community and destiny. The space needs to engage people rather than just offering somewhere to go.” And Moshe Safdie, speaking about his involvement in an ongoing design competition for a new terminal in Incheon, South Korean, said of airport design: “There is something beyond functionality and convenience. [An airport terminal] needs to give a sense that you are entering the great gate of the country.”
Fellows Events & Exhibitions: May 15-31, 2011
Monday, May 16th, 2011
SOM Chicago principal Philip Enquist will speak about ‘The Endless City’ at Penn Design’s 2011 commencement ceremony on 5/16; Rick Bell and Laurie Kerr will both participate in Fit City 6 at the Center for Architecture on 5/17; Lance Jay Brown will participate in the Better City/Better Life: North-South Initiative symposium at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan on 5/18; a reception for the exhibit Downtown Brooklyn Commons [PDF], featuring design proposals from the Rus en Urbe studio led by CCNY’s Denise Hoffman Brandt, Elisabetta Terragni, and Barbara Wilks, with a model created in charette with Michael Sorkin’s graduate urban design studio, will take place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on 5/19; Deborah Berke will speak at the Miller House Symposium in Columbus, Indiana on 5/20 (the titular modernist residence is pictured at left); Peter D. Cavaluzzi will join a panel on Firm Identity in an Age of Mergers & Acquisitions at the CfA on 5/23; Enquist will join David Dixon and other noted urbanists for a series of discussions at the Detroit Public Library’s Detroit By Design event on 5/24; and Toronto’s Urbanspace Gallery will host a book launch party for Ken Greenberg’s aforementioned Walking Home on 5/25.
Quoth the Fellows: Dixon, Riley, Stern, & Wakeman
Monday, April 25th, 2011
At a design charrette focused on envisioning the future of the Drexel University campus, David Dixon asserted that “There has never been a more important time to think about the future of American universities”; the Empire State Tribune featured a great profile of Ronnette Riley, that’s full of fun quotes. Our favorite: “The great thing about architecture is that you don’t know you’re a failure until the end of your life”; Architectural Record has video of Robert AM Stern discussing 15 Central Park West (pictured at left) as it relates to the history of the New York City apartment house. Says Stern, of this very specific building typology: “When people talk about units, they’re in trouble. We talk about apartments“; and Rosemary Wakeman urged attendees at the Fordham-hosted Forum on Analytics to use data for social change, asking of the division between different schools of learning: “Can we get away from this hard/soft designation of where we are?”
Fellows in the News: Bee, Blaik, Dixon, Durst, Dykers, & Thompson
Monday, September 13th, 2010
A group of innovative multifamily infill housing developments produced by Carmi Bee’s firm RKT&B was covered recently (photo at left); Omar Blaik’s firm U3 Ventures produced a report of their own on an exciting strategy for recovery in Detroit’s Midtown district (subscription required); David Dixon led a team that produced a 25-page report challenging the current plans for the massive Charity Hospital reconstruction project in New Orleans; Douglas Durst was recently profiled for his leadership of the Durst Organization; Craig Dykers’ firm Snøhetta was just profiled in the Wall Street Journal; and don’t miss Boston.com’s look back on the storied careers of Jane Thompson and her husband Ben, who founded Design Research in 1953.
2009 Ratensky Lecture With David Dixon
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Institute fellow David Dixon will present the 2009 Ratensky Lecture honoring his partner Joan Goody FAIA (1935-2009) on Thursday, November 12th at the Center for Architecture. Reception 5:30 pm, program 6 pm.
Urban Design for an Urban Century
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
John Wiley & Sons released Urban Design for an Urban Century: Placemaking for People. Institute fellows Lance Jay Brown, David Dixon, and Oliver Gillham collaborated on the book. More
Affordable Housing: Development and Design, CUNY Graduate Center, New York
Thursday, May 17th, 2007This was the last event organized for the Institute by our founding director Ann Ferebee and was chaired by Professor David Chapin of the Environmental Psychology Program at CUNY. The symposium panelists were: David Dixon, Goody Clancy ; Christine Madigan, Enterprise Homes, Inc., Baltimore, MD; Rose Gray, Asociation de Puertorriquenos en Marcha, Inc., Philadelphia; Brian Phillips, Interface Studio Architects, Philadelphia; Paul Freitag, Jonathan Rose Companies, NY; Richard Dattner, Dattner Architects; Frederic Schwartz, Frederic Schwartz Architects; and Mark Strauss, FXFOWLE Architects.
