Thursday, February 7th, 2013
With two destructive tropical storms in two years, New York City—like other global cities—is entering a phase of adaptation to catastrophic climate events that are a result of carbon cycle disruption by human, urban, and industrial practices. Superstorm recovery will require more than a simple fix; it will necessitate systemic adaptation to escalating storm surge, precipitation, and wind events through the construction of new urban landscapes that have the capacity to merge social, cultural, and environmental forces.
The Landscape Architecture Program of the City College of New York’s Spitzer School of Architecture, with support from the Municipal Art Society, American Society of Landscape Architects New York Chapter, and the Institute for Urban Design, will host a conference of municipal leaders, scientists, engineers, and designers to explore the impact of past and future storms on New York City’s infrastructural systems: Water/Waste, Power/Data, Circulation/Fuel, Parks/Recreation, and Shelter. The conference will reveal the operating systems of the city to open speculation on Waterproofing New York as an act of coordinated yet opportunistic, pragmatic, and inventive city design.
The conference will explore the potential to imagine city design that transcends risk, which seeks to assess hazard, in order to grapple with propositions in a context characterized by the uncertainty of multi-scalar social and environmental systems.
This event is free and open to the public.
Featured Speakers and Panelists Include:
Waste / Water
Jeanette Compton, Director of Green Infrastructure, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Adjunct Professor, Fordham University
Paul Mankiewicz, Executive Director, The Gaia Institute
Lydia Kallipoliti, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union and Columbia University in New York
Kate Orff, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Co-Director of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia University, Principal, SCAPE
Power / Data
Frank Ruchala, Associate Urban Planner and Designer, Department of City Planning for the City of New York
Byron Stigge, Director, Level Agency for Infrastructure
Chris Reed, Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Principal, Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Miguel Robles Duran, Assistant Professor of Urbanism, School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, and Director, MS Design and Urban Ecologies
Circulation/Fuel
Petra Todorovich Messick, Senior Officer, Amtrak Outreach and Communications-North, Former Director, America 2050
Kevin Foster, Associate Professor of Economics, The City College of New York
Denise Hoffman Brandt, Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at The City College of New York, and Principal, Hoffman Brandt Projects LLC
Georgeen Theodore, Associate Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and Director of the Infrastructure Planning Program
Parks/Recreation
Dennis Burton, Administrative Horticulturist/Forest Restoration Manager of Van Cortlandt Park, Past President of the Society for Ecological Restoration
Erika Svendsen, Research Social Scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, The City College of New York, and Principal, Catherine Seavitt Studio
Gullivar Shepard, Associate Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Shelter
Thaddeus Pawlowski, Long Term Planning Advisor, Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery
Mark Ginsberg, Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP, New York and National Housing Conference Board of Directors and Citizens Housing and Planning Council Board President
Lance Jay Brown, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture, The City College of New York, and Co-Chair, AIANY Committee on Design for Risk and Reconstruction
Deborah Gans, Professor, Architecture School at Pratt Institute, and Principal, Gans Studio
Hilary Sample, Associate Professor, Columbia University GSAPP, and Principal, MOS
Closing remarks by
Michael Sorkin, Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York, and Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio, Terreform
Featured Speakers and Panelists Include:
Waste / Water
Jeanette Compton, Director of Green Infrastructure, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation and Adjunct Professor, Fordham University
Paul Mankiewicz, Executive Director, The Gaia Institute
Lydia Kallipoliti, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union and Columbia University in New York
Kate Orff, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Co-Director of the Urban Landscape Lab at Columbia University, Principal, SCAPE
Power / Data
Frank Ruchala, Associate Urban Planner and Designer, Department of City Planning for the City of New York
Byron Stigge, Director, Level Agency for Infrastructure
Chris Reed, Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Principal, Stoss Landscape Urbanism
Miguel Robles Duran, Assistant Professor of Urbanism, School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, and Director, MS Design and Urban Ecologies
Circulation/Fuel
Petra Todorovich Messick, Senior Officer, Amtrak Outreach and Communications-North, Former Director, America 2050
Kevin Foster, Associate Professor of Economics, The City College of New York
Denise Hoffman Brandt, Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program at The City College of New York, and Principal, Hoffman Brandt Projects LLC
Georgeen Theodore, Associate Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture, and Director of the Infrastructure Planning Program
Parks/Recreation
Dennis Burton, Administrative Horticulturist/Forest Restoration Manager of Van Cortlandt Park, Past President of the Society for Ecological Restoration
Erika Svendsen, Research Social Scientist, USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, The City College of New York, and Principal, Catherine Seavitt Studio
Gullivar Shepard, Associate Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Shelter
Thaddeus Pawlowski, Long Term Planning Advisor, Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery
Mark Ginsberg, Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects LLP, New York and National Housing Conference Board of Directors and Citizens Housing and Planning Council Board President
Lance Jay Brown, ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture, The City College of New York, and Co-Chair, AIANY Committee on Design for Risk and Reconstruction
Deborah Gans, Professor, Architecture School at Pratt Institute, and Principal, Gans Studio
Hilary Sample, Associate Professor, Columbia University GSAPP, and Principal, MOS
Closing remarks by
Michael Sorkin, Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design at The City College of New York, and Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio, Terreform
Tags: Byron Stigge, climate change, Deborah Gans, Denise Hoffman Brandt, infrastructure, Lance Jay Brown, Michael Sorkin, New York City, Resilience, Superstorm Sandy
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Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012
At the request of the Noguchi Museum, the Architectural League recently hosted a design charrette about the museum’s ongoing “Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City” project, now an installation at Socrates Sculpture Park (pictured above). The session centered on “how to sustain neighborhood vitality [in Long Island City] by capitalizing on distinctive characteristics rather than succumbing to the often homogenizing effects of mainstream real estate development.” Charrette participants included Andrew Bernheimer, Denise Hoffman Brandt, Deborah Gans, Lyn Rice, and Board Member Claire Weisz. Urban Omnibus published video, images, and an article about the workshop.
Tags: Andrew Bernheimer, Architectural League, Civic Action A Vision for Long Island City, Claire Weisz, Deborah Gans, Denise Hoffman Brandt, Long Island City, Lyn Rice, New York, Noguchi Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, Urban Omnibus
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Friday, April 13th, 2012
Revisiting Death and Life (pictured at left) in last week’s City Builder
Book Club, David Dixon discussed how today’s approach to urban poverty “offer[s] a sort of post-Jane Jacobs “laissez faire” approach to unslumming.” In an Atlantic Cities article, Anthony Flint declared that “my confidence in mankind’s ability to plan for growth was restored” by MCNY’s “The Greatest Grid” exhibit. In conversation with Architectural Record, Deborah Gans spoke of the architectural profession as “still split between form-givers and the social pundits–a false dialectic.” She explained, “After overreaching our limits as modernist social planners, architects now struggled to renegotiate our discipline as one of both form and participation.”
Tags: Anthony Flint, Architectural Record, Atlantic Cities, City Builder Book Club, David Dixon, Death and Life of Great American Cities, Deborah Gans, Goody Clancy, Jane Jacobs, MCNY, The Greatest Grid, unslumming
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Deborah Gans‘ new rose window for the Museum at Eldridge Street, designed in collaboration with artist Kiki Smith (and pictured at left), received a 2011 Faith & Form award from the IFRAA Awards Program for Religious Art & Architecture; the Land Art Generator Initiative design competition announced its kickoff, with Executive Director Anne Guiney on the jury (deadline: 7/1/12); recipients of the 2012 AIA Honor Awards were announced–among the winners are Rob Rogers and Board Members Toni Griffin, Thom Mayne, and Enrique Norten; Rosemary Wakeman was awarded a EURIAS Senior Fellowship, and will spend the next academic year at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies completing her book on the New Town Movement; Womens’ E-News will honor Beverly Willis as one of their 21 Leaders for the 21st Century at a gala reception this May.
Tags: AIA Honor Awards, Anne Guiney, art, awards, Beverly Willis, Deborah Gans, design competition, Enrique Norten, EURIAS Fellowship, Faith & Form, IFRAA Awards Program for Religious Art & Architecture, jury, Kiki Smith, Land Art Generator Initiative, manhattan, Museum at Eldridge Street, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies, New Town Movement, New York City, Rob Rogers, Rosemary Wakeman, Thom Mayne, Toni Griffin, women architects
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Friday, December 16th, 2011
If you’re looking for some ideas for what to give to design-minded friends, family, or colleagues, we’d recommend browsing through the list of our Fellows’ publications over the past year: Tom Angotti’s New York For Sale came out in paperback; Andy Bernheimer and Board Member Claire Weisz both had projects included in Michael Crosbie’s New York Dozen; Jim Dart and Deborah Gans‘ work in New Orleans was featured in Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity; Founder Ann Ferebee released a new edition of A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, updated to include recent years; critic Justin Davidson included Alexander Gorlin’s Tomorrow’s Houses on his round-up of the most Notable Design Books of 2011; Ken Greenberg’s Walking Home was published to great acclaim; Jamie Hand, Olympia Kazi, and Kate Orff co-edited Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park, which features work by Barbara Wilks; Horizontal Skyscraper, Patron Steven Holl’s latest publication, is just hitting bookstore shelves now; Board Member Thom Mayne rolled out a new manifesto called Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior of Collective Form; Board President Michael Sorkin’s most recent collection of essays, All Over the Map, has been building buzz; and Frederick Steiner released Design for a Vulnerable Planet this past spring.
Tags: A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, Alexander Gorlin, All Over the Map, Andrew Bernheimer, Ann Ferebee, Barbara Wilks, Beyond Shelter, books, Claire Weisz, Combinatory Urbanism, Deborah Gans, Design for a Vulnerable Planet, Designers & Books, Frederick Steiner, Gateway Visions for an Urban National Park, horizontal skyscraper, James Dart, Jamie Hand, Justin Davidson, Kate Orff, Ken Greenberg, Michael Crosbie, Michael Sorkin, New Orleans, New York Dozen, New York For Sale, Olympia Kazi, Steven Holl, Thom Mayne, Tom Angotti, Tomorrow's Houses, Walking Home
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Monday, December 5th, 2011
Cleveland’s ParkWorks cut the ribbon on Perk Park, a new green space designed by Thomas Balsley; in a post reflecting on what Jeanne Gang’s recent MacArthur win means for women in architecture, Flavorpill noted the accomplishments of Deborah Berke, Board Member Winka Dubbeldam, and Galia Solomonoff in this historically-male-dominated field; Omar Blaik has been hired by the University of Kentucky to help better integrate several universities into downtown Lexington; the New York Times interviewed David Cooper as he celebrated his 30th year with WSP Flack + Kurtz; Craig Dykers had a big November: the Wolfe Center for the Arts at Bowling Green State University became Snøhetta’s first building completed in the US, while the firm also unveiled new, detailed renderings of the SFMOMA expansion and won a competition to design the subway entrances for the Basque city of Donostia-San Sebastián (pictured at left); Kenneth K. Fisher interviewed former NYC Public Advocate Mark Green for this month’s episode of Citywide; Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman’s latest column, on re-thinking housing for contemporary New York, included a nod to Deborah Gans‘ work for the Architectural League’s recent Making Room symposium; Gregg Pasquarelli’s SHoP (which was recently profiled in New York Magazine) released much-anticipated renderings of the modular residential towers planned for Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards site; the Hartford Business Journal talked to Jonathan Schrag about the effectiveness of Cap & Trade programs; Paul Schmidt reaffirmed CADA’s committment to the organization’s R Street warehouse project in the Sacramento Bee; and Barbara Wilks‘ new The Edge Park along the Williamsburg’s rapidly-changing waterfront was a featured project on Landezine.
Tags: Affordable Housing, Architectural League, atlantic yards, Barbara Wilks, Basque, Bowling Green State University, brooklyn, CADA, cap & trade, CityWide, Cleveland, Craig Dykers, CUNY-TV, David Cooper, Deborah Berke, Deborah Gans, design competition, Donostia-San Sebastián, downtown, Galia Solomonoff, Gregg Pasquarelli, Jeanne Gang, jonathan schrag, Kenneth K. Fisher, Landezine, landscape architecture, Lexington, MacArthur, Making Room, Mark Green, Michael Kimmelman, modular, New York City, New York magazine, New York Times, Ohio, Omar Blaik, ParkWorks, Paul Schmidt, Perk Park, R Street warehouse, renderings, Sacramento, sfmoma, SHoP Architects, Snohetta, subway, The Edge Park, Thomas Balsley, universities, University of Kentucky, waterfront, Williamsburg, Winka Dubbeldam, Wolfe Center for the Arts, women architects, WSP Flack + Kurtz
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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.
Tags: Anthony Flint, ArchDaily, ArchNewsNow, books, Charles McKinney, Chouteau Park, criticism, Cyprus, David Kamp, Death and Life of Great American Cities, Deborah Gans, Hank White, Housing, interview, Jane Jacobs, John di Domenico, John Hoal, landscape architecture, Making Room, Mark Ginsberg, Mark Strauss, master plan, matt blesso, Michael Sorkin, Michael Stepner, New York Times, Nicosia, Norman Weinstein, nyu schack institute of real estate, Old GSP Area, Paris, Parkview Gardens, Patricia Lancaster, Peter Walker, Ports1961, public space, retail, review, Saint Louis, San Diego, Shore Décor, streetscape, Sutton Place South, Theo David, University City, washington dc, waterfront, Winka Dubbeldam, WNYC
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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.
Tags: Architectural League, Architectural Record, Architecture, barcelona, Buildings = Energy, Catastrophe and Consequence, Center for Architecture, China, Colin Cathcart, Columbia University, Committee on Global Thought, Coney Island, Craig Dykers, Deborah Gans, Denise Scott Brown, Ecogram IV, Enrique Norten, Events, festival, Grand Jury, innovation, Innovation Conference, Jack S. Nyman, La Ciudad de las Ideas, lecture, Making Room, Mark Ginsberg, Mark Strauss, marketing, Matthew Blesso, Mexico, Michael Sorkin, New York City, Puebla, Reconsidering Postmodernism, Rick Bell, robert a.m. stern, Robert Venturi, Saskia Sassen, Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute, Steven N. Handel, stuart pertz, tami hausman, Thom Mayne, Toni Griffin, University of Virgnia, urban planning, World Architecture Festival, Yale University, zoning, Zoning the City
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Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
The NY Times spoke to Rick Bell about the planned expansion of the Center for Architecture, designed by Rob Rogers; the jury for a competition to re-design the Capitol Mall in Sacramento (pictured at left) included EE&K’s Peter David Cavaluzzi; the new book Beyond Shelter, published by Metropolis Books, features work by Jim Dart and Deborah Gans; the Architect’s Newspaper visited the newly-opened TASHAN restaurant in Philadelphia, designed by Board Member Winka Dubbeldam; ArchDaily recently posted a great video interview with Patron Steven Holl; today marks the start of construction on Board Member Enrique Norten’s new Rutgers Business School Building in Livingston, New Jersey; construction work on a new half-billion-dollar mixed-use complex designed by John Portman at the former site of the Shanghai Expo is just beginning in China’s largest city; IBM’s SmartPlanet.com took an in-depth look at the intricate facade of Matthias Sauerbruch’s KfW Westarkade in Frankfurt; Robert AM Stern’s George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas recently had its topping-out ceremony; and Beverly Willis reviewed critic Paul Goldberger’s book Why Architecture Matters for the Associates of the Art Commission.
Tags: AIANY, Architect's Newspaper, Associates of the Art Commission, Beverly Willis, Beyond Shelter, California, Capitol Mall, Center for Architecture, China, construction, Dallas, Deborah Gans, design competition, Enrique Norten, Frankfurt, George W. Bush Presidential Center, Germany, Housing, IBM, interview, Jim Dart, john portman, jury, KfW Westarkade, landscape architecture, Livingston, manhattan, Matthias Sauerbruch, mixed-use, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York City, New York Times, Paul Goldberger, Peter David Cavaluzzi, Philadelphia, redevelopment, review, Rick Bell, Rob Rogers, Robert AM Stern, Rogers Marvel, Rutgers University, Sacramento, Shanghai, Steven Holl, TASHAN, TEN Arquitectos, Texas, Why Architecture Matters, Winka Dubbeldam, World Expo
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Saturday, October 1st, 2011
Archtober kicks off today with the opening of three new exhibitions at the Center for Architecture in New York, including Buildings = Energy, for which Colin Cathcart, Bruce Fowle, and Laurie Kerr all served on the Advisory Committee. The IfUD is hosting a book talk on the High Line with Founder Ann Ferebee and Jeff Byles next Friday (10/7) from 12:00-1:00 PM, and we hope to see you there! Many Fellows will be participating in other events during the month-long festival: Kerr and Richard Dattner will both speak at the symposium When Green is not an Option but the Law! on 10/3; Deborah Gans will speak on, and Lance Jay Brown will moderate, the panel VisioNYC 2080: Towards a Risk-Resilient City on 10/6; and Cathcart will give a presentation on “Furry Buildings” at the conference High-Performance Landscapes: People, Places, Plants on 10/21. For more, check out the full schedule of events. Congratulations to Rick Bell and everyone at AIANY for putting together such an impressive month!
Tags: A History of Modern Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, AIANY, Ann Ferebee, Architecture, Archtober, book talk, Bruce Fowle, Buildings = Energy, Center for Architecture, Colin Cathcart, Deborah Gans, energy, Exhibitions, furry buildings, green buildings, High Line, High Performance Landscape Guidelines, Jeff Byles, Lance Jay Brown, Laurie Kerr, New York City, Richard Dattner, Rick Bell, risk, VisioNYC 2080
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