IfUD Launches New Website & Open Call for Entries for US Pavilion at the Venice Beinnale

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

We have just launched a new website for the U.S. Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The website will continue to grow over the next nine months, expanding to include a news column, curators’ blog, links to related articles and resources, and list of participants and projects. When the Biennale opens in September, the site will include a participants’ blog, a searchable database of projects, and guide to programs in Venice and the United States during the Biennale.

Currently, we are encouraging architects and designers who have realized a tactical urbanism intervention in a U.S. city to submit their projects by February 6 in order to be reviewed during the next curators’ meeting.

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.

Quoth the Fellows: Berke & Walker

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

“People come to New York to be famous and to be anonymous,” Deborah Berke (pictured at left) suggested to the Daily News in a recent interview. “I want my work to be invisible at times, and prominent at others, to be rigorous but not pretentious.” Speaking to Architectural Record about working on the 9/11 Memorial, Peter Walker noted that “There are memorials that have no real quality, and there are the great ones, like the Lincoln and the Vietnam. You try to catch that abstract thing, and if you do, I think you succeed.”

Fellows’ Events & Exhibitions: August 1-15, 2011

Monday, August 1st, 2011

IfUD Founder Ann Ferebee and Jeff Byles will speak about their new book, A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, at the Skyscraper Museum on 8/2; AIANY is organizing a tour of Michael Manfredi’s Diana Center at Barnard (pictured at left) on 8/4; and Board Member Saskia Sassen will speak on the notions of comfort and “cityness” at the BMW Guggenheim Lab in New York on 8/12.

Fellows’ Awards & Honors: Jahn, Sauerbruch, & Sorkin.

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The colorful KfW Westarkade tower in Frankfurt (pictured at left), designed by Matthias Sauerbruch, was named the Best Tall Building in Europe for 2011 by the CTBUH (Sauerbruch’s Oval Offices in Cologne were also featured in Architectural Record & Surface); the World Architecture Festival announced that they have named IfUD Board Chair Michael Sorkin the head of its ‘Super-Jury’ for 2011; the opening of Helmut Jahn’s Mansuetto Library was cited as one of the most important design events during the first half of 2011 by Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.

Fellows in the News: Alschuler, Enquist, Gans, Greenberg, Holl, Libeskind, Norten, Nyman, Rogers, Safdie, Sassen, Sennett, Stastny, & Wilks

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Over at Fast Co.Design, Karen Alschuler wrote an article comparing buildings to sandwiches, asking: “What makes them tasty?”; Design Intelligence featured the full text of Phil Enquist’s PennDesign commencement address; Deborah Gans reports on her work in New Orleans’ Plum Orchard neighborhood in Places: Design Observer; Ken Greenberg (whom Dow Marmur recently called a Canadian national treasure) is leading the planning process for the redevelopment of Boston’s waterfront; Patron Steven Holl’s Vanke Center in Shenzhen received high praise from Nicolai Ouroussoff, who calls the building “a triumph of sustainable design” in a new piece out this week; Daniel Libeskind released renderings of the design for a new synagogue in Munich; Villahermosa, Mexico, recently celebrated the opening of a new public building by Board Member Enrique Norten set in a new public park by Barbara Wilks; Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute Director Jack S. Nyman commented on his organization’s collaboration with CUNY’s Building Performance Lab in creating the just-launched Building Performance Toolkit; the National Capital Planning Commission released design renderings for DC’s Ellipse by the five firms competing for the job, including Rob Rogers’ firm Rogers Marvel (whose SandRidge Energy complex in Oklahoma City was also recently approved by the city); the New Yorker wrote about Moshe Safdie’s soon-to-open Crystal Bridges museum in Arkansas; Rowan Moore reviewed Living in the Endless City, a new book featuring essays by Richard Sennett and Board Member Saskia Sassen; and Don Stastny is leading the visioning process for the redevelopment of Saint Louis’ historic Grand Center entertainment district (pictured at left).

IfUD Founder Ferebee’s New Edition

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.

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: March 15-31, 2011

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Claire Weisz will participate in a panel discussion, to be moderated by Wanda Bubriski, on Emily Roebling’s role in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge tonight (3/15) in New York; Weisz will also speak at the New Museum tomorrow (3/16) as part of the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices series; Gretchen Bank will lead a Marketing & PR seminar for the AIANY’s Architects’ Fast-Track Leadership Series on 3/23; a traveling exhibit of work by Craig Dykers’ Snøhetta has just landed at Lisbon’s Musea de Electricidade; and the exhibit “Alessi: Ethical and Radical,” featuring items designed by Patron Robert Venturi, opened recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it will remain on view until 4/10.

Affordable Housing: Development and Design, CUNY Graduate Center, New York

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

This 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.