Fellows in the News: Berke, Bernheimer, Blesso, Cathcart, Dykers, Ferrandino, Gardner, Jones, Portman, & Wong

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Bentonville’s 21c Museum Hotel, designed by Deborah Berke, broke ground last month; Urban Omnibus visited Matthew Berman’s BLDG 92 museum and visitors center at the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Andrew Bernheimer and his sister Kate, an award-winning fairy tale author, collaborated on a three-part series of posts at Places Journal that gives architectural form to famous fairy tale houses; Matt Blesso and Mark Gardner were both interviewed as part of openhousenewyork’s “I Am OHNY” series; NYC Media released a video extolling the virtues of Colin Cathcart’s Greenhouse Project at Manhattan’s P.S. 333; the first renderings of a curvaceous new Maggie’s Centre in Aberdeen, Scotland, designed by Craig Dykers, made a splash; Vince Ferrandino is leading the effort to build a solid transition team for Mount Vernon, New York’s mayor-elect Ernie Davis; Mary Margaret Jones led a public forum on Hargreaves Associates’ new plan for Richmond’s James Riverfront; John Portman has opened a new office in Hong Kong–his fourth in Asia, after Shanghai, Seoul, and Mumbai; and it’s not every day that you can see a Fellow’s work in a big-screen blockbuster, but the ASLA’s The Dirt recently pointed out that John Wong’s Burj Khalifa Park has something of a “starring role” in the new Mission Impossible movie!

Fellows’ Awards & Competitions: Arad, Balsley, Haley, Safdie, Stastny, & Whalley

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Deadlines are fast approaching for two competitions involving Fellows: there are still two and a half weeks to enter the Waller Creek design competition in Austin, managed by Donald Stastny (Deadline: 12/16/11), and Michael Arad will head up the jury for a competition to design an AIDS Memorial Park in Manhattan (Deadline: 1/21/12). Gregory J. Haley and Andrew Whalley are on one of the six teams selected as finalists in the competition to revamp Los Angeles’ Union Station, while Thomas Balsley’s Hixon Waterfront Park in Tampa (pictured at left) was named one of the best new urban parks in America by The Atlantic CITIES. Meanwhile, Moshe Safdie is in a competition of a different sort: his iconic Habitat 67 is currently in the lead in a public online poll to see which building will be the next reproduced in Lego’s architecture series. There’s still time to cast votes for your favorites…

Fellows in the News: Balsley, Berke, Blaik, Cooper, Dubbeldam, Dykers, Fisher, Gans, Pasquarelli, Schrag, Schmidt, Solomonoff, & Wilks

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.

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’ 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.

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: Bell, Cavaluzzi, Dart, Dubbeldam, Gans, Holl, Norten, Rogers, Sauerbruch, Stern, & Willis

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.

Fellows’ Awards & Honors: Berke, Boddy, David, Sassen, & Wong

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

The Kentucky Society of Architects presented Deborah Berke with one of their 2011 Honor Awards for the 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville; “Mega + Micro: Canada, Invention at the Extremes,” by Trevor Boddy, has been shortlisted for the best architectural criticism published worldwide in the past three years for the 2011 CICA Awards; Theo. David’s Gladstonos 22 housing development (pictured at left) has been shortlisted in the housing category of the 2011 World Architecture Festival; Board Member Saskia Sassen was named as the first Visiting Fellow of Indiana University’s Framing the Global project; and John Wong’s SWA Group was announced as the winner of a competition to re-design the downtown lakefront in the rapidly-developing city of Suzhou, China.

Fellows in the News: Balsley, Cooper, Dubbeldam, Enquist, Griffin, Hartmann, Jones, Palmieri, & Richards

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

The firm of Thomas Balsley was named as one of six finalists in a competition to re-design the waterfront of Corpus Christi, Texas; David Cooper was interviewed about the importance of maintenance at LEED-certified buildings; TASHAN, a new restaurant designed by Board Member Winka Dubbeldam, has just opened in Philadelphia (pictured at left); Philip Enquist participated in Milwaukee’s fifth annual Water Summit; Board Member Toni Griffin has been named as the first Director of the new J. Max Bond Center at the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York; John Hartmann’s +Farm project made its first appearance in Perrysburg, New York; Mary Margaret Jones is working on the re-design of Richmond’s James Riverfront; North Jersey’s The Record calls the hiring of John Palmieri to helm the state’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority “a smart bet”; and Larry Wayne Richards served on the jury for Twenty + Change 03, the exhibit of which opens in Toronto today.