There are two new titles out from Tom Angotti, including Service-Learning in Design and Planning, co-edited with Cheryl Doble and Paula Horrigan, and Accidental Warriors and Battlefield Myths, Angotti’s first collection of short stories; Richard Sennett’s Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Collaboration was excerpted in Salon, reviewed by the New Scientist, and called “a whirlwind of big ideas” by the Washington Post; Frederick Steiner’s latest, Urban Ecological Design, is now available at a bookstore near you; and Barbara Wilks‘ West Harlem Piers Park is featured in John Hill’s new Guide to Contemporary New York Architecture.
Fellows in the News: Angotti, Arad, Gardner, Hausman, Holl, Jaklitsch, Lancaster, Mayne, Pasquarelli, Pollak, & Wakeman
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
The Wall Street Journal spoke to Tom Angotti about the Bloomberg-era evolution of zoning in New York City, and published a wonderful profile of Michael Arad; Architect talked to Board Member Tami Hausman about how architecture firms can (and should) use social media strategically; Luca Farinelli’s “53 Questions, 265 Answers” in Log 23 features interviews with Patron Steven Holl and Board Member Thom Mayne; the WSJ features Stephan Jaklitsch and Mark Gardner’s renovation of Marc Jacobs’ private Soho showroom; Patricia Lancaster expressed surprise at Related’s decision to hire a California contractor for the massive Hudson Yards project in Manhattan; Gregg Pasquarelli’s Pier 15 opened along Manhattan’s East River Waterfront Esplanade; Linda Pollak’s new Elmhurst Branch of the Queens Library, which is wrapping up construction, was featured on NY1; and Rosemary Wakeman was quoted in a Corpus Christi Caller-Times article about the relationship between streetscapes and civic pride.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: February 1-15, 2012
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
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.
Quoth the Fellows: Angotti, Brunzema, & Sassen
Friday, January 27th, 2012
In a Crain’s New York article about growth patterns in Brooklyn over the past decade, Tom Angotti did not mince words, stating that “The development has been very uneven and unequal. Instead of the vibrant city that was more diverse, it’s becoming a city of separate enclaves.” Speaking in her official capacity as the chair of the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association’s planning committee, Meta Brunzema cheered Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to tear down the Javits Center: “I hate to say it, but [Hudson River Park's] really inadequate around here and everyone knows it. The Javits Center is an obstacle to it really becoming a great park.” And Saskia Sassen, in an Artforum piece on the sociopolitical conditions that led up to OWS (pictured at left), writes that “The Occupy movements are emergent assemblages of fragments of various national (and global) territories. Their reclamation of public space is also a response to the increasingly palpable insufficiency of the logic of the nation-state.”
Fellows’ Awards & Competitions: Gans, Griffin, Guiney, Mayne, Norten, Rogers, Wakeman, & Willis
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.
Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: January 15-31, 2012
Monday, January 16th, 2012
On 1/17, the Storefront for Art and Architecture will host an opening reception for artist Allard van Hoorn’s 007 Urban Songline, which will transform the iconic facade designed by Patron Steven Holl and Vito Acconci (pictured at left) into a musical instrument; also on 1/17, Rick Bell’s Center for Architecture will hold a “Breakthrough” party to mark the connection of the existing and new gallery spaces; Ken Greenberg will open a conference on the future of Montreal’s Griffintown neighborhood on 1/20; Rosemary Wakeman’s Urban Studies Program at Forham will host the panel Urban Dialogues II: Making Cities Work on 1/23; and that same day, Gregg Pasquarelli and Board Member Thom Mayne will participate in the Columbia GSAPP’s symposium Where is More Manhattan?
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!
Quoth the Fellows: Bell, Hardwicke, & Stern
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Speaking to the New York Observer about the AIA’s growing role in New York City politics, Rick Bell noted that “It used to be we were more reactive, waiting for the forum to air our views, and by then it was usually too late. Now we want to be there for the start of the discussion, or even initiating the discussion ourselves.” Chris Hardwicke explained the 220-page report that he just completed on downtown Saskatoon as an innovative effort to gather hard data on day-to-day use of the city by its citizens: “It’s an atlas of public life. It’s unique to study people spending time in space…I think most people assume planning is for people, but because you don’t measure it, you can’t actually plan for it.” At the Zoning the City symposium earlier this month, Robert A.M. Stern responded to Mary Ann Tighe’s lament about Asia’s nascent preeminence in the great skyscraper race (and the related falling-behind of New York’s “romantic” skyline) with a cutting quip: “Let’s be real. There’s a lot of crap out there. I’m happy to come home.” (Video of all of the panels from that event, by the way, are now available online).
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…
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.”
