The third installment of the Architectural League’s Conversations on New York series will take place tomorrow, July 20, at 7:00 PM in the Cooper Union’s Great Hall, 7 East 7th Street. This session will bring together the heads of three of New York City’s most design-conscious departments: Adrian Benepe (Parks), Amanda Burden (Planning), and David Burney (Design and Construction). The discussion will be moderated by New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger. League members may reserve a ticket by e-mailing: rsvp@archleague.org; non-members can purchase tickets here for $15.
Benepe, Burden, and Burney to Discuss Design in New York
Monday, July 19th, 2010Fellow Beverly Willis Takes Her Show on the Road
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Fellow Beverly Willis, FAIA, recently screened and spoke about the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation’s film “A Girl Is A Fellow Here”: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. A number of New York organizations also screened the film, including the 5th Annual NY Women in Real Estate Gala, where Willis gave a keynote address, the New York Commercial Real Estate Women’s Network, the New York AIA chapter Women-in-Architecture, and The School of Visual Arts.
MAS Schedules Land Use Conference
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
The Municipal Arts Society of New York will host a day-long conference Land Use & Local Voices: Is the City’s Land Use Process in Need of Reform?, from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM next Wedesday, July 21. The event’s panels will explore various perspectives on New York City’s land use process and consider proposals to improve it. As the IfUD’s next Breakfast Club, scheduled for the following Wednesday, July 28, will cover the city’s ongoing charter revision process as it pertains to land use and project approvals, Fellows may want to attend the MAS event to bone up on their land use knowledge in advance!
ARCHIVE Institute Launches Kay e Sante nan Ayiti Competition
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Leslie Voltaire, the UN’s Special Envoy to Haiti and lead planner for the Haitian Government’s reconstruction plans, as well as the Institute for Urban Design’s guest at the June 4, 2010 symposium Rebuilding a Sustainable Haiti, will return to New York today, July 12, to speak at the launch of the ARCHIVE Institute’s Kay e Sante nan Ayiti (Housing and Health in Haiti) design competition. The competition will recognize the six-month anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti earlier this year by calling on architects, engineers, health specialists, and the general public to pool together their knowledge and submit housing designs which can mitigate transmission of airborne diseases like tuberculosis (TB). The event, which will also feature Housing Works CEO Charles King, will take place from 6:00-8:00 PM at CCNY’s Manhattan Campus in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture’s Sciame Auditorium (160 Convent Avenue). If you plan to attend, please RSVP to mf@archiveinstitute.org.
Next Breakfast Club Date Set: 7/28/10
Friday, July 9th, 2010
The next Breakfast Club for Fellows and their guests will be held at the Center for Architecture, at 536 LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village, at 8:30 AM on Wednesday, July 28. We’ll be discussing the land-use elements in New York City’s ongoing Charter Revision process, and what the ramifications for development and design will be if there are changes in the ULURP and approvals process. For those of you who’d like to brush up on the topic, take a look at Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s excellent report for the Charter Revision Commission (PDF available for download here), or read IfUD Fellow Tom Agnotti’s recent article on the process in the Gotham Gazette. For more information on upcoming Commission meetings (the next is set for Monday, July 12), see the city’s web site. In the meantime, mark the 28th on your calendar, and send an email to info@ifud.org to RSVP if you know you’ll be able to attend. See you soon!
Columbia’s GSAPP Stages Summer Lectures
Thursday, July 8th, 2010
The Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation’s summer lecture series will feature two Institute-relevant events in July: those of you who enjoyed our May 6th Breakfast Club on MoMA’s Rising Currents show may be interested to know that Columbia faculty from three of the design teams (nARCHITECTS, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, and SCAPE) will discuss their participation in the show at 12:00 PM on Wednesday, July 21; and at 12:30 PM on Wednesday, July 28, IfUD Fellow Kate Orff will take part in a discussion with artist Mary Miss on the City as a Living Laboratory.
9th Breakfast Club
Friday, June 25th, 2010
On June 24, IfUD Fellows gathered at the Architectural League of New York’s The City We Imagined, The City We Made exhibition in Lower Manhattan for our 9th Breakfast Club to discuss the subject of the show, development in New York City over the past decade, with its curators, Rosalie Genevro and Gregory Wessner. We were also joined by Columbia University’s Vishaan Chakrabarti, whom many of you may know through his participation in last fall’s Arrested Development symposium, Gregg Pasquerelli of SHoP Architects, who spoke about his work on the Atlantic Yards project, and Emiliano Espasandin, a member of the team that imagined the transportation future of Buenos Aires for the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy’s Our Cities Ourselves exhibit, which opened last night at the Center for Architecture. Thanks to everyone who made it to the Club; a photo album is up on our Facebook page, so take a look!
Next Breakfast Club: June 24, 2010
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Mark your calendar: the Institute’s next Breakfast Club will take place on Thursday, June 24, at the Architectural League of New York’s The City We Imagined, The City We Made exhibition at 250 Hudson Street. We’ll be meeting there in the exhibition gallery at 8:30 AM to discuss the show with its creators. We’re very excited to be working with the League on this event, and we hope that you’ll join us for what promises to be a lively and enlightening look at the past decade of development in New York.
Thom Mayne to Judge Sukkah City
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Board member Thom Mayne will serve as one of the judges for the recently-launched Sukkah City competition, which will be staged a stone’s throw from IfUD HQ here in New York, at Union Square, from September 19-21, 2010. To learn more about the competition, and to register, visit www.sukkahcity.com.
8th Breakfast Club
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
Institute fellows gathered at the Center for Architecture in New York this morning for the eighth Breakfast Club, which brought together representatives of all five of the design teams from MoMA’s Rising Currents and members of the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The USACE opened with a discussion of the political realities of getting things done on the ground, and Guy Nordenson of Guy Nordenson & Associates gave a brief presentation on the proposals generated by the design teams. A lively conversation between both sides and Institute fellows followed. Take a look at our Facebook page for photos of the event.
Finally, a big thanks goes out to all of the presenters: Ben Abelman (SCAPE), Matthew Baird (Matthew Baird Architects), Stephen Cassell (ARO), Steve Couch (USACE), Donald Cresitello (USACE), Susannah Drake (dLand Studio), Dr. Thomas J. Hodson (USACE), Noah Levy (nARCHITECTS), Guy Nordenson (Guy Nordenson & Associates), and Gena Wirth (SCAPE).