Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Matt Blesso spoke to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times about blending city and country on his Manhattan rooftop; Richard Dattner’s 1960s playground designs feature prominently in a Cabinet magazine article; Phil Enquist spoke with Chicago radio station WBEZ about the future of the Chicago River, one he hopes includes fishing and swimming; Architectural Record investigated how Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss’ Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center uses earth and plants to amplify its design; also according to Architectural Record, Rob Rogers and Jonathan Marvel are ‘hitting their stride’ with the commission to design a hotel and condominium overlooking Brooklyn Bridge Park (above).
Tags: Architectural Record, Brooklyn Botanic Garden Visitor Center, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Cabinet Magazine, Chicago, Chicago River, manhattan, matt blesso, Michael Manfredi, New York Times, Phil Enquist, Richard Drattner, Rob Rogers, wall street journal, WBEZ
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Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
In a Design Observer article reflecting on MoMA’s “Foreclosed” exhibit (pictured at left), Tom Angotti tackles ‘the housing question,’ arguing that “The problem is that we can’t design our way out of the foreclosure crisis…We need to stop looking for the next technological or spatial fix, because it will inevitably reflect and reproduce the entrenched economic and social inequalities that have led us to our current crisis.” Ronnette Riley spoke to the Times Observer about the comparable qualities of architecture and fashion, saying “Architecture is like fashion. There are trends, and they last longer, but it’s constantly evolving.” Robert A.M. Stern joked with the New York Times about his ‘starchitect’ appellation. “That’s a term used for a lot of people,” he said. “But since my name is Stern and “Stern” means star, I think that’s perfectly good. It’s all the other people that are intruding.”
Tags: Design Observer, MoMA, New York City, New York Times, robert a.m. stern, Ronnette Riley, starchitect, Times Observer, Tom Angotti
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Thursday, May 24th, 2012

James Crispino’s firm, Francis Cauffman, has completed extensive renovations on the new Wilmington offices of Delaware law firm Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor; David Manfredi’s firm, Elkus Manfredi, will design The Galleria at Sowwah Square, a new luxury retail destination in Abu Dhabi; Michael Manfredi’s new Visitor Center opens this week at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (pictured above); along with Robert Rogers and Peter Walker, Weiss/Manfredi was also selected to redesign sites along the National Mall in Washington, DC (in a competition overseen by Don Stastny); Board Member Thom Mayne will design the first academic building for Cornell’s engineering campus on Roosevelt Island, as covered in the New York Times and New York; the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation named Barbara Wilks to draw up redevelopment plans for an island on the Bow River.
Tags: Abu Dhabi, Alberta, Barbara Wilks, Bow River, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Calgary, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, Cornell University, David Manfredi, Delaware, Don Stastny, Elkus Manfredi, Francis Cauffman, James Crispino, Justin Davidson, Michael Manfredi, Morphosis, National Mall, New York magazine, New York Times, Peter Walker, Peter Walker Landscape Architecture, Peter Walker Partners, Robert Rogers, Rogers Marvel, Roosevelt Island, The Galleria at Sowwah Square, Thom Mayne, Trust for the National Mall, Visitor Center, W Architecture, washington dc, Weiss Manfredi, Wilmington, Young Conaway Stargatt Taylor
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Monday, May 14th, 2012

In a speech to the Burlington Performing Arts Center in Burlington, Ontario, Ken Greenberg said, “The car is a wonderful piece of technology, but like many great elements of technology we tend to abuse them, we test them to failure.” In a New York Times article about the preservation of ‘unloved buildings,’ Nina Rappaport argues, “It’s like saying, ‘I don’t like Pollock because he splattered paint.’ Does that mean we shouldn’t put it in a museum? No, it means we teach people about these things” (image from the article pictured above). Board Member Saskia Sassen commented in the Financial Times about the erosion of the “civic” quality of communities favored by the super-rich buying their fourth or even fifth house. Sassen cautions “It can feel less like a neighbourhood and more like a corporate district in the low density of street life.”
Tags: Burlington, Burlington Performing Arts Center, Financial Times, historic preservation, Ken Greenberg, New York Times, Nina Rappaport, Ontario, Saskia Sassen, unloved buildings
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Thursday, March 29th, 2012
In an article looking at the politics of New York’s MTA subway construction in The Indypendent, Tom Angotti commented, “from a long-term planning perspective, the only rationale is real estate development.” The most recent issue of MAS Context features an essay by Patron Denise Scott Brown, who writes that “America is far more different from Europe than most visiting Europeans realise. This is in part due to the emigrants’ search for a new world, which they defined as the counterform to the unsatisfactory old world.” As the New York Times examined the strange bedfellows of starchitecture and the recession, Board Member Enrique Norten opined, “Developers were not just looking for architecture brand, they were looking for any brand. Of course I love Mick Jagger, but does that make a good apartment?” In a Times op-ed exploring architectural writing, Board Chair Michael Sorkin’s 1985 description of the Whitney Museum (pictured at left) – “to which are affixed the winning ‘eyebrow’ windows, apt symbols of museum going” – is lauded as an exemplary piece of criticism.
Tags: Alexandra Lange, criticism, Denise Scott Brown, Enrique Norten, Las Vegas, MAS Context, Michael Sorkin, Mick Jagger, MTA, New York, New York Times, recession, starchitecture, The Indypendent, Tom Angotti, Village Voice, Whitney Museum
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Thursday, March 8th, 2012
Cosentini Associates has just appointed Gretchen Bank as their Director of Business Development and Marketing; Andrew Bernheimer has been announced as the new director for Parsons’ Master in Architecture program; Ken Fisher interviewed Camille Rivera, a leader In the Working Families Party in New York, for his CityWide talk show on 2/15; as part of their AEC Knowledge series, the AIANY released “Sustainable High Density Affordable Housing,” a new digital course presented by Mark Ginsberg; Chris Hardwicke’s Ravine City concept is featured in the new book Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture (pictured at left); Patron Steven Holl and Board Member Thom Mayne are finalists to design the first academic building on Cornell’s new Roosevelt Island campus (Holl’s Zaituny Bay project was also recently profiled in the New York Times); David Manfredi recently presented Elkus Manfredi’s proposed “Ink Block” mixed-use development to a public forum in Boston; The Architect’s Newspaper profiled the Queens Plaza revamp designed by Linda Pollak’s firm; the March issue of Dwell features the ‘Ghost Houses’ project by Ted Shelton; Ethel Sheffer has been selected to join the AICP College of Fellows and will be inducted at the National Planning Conference in April; finally, congratulations to Beverly Willis, whose Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation celebrated its tenth anniversary on 2/21.
Tags: AEC Knowledge, AIA NY, Andrew Bernheimer, Beverly Willis, Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, Boston, Camille Rivera, Carrot City, CCNY, Chris Hardwicke, CityWide, Cornell, Cosentini Associates, David Manfredi, Dwell, Elkus Manfredi, Ethel Sheffer, FAICP, Ghost Houses, Gretchen Bank, Ink Block, Ken Fisher, Linda Pollack, Mark Ginsberg, Master in Architecture, mixed-use, National Planning Conference, New York Times, Parsons, Queens Plaza, Ravine City, Roosevelt Island, Steven Holl, Sustainable High Density Affordable Housing, Ted Shelton, The Architect's Newspaper, The New School, Thom Mayne, Working Families Party, Zaituny Bay
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Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
In a fascinating reflection of the concept of hospitality inspired by a trip to Jerusalem’s In-House Festival last summer, Deborah Gans (pictured at left) posits that “Beyond the intractable divisions of Jerusalem, perhaps hospitality offers us language with which to describe our emerging geo-political spaces and the aspirations we have for them.” Speaking to the New York Times about the increasing focus on transit-oriented development in suburban areas, Mark Strauss explained that “In Westchester [New York] and other places, the mindset of many residents is that they moved to the suburbs to get away from an urban environment, and they want their towns to remain as much as possible like life was on the TV show Leave it to Beaver.” And Rosemary Wakeman was quoted in an article on neighborhood re-brandings in Philadelphia’s City Paper, noting the association of such efforts with gentrification and cautioning that “People coming in want to protect their investment…[Sometimes it works], but sometimes it’s quite a different thing for the people who live there, who understand their neighborhood in a certain way.”
Tags: branding, Design Observer, gentrification, hospitality, In-House Festival, Jerusalem, Leave it to Beaver, Mark Strauss, neighborhoods, New York Times, Philadelphia, politics, public space, quotes, Rosemary Wakeman, suburbs, Transit Oriented Development, Westchester
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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 8th, 2011
We’ve seen so many wonderful interviews with Fellows in the past couple of weeks; in lieu of pulling just a couple of quotes this time around, we recommend that you take a look at these recent interviews with Susan Chin (pictured at left) in Metropolis and the New York Observer, Board Member Winka Dubbeldam in Lookbooks, Daniel Libeskind in Time Out Hong Kong, John Portman in the New York Times, and Moshe Safdie on PBS’s Newshour. And to catch a Fellow on the other side of the table, don’t miss Ken Fisher interviewing political consultant Joseph Mercurio on the latest episode of his Citywide program on CUNY-TV.
Tags: CityWide, CUNY-TV, daniel libeskind, Design Trust for Public Space, Hong Kong, interview, john portman, Joseph Mercurio, Kenneth K. Fisher, Metropolis, moshe safdie, New York Observer, New York Times, Newshour, PBS, quotes, Susan Chin, Winka Dubbeldam
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