Quoth the Fellows

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

Susan Chin spoke to Metropolis about the Design Trust for Public Space’s new Five Borough Farm initiative (pictured at left), saying “Along the way we learned that urban agriculture is about much more than food. It’s about teaching kids where carrots come from, providing leadership skills and job-training to high-school students, capturing storm water and food waste for compost, and bringing neighbors together to transform underutilized land into vibrant public space.”  For a Huffington Post piece examining the spatial backdrop of the Aurora shooting, Board Chair Michael Sorkin commented, “Malls are repressive spaces. They have distorted the nature of the way in which one is able to participate in the life of a city as a citizen.” In an article about the lack of connection between new buildings and the city’s environment, the Vancouver Sun quoted Robert A.M. Stern’s recent warning, “We need to be ever suspicious of trends masquerading as ideas.”

Quoth the Fellows

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.”

Fellows’ New Projects

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

Last week, it was announced that Deborah Berke will expand the Rockefeller Arts Center at SUNY Fredonia and design a new 21c Museum Hotel in Lexington, KY; Matt Blesso opened a luxury, eco-conscious hotel in Panama City; a new lab and office building designed by David Manfredi’s firm in Kendall Square celebrated its topping off; Linda Pollak’s firm designed the new Dutch Kills Green park at Queens Plaza (pictured at left), officially opened by Mayor Bloomberg on 4/4; a new Robert A.M. Stern building for Webster University opened in St. Louis; Peter Walker will develop the landscape for UT Dallas‘ Campus Enhancement Plan; a student center at Duke University will be designed by Andrew Whalley’s Grimshaw Architects; Barbara Wilks has been selected to renovate the Troy Riverfront Park on the Hudson in Troy, NY.

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.

Fellows in the News: Dubbeldam, Griffin, Jones, Kelley, Libeskind, Locke, Manfredi, Safdie, Sollohub, & Stern

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Curbed included Board Member Winka Dubbeldam’s 597 Greenwich Street on their list of Innovative Residences You Need to Know Right Now; Mayor Dave Bing announced the re-launch of the Detroit Works program, with Board Member Toni Griffin heading up the development of a long-range development plan for the troubled Rust Belt city; Mary Margaret Jones (whose Olympic Park in London, pictured at left, was just completed) has been selected to design a new public entertainment waterfront attraction in Corpus Christi, Texas; Bill Kelley is leading the charge to add more sidewalk cafe space to Greenwich Village’s West 8th Street; good news came for two skyscrapers designed by Daniel Libeskind: the developers of his Zlota 44 building in Warsaw secured financing to complete construction, while his Eden Center in Jerusalem received official approval to move forward; Anne Locke spoke to WestfairOnline about the recent boom in medical facilities construction; “The Mobius,” Michael Manfredi’s entry to the Portal to the Point ideas competition in Pittsburgh, was featured on ArchDaily; Moshe Safdie released renderings for a massive $3.1 billion, six-tower, 10 million-square-foot mixed-use complex planned for Chongqing, China; a course designed by NJIT’s Darius Sollohub in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity was featured in a round-up of innovative and unconventional college courses around New Jersey; and Robert A.M. Stern was interviewed about his skyscraping One Horizon Center project in Gurgaon, India.

Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: December 15-31, 2011

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Today (12/15), Ken Greenberg will be in Edmonton (pictured at left) to speak about urban design at the Downtown X-posed symposium; Lance Jay Brown will introduce, and Rick Bell & Board President Michael Sorkin will speak at, the Center for Architecture’s Freedom of Assembly panel on 12/17; Michael Arad will go gastronomical to serve as a juror for Edible Brooklyn’s 3rd Annual Latke Festival on 12/19; and the work of Robert A.M. Stern and Patrons Steven Holl and Denise Scott Brown is on view at the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture through 2/18/12.

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’ Events & Exhibits: November 1-15, 2011

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

The World Architecture Festival, for which Board President Michael Sorkin chaired the Grand Jury, kicks off tomorrow (11/2) in Barcelona; Steven Handel will deliver the Benjamin C. Howland Jr. Memorial Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture on 11/4; that same day, Board Member Thom Mayne will speak at Architectural Record‘s 2011 Innovation Conference; also on 11/4, Board Member Enrique Norten will speak at Yale’s Catastrophe and Consequence symposium; on 11/5, Colin Cathcart will participate in the Center for Architecture symposium Buildings = Energy; on 11/7, Deborah Gans, Matt Blesso, Mark Ginsberg, and Mark Strauss will all participate in the Architectural League’s Making Room symposium; Craig Dykers will speak at La Ciudad de las Ideas in Puebla, Mexico, on 11/11; Board Member Saskia Sassen is co-chair of the Committee on Global Thought’s Ecogram IV: China event on 11/11; Stuart Pertz will join a discussion on Planning the Future of Coney Island’s Amusement District, also on 11/11; the Reconsidering Postmodernism conference, to be held in New York from 11/11-12, will feature Robert A.M. Stern, as well as a session focusing on the work of Patrons Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown; Board Member Tami Hausman is a co-organizer of the 11/14 CfA panel What’s Your Story?; and on 11/15, Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute will host the Zoning the City conference in New York, featuring Rick Bell, Stern, and Board Members Mayne and Toni Griffin.

Fellows in the News: Dattner, Dubbeldam, Enquist, Ferrandino, Libeskind, Manfredi, Pasquarelli, Safdie, Stern, & Weisz

Friday, January 21st, 2011

The Wall Street Journal spoke to Richard Dattner about his design for a new salt shed in Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighborhood (pictured at left); Board Member Winka Dubbeldam has been quite popular at New York magazine lately — the publication  featured a slideshow of her design for singer John Legend’s new Bowery apartment, as well as a fascinating debate between Winka, Fellows Gregg Pasquarelli and Robert A.M. Stern, and several other NYC luminaries on the city’s greatest building; the New York Times looked at Phil Enquist’s master plan for the redevelopment of a massive former US Steel complex on Chicago’s South Shore; Vince Ferrandino was interviewed by WestfairOnline as part of a special report on civic leadership; Architectural Record announced that Daniel Libeskind will design a mixed-use complex on the mainland side of a bridge connecting Sicily to the Italian peninsula; David Manfredi presented his firm’s plans for Kendall Square at a community meeting in Cambridge; Architect took a look at Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands complex; and Curbed featured a sizable set of images of Claire Weisz’s recently-unveiled plans for Manhattan’s Astor Place/Cooper Square area.