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.

Fellows in the News: Angotti, Baldwin, Berman, Fisher, Flint, Greenberg, Jahn, Kelley, Libeskind, & Stepner

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Civic watchdog Tom Angotti reviews the latest changes to the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC 2030 in the Gotham Gazette; Greg Baldwin sat on the jury for the Urban Land Institute’s 2011 Amanda Burden Urban Open Space Award; DesignShuffle visited a “whimsical” Nantucket home designed by Matt Berman; you can watch Ken Fisher interview Junior Achievement of New York director Joseph Peri on the latest episode of CUNY-TV’s Citywide; Anthony Flint argued for a re-write of Massachusetts’ state zoning law on Boston.com; the initial reviews of Ken Greenberg’s book Walking Home could generally be described as “glowing,” with the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and Treehugger all sounding off; the Tribune’s Blair Kamin reviews Helmut Jahn’s just-opened Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago (pictured at left); NYC’s Village Alliance, led by Fellow William Kelley, is undertaking a detailed survey of local residents and merchants to revive West 8th Street; Daniel Libeskind just finished an addition to  his first completed project, the Felix Nussbaum Haus in Osnabrück, Austria; and Michael Stepner spoke to the Voice of San Diego about the streamlining of that city’s charter.

Fellows in the News: Balsley, Berman, Cathcart, Dubbeldam, Harwick, Holl, Kelley, Norten, Stastny, & Stepner

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Thomas Balsley will design the landscapes for the new Gotham West development in Hell’s Kitchen; Houzz visited a stunning Nantucket cottage designed by Matthew Berman; The Lee, a green supportive housing center designed by Colin Cathcart, opened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side; Elle Decor chatted with Board Member Winka Dubbeldam about her 12 “must-haves”; Ron Harwick’s JHP participated in the Edgewood/Candler Park MARTA charrette in Atlanta, re-imagining the area around a subway station in the southern metropolis as a Transit Oriented Development; Green Source featured a case study of Patron Steven Holl’s Vanke Center (aka the Horizontal Skyscraper) in Shenzhen; William Kelley introduced his agenda as the new Director of the Village Alliance BID in New York with an article in The Villager; Board Member Enrique Norten (whose Guggenheim Guadalajara—pictured at left—was recently called one of the best museums never built) unveiled designs for not one, but two sleek new buildings in DC’s West End; Donald Stastny was selected to lead a design competition re-imagining Waller Creek area in Austin; and Michael Stepner cheered the development of a long-term regional plan for San Diego in the Union-Tribune.

Fellows in the News: Blaik, Gorlin, Libeskind, Palmieri, Safdie, Sennett, Sheffer, Stepner, Walker, & Wong

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Detroit is abuzz with talk about Omar Blaik’s revitalization plan for the historic Midtown neighborhood, which recently got extensive write-ups from the Detroit News and the Free-Press; the latest issue of Dwell features a two-page spread on Alexander Gorlin’s The Brook development in the Bronx; a torquing tower designed by Daniel Libeskind will soon join a new cluster of skyscrapers rising in Jerusalem; John Palmieri recently visited Belfast as a guest lecturer for the city’s State of the City Development Debate; the Architect’s Newspaper recently visited Moshe Safdie’s studio for a look at his current projects, while the Huffington Post featured a slideshow of the architect’s daring Golden Dream Bay Sky Garden Apartments in Qinhuangdao; Richard Sennett wrote an article in the Guardian on the recent funding scandal at the London School of Economics; New York magazine talked to Ethel Sheffer about the uniquely depressing quality of long-vacant storefronts in newer buildings; Michael Stepner spoke to the Voice of San Diego about the challenges presented by “invisible parks”; construction is just getting underway to transform a disused stretch of Sydney’s waterfront into the 15-acre Headlands Park, designed by Peter Walker; and HuffPo visited the serenely swooping gardens (pictured at left), designed by John Wong, at the base of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Portman Honored at ALIS Awards

Friday, February 25th, 2011

Atlanta-based Developer/Architect and Fellow John C. Portman, known for massive projects like his hometown’s Peachtree Center (pictured at left), Detroit’s Renaissance Center, and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, was presented with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Americas Lodging Investment Summit in San Diego.

Fellows in the News: Alschuler, Angotti, Balsley, Dykers, Fain, Fisher, Orff, Pasquarelli, Stepner, & Williamson

Friday, February 4th, 2011

San Mateo’s Station Park Green development (pictured at left), designed by Karen Alschuler, received an enthusiastic thumbs-up from that city’s Council; Tom Angotti’s column in the Gotham Gazette looks at NYC’s new comprehensive waterfront plan, Vision 2020; the Epoch Times profiled a Thomas Balsley-designed rooftop forest in Lower Manhattan; Metropolis visited the Manhattan office of Craig Dykers’ firm Snøhetta; San Antonio’s KSAT-12 spoke with William Fain about the redesign of HemisFair Park; Kenneth K. Fisher interviewed Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer for CUNY-TV; Kate Orff’s work on “oyster-tecture” was featured in Harvard Design Magazine; in the lead-up to Gregg Pasquarelli’s Architectural League-organized lecture last Wednesday, the League published an extensive interview with the architect; Michael Stepner co-authored a call for planners to articulate a long-term vision for downtown San Diego; and NorthJersey.com talked to June Williamson about how suburbs can be retrofitted to create walkable, urban communities.

Fellows in the News: Baldwin, Bee, Berke, Drucker, Hand, Ho, Jahn, Libeskind, Portman, & Rice

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Metropolis recently interviewed Gregory Baldwin about ZGF’s design for a piazza in downtown Portland, OR; the Wall Street Journal spoke with Carmi Bee about his Berry Street residential project in Brooklyn; Deborah Berke, who recently wrapped up work on the master plan for the ECLA in Berlin, was named one of Elle Decor‘s Five Women in Design; Kenneth Drucker spoke to the Huffington Post about China’s plan to build 50 cities of one million people in the next two decades; Jamie Hand has accepted a new position as a Design Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC; Board Member Cathy Lang Ho’s full review of the Venice Architecture Biennale is up at Architect; Helmut Jahn’s ambitious proposal for the revamp of Navy Pier (pictured at left) has been stirring up debate in the Windy City; Daniel Libeskind has been selected to design Finland’s second-largest arena; John Portman will design a new 250- to 500-room hotel as part of the $700MM expansion of the San Diego Convention Center; and Lyn Rice’s work on the New School’s Manhattan campus was featured in gb&d Magazine‘s November issue (see p. 48).

Fellows in the News: Brunzema, Cathcart, Holl, Jerde, and Weisz

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Fellows in the News: Fellow Meta Brunzema’s La Marqueta Mile project in Harlem has been generating a lot of great buzz lately; work has started and a construction webcam has gone live at the site of the new Bushwick Inlet Park in Brooklyn, designed by Fellow Colin Cathcart’s firm Kiss + Cathcart; Patron Steven Holl was recently selected to design the new Long Island City branch of the Queens Library; Fellow Jon Jerde’s groundbreaking Horton Plaza shopping center in San Diego (pictured at left) just hit the quarter-century mark, an anniversary the mall’s owners are celebrating with architectural tours; and finally, Fellow Claire Wiesz has been very busy — work on her revamp of Transmitter Park, just a few blocks upriver form the aforementioned Bushwick Inlet Park, has just started, and this week saw the unveiling of WXY Architecture’s plans for the overhaul of Fordham Plaza in the Bronx.