The Official IfUD Holiday Gift Guide

Friday, December 16th, 2011

If you’re looking for some ideas for what to give to design-minded friends, family, or colleagues, we’d recommend browsing through the list of our Fellows’ publications over the past year: Tom Angotti’s New York For Sale came out in paperback; Andy Bernheimer and Board Member Claire Weisz both had projects included in Michael Crosbie’s New York Dozen; Jim Dart and Deborah Gans‘ work in New Orleans was featured in Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity; Founder Ann Ferebee released a new edition of A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, updated to include recent years; critic Justin Davidson included Alexander Gorlin’s Tomorrow’s Houses on his round-up of the most Notable Design Books of 2011; Ken Greenberg’s Walking Home was published to great acclaim; Jamie Hand, Olympia Kazi, and Kate Orff co-edited Gateway: Visions for an Urban National Park, which features work by Barbara Wilks; Horizontal Skyscraper, Patron Steven Holl’s latest publication, is just hitting bookstore shelves now; Board Member Thom Mayne rolled out a new manifesto called Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior of Collective Form; Board President Michael Sorkin’s most recent collection of essays, All Over the Map, has been building buzz; and Frederick Steiner released Design for a Vulnerable Planet this past spring.

It’s Competition Season!

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Finalists for the National Mall design competition in Washington, DC, were announced recently, and the IfUD is well-represented: Michael Arad, Craig Dykers, Rob Rogers, Peter Walker, Barbara Wilks, and Board Member Enrique Norten will all move forward. Donald Stastny is managing the high-profile competition, while Board Member Thom Mayne is one of the jurors. And speaking of juries, Arad and Joseph Brown both spent some time on that side of the competition process recently–the former for this year’s NYC iteration of CANstruction, and the latter for the Urban Land Institute’s Global Awards for Excellence. Coming up: June Williamson will judge entries for the CNU Charter Awards (entries due by January 25th!)

Fellows in the News: Angotti, Berman, Enquist, Fain, Flint, Griffin, Holl, Machado, Mayne, Pollak, Stastny, & Wakeman

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

In his latest Gotham Gazette column, Tom Angotti looks into NYC’s plans for its new bikeshare program; Matt Berman and his partner Andrew Kotchen launched SpruceBox, a new web platform to help homeowners visualize renovation projects; Phil Enquist won two competitions to develop master plans for a 2-kilometer stretch of the Yangtze Riverfront in downtown Nanjing and a new urban center at Duqm City in Oman; William Fain’s firm recently completed master plans for the Chinese cities of Chengdu and XiCheng; Anthony Flint argued for concentrating early development of a high-speed rail system in the US in megaregions like the Northeast Corridor; Board Member Toni Griffin joined in on the New York Times‘ most recent Room For Debate feature on the demolition of foreclosed housing; construction work has begun on Patron Steven Holl’s athletic complex for Columbia at the northern tip of Manhattan (pictured at left); Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, designed by Rodolfo Machado’s firm, has just opened; the National Mall Design Competition, led by Don Stastny, announced its jury, which will include Board Member Thom Mayne; Linda Pollak will serve as the Lead Juror for AIA Pittsburgh’s Design Pittsburgh awards; and Rosemary Wakeman spoke to the Baltimore Sun about gentrification in that city’s Union Square neighborhood.

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’ Events & Exhibits: October 15-31, 2011

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Board Member Saskia Sassen will participate in the Columbia GSAPP’s Injured Cities Conference on 10/14-15; Barbara Wilks will give a talk at the New York Botanical Garden’s Midtown Education Center on 10/24; Board Member Enrique Norten will speak at the Pratt Institute on 10/24 in conjunction with the new exhibit Breaking Borders: New Latin American Architecture; Richard Sennett will join the Institute for Public Knowledge’s discussion of the new publication Living in the Endless City in New York on 10/25; Jack Nyman’s Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute will host the symposium The Waterfront: A Brooklyn Model for Preservation and Change on 10/26; Deborah Berke will talk about Development, Design and Financing Strategies for Urban Revitalization Using Hospitality and the Arts at the ULI Fall Conference on 10/26; Board Member Toni Griffin will visit Notre Dame University on 10/26 to deliver the lecture Can Planning Save the City: Facing the Challenges of Urban America; Olympia Kazi will host Board Member Thom Mayne at Van Alen Books on 10/28 for a presentation on his new book, Combinatory Urbanism; Board Member Winka Dubbeldam is on the Host Committee for the Storefront for Art & Architecture’s Critical Halloween party on 10/29; and Tom Angotti will participate in the panel Where is New York? Apparitions at Willets Point at the Columbia GSAPP on 10/31.

Fellows’ Events & Exhibits: October 1-15, 2011

Friday, September 30th, 2011

The AIACC’s Monterey Design Conference, scheduled for 10/7-9, will feature talks by Peter Walker and Board Member Thom Mayne; Matthew Berman will speak at Chicago Ideas Week on 10/10; Craig Dykers‘ firm Snøhetta will host the Architectural League of New York’s First Friday reception on 10/14; and Board Member Saskia Sassen will participate in the Columbia GSAPP-hosted Injured Cities Conference on 10/14-15.

Quoth the Fellows: Jahn & Mayne

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

In a discussing his office space (pictured at left) with Chicago Tribune critic Blair Kamin, Helmut Jahn contrasted it with other firms: “You don’t see drawings anymore. You don’t see any models. That’s the problem. Sometimes I go to other people’s offices, I think I would die.” Board Member Thom Mayne expressed his own concerns about the effects of technology on the profession during a keynote address at last month’s International Architectural Education Summit in Spain, noting that “in the age of globalization, student portfolios are becoming more and more similar.”

Fellows Awards & Honors: Bernheimer, Cathcart, Handel, Jambhekar, Mayne, Portman, Stastny, & White

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

The Design Trust for Public Space announced three Fellows for its Making Manhattan project–including two IfUD Fellows, Andy Bernheimer and Colin Cathcart; the Society for Ecological Restoration International announced Steven N. Handel as the winner of the 2011 Theodore Sperry Award; Sudhir Jambhekar and Hank White won an International Architecture Award for the King Abdullah Financial District Mosque in Riyadh (pictured at left), while Board Member Thom Mayne won for the Giant Interactive Group Corporate Headquarters in Shanghai; John Portman has been announced as a candidate for election to the American Furniture Hall of Fame; and Don Stastny was inducted into the College of Fellows of the Canadian Institute of Planners, following earlier elevations to Fellowship in both the American Institute of Architects and the American Institute of Certified Planners.

I Want My IfUD-TV!

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Executive Director Anne Guiney was recently interviewed by Brian Lehrer about By the City / For the City design competition–don’t miss the clip (pictured at left). Meanwhile, LandmarksWest talked to Richard Dattner about adventure playgrounds, Ken Fisher interviewed NYC Comptroller John Liu, and Board Member Thom Mayne took an Architectural Record camera crew on a tour of his San Francisco Federal Building.

Fellows’ Events & Exhibitions: July 1-14, 2011

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Board Member Saskia Sassen will deliver the keynote address at Lift France 11 in Marseille on 7/7; Board Member Tami Hausman will participate in the Center for Architecture panel discussion The Pitch: A Hands-On Workshop on Attracting a Client in Two Minutes or Less on 7/11; Board Member Thom Mayne will participate in the Van Alen Institute’s Los Angeles panel [PDF] for their Life at the Speed of Rail program on 7/12; and you can see BOB, a public art installation (pictured at left) designed by a team led by Galia Solomonoff, at Columbia University in Manhattan through 7/25.