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’ Events & Exhibits: February 1-15, 2012
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012Quoth the Fellows: Balsley, Greenberg, & Sennett
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
One of the most prolific designers of Privately-Owned Public Spaces (POPS), Thomas Balsley (pictured at left), came out in support of these small-scale but recently-high-profile places in the New York Observer, voicing a hope that POPS will not be the ’scapegoat’ of the reaction to the Occupy movement: “The fact that a tiny POPS park was made to act in lieu of a dedicated civic forum for popular protest should serve to remind all of us of NYC’s greater obligation to create a new and more innovative kind of public space to do what POPS can’t.” At the Downtown X-posed symposium in Edmonton, Ken Greenberg made a case for universities as anchor institutions in urban revitalization efforts in his keynote address, stating plainly that “Educational institutions are key city builders.” And in a BBC Radio segment with artist Andrew Gormley on public space and public art, Richard Sennett argued that “The really exciting things that we can do with public art are not monumental…There are lots of small-scale places that need our attention. Grandeur is not what we want in our cities today.” (See also: SFGate has an excerpt from Richard’s forthcoming book Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Collaboration).
Fellows’ Awards & Competitions: Arad, Balsley, Haley, Safdie, Stastny, & Whalley
Friday, December 9th, 2011
Deadlines are fast approaching for two competitions involving Fellows: there are still two and a half weeks to enter the Waller Creek design competition in Austin, managed by Donald Stastny (Deadline: 12/16/11), and Michael Arad will head up the jury for a competition to design an AIDS Memorial Park in Manhattan (Deadline: 1/21/12). Gregory J. Haley and Andrew Whalley are on one of the six teams selected as finalists in the competition to revamp Los Angeles’ Union Station, while Thomas Balsley’s Hixon Waterfront Park in Tampa (pictured at left) was named one of the best new urban parks in America by The Atlantic CITIES. Meanwhile, Moshe Safdie is in a competition of a different sort: his iconic Habitat 67 is currently in the lead in a public online poll to see which building will be the next reproduced in Lego’s architecture series. There’s still time to cast votes for your favorites…
Fellows in the News: Balsley, Berke, Blaik, Cooper, Dubbeldam, Dykers, Fisher, Gans, Pasquarelli, Schrag, Schmidt, Solomonoff, & Wilks
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.
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: Balsley, Cooper, Dubbeldam, Enquist, Griffin, Hartmann, Jones, Palmieri, & Richards
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
The firm of Thomas Balsley was named as one of six finalists in a competition to re-design the waterfront of Corpus Christi, Texas; David Cooper was interviewed about the importance of maintenance at LEED-certified buildings; TASHAN, a new restaurant designed by Board Member Winka Dubbeldam, has just opened in Philadelphia (pictured at left); Philip Enquist participated in Milwaukee’s fifth annual Water Summit; Board Member Toni Griffin has been named as the first Director of the new J. Max Bond Center at the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York; John Hartmann’s +Farm project made its first appearance in Perrysburg, New York; Mary Margaret Jones is working on the re-design of Richmond’s James Riverfront; North Jersey’s The Record calls the hiring of John Palmieri to helm the state’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority “a smart bet”; and Larry Wayne Richards served on the jury for Twenty + Change 03, the exhibit of which opens in Toronto today.
Fellows in the News: Angotti, Balsley, Dart, Drucker, Dykers, Greenberg, Holl, Mayne, Sassen, Sauerbruch, Sollohub, & Weisz
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
The Vanishing City, a new film on the gentrification of Manhattan, featuring interviews with Tom Angotti and Board Member Saskia Sassen, opened the Staten Island Film Festival; Angotti also spoke to the NY Daily News about his new research project at Hunter College trying to repurpose vacant residential units to shrink rates of homelessness; Mimi Zeiger profiled Thomas Balsley in the latest Landscape Architecture Magazine [PDF]; Jim Dart wrote briefly about progress on the Great Falls Arts + Revitalization Initiative at the Great Falls National Park in Paterson, NJ, a project that also involves Darius Sollohub and Claire Weisz; in nearby Nutley, NJ, Ken Drucker is designing a new pedestrian bridge at the Hoffman La Roche corporate campus; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston announced a shortlist of three firms for its planned expansion: Craig Dykers’ Snøhetta, Patron Steven Holl’s eponymous firm, and Board Member Thom Mayne’s Morphosis; hot off an interview with the Montreal Gazette, Ken Greenberg penned a requiem for a pedestrian bridge proposed in Toronto; Matthias Sauerbruch’s design for an office building on London’s Old Bailey (pictured at left) has been approved; and the Drawing Center has just launched a capital plan for their Claire Weisz-designed expansion.
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: 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: Balfour, Balsley, Berman, Coen, Dykers, Fleming, Floyd, Flint, Libeskind, Schrag, & White
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture, led by Alan Balfour, recently completed the $9.5 million renovation of their new home, the Hinman Research Building, in Atlanta; Thomas Balsley and Shane Coen will both serve on the jury for ASLA’s 2011 Student Awards; Construction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s BNYC 92 facility, designed by Matthew Berman, is in full swing, and the building will open in November 2011; Craig Dykers’ Snøhetta has been shortlisted in the competition to design the Victoria & Albert’s Exhibition Road expansion; Newport’s lavish Bellevue Avenue has been enlivened by a series of Heritage Trail-esque markers by Ronald Lee Fleming’s Townscape Institute; Chad Floyd recently penned a paean to energy efficiency at Jetson Green; Anthony Flint joined the debate about a “new kind of Modernism” at ArchitectureBoston; The NY Observer interviewed Daniel Libeskind about his continued involvement in the reconstruction process at the World Trade Center; Jonathan Schrag spoke to Risk.net about the future of carbon trading in the US; and Henry M. White will design a new network of public spaces at a planned neighborhood in Chandigarh, India (pictured at left).
