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.

Gift Idea: Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

It’s the holiday season, and we’ve got the perfect gift for students, employees, friends, family–anyone in your life who’s interested in urban design: By the City / For the City: An Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York. The Institute’s most recent publication made Planetizen’s yearly list of the Top 10 books on urban planning, design, and development (along with Ken Greenberg’s Walking Home and Board President Michael Sorkin’s All Over the Map). Copies can be purchased online right here

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.

Spring is Book Launch Season!

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Looking ahead and preparing your summer reading list? Ken Greenberg’s new book Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder was just released last week, and you can visit the Random House website to purchase a copy; Board Member Thom Mayne has just self-published the book Combinatory Urbanism: The Complex Behavior of Collective Form; meanwhile, the latest issue of Texas Monthly features an excerpt from the introduction to Fred Steiner’s Design for a Vulnerable Planet, which was published last month. If that’s not enough to keep you busy, check out Designers and Books, a website that features the reading lists of many great architects, planners, and urbanists—including Patrons Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Holl, Fellow Daniel Libeskind, and Board President Michael Sorkin.

Fellows Events & Exhibitions: May 15-31, 2011

Monday, May 16th, 2011

SOM Chicago principal Philip Enquist will speak about ‘The Endless City’ at Penn Design’s 2011 commencement ceremony on 5/16; Rick Bell and Laurie Kerr will both participate in Fit City 6 at the Center for Architecture on 5/17; Lance Jay Brown will participate in the Better City/Better Life: North-South Initiative symposium at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan on 5/18; a reception for the exhibit Downtown Brooklyn Commons [PDF], featuring design proposals from the Rus en Urbe studio led by CCNY’s Denise Hoffman Brandt, Elisabetta Terragni, and Barbara Wilks, with a model created in charette with Michael Sorkin’s graduate urban design studio, will take place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on 5/19; Deborah Berke will speak at the Miller House Symposium in Columbus, Indiana on 5/20 (the titular modernist residence is pictured at left); Peter D. Cavaluzzi will join a panel on Firm Identity in an Age of Mergers & Acquisitions at the CfA on 5/23;  Enquist will join David Dixon and other noted urbanists for a series of discussions at the Detroit Public Library’s Detroit By Design event on 5/24; and Toronto’s Urbanspace Gallery will host a book launch party for Ken Greenberg’s aforementioned Walking Home on 5/25.