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1.23.03 Editor’s Note: We have a rather full e-OCULUS this week that, thanks to two very hardy contributors, includes a report on all four days of events surrounding Ground Zero. There are also some interesting RFP’s & Q’s and new deadlines. Mark your calendars: February 10 New Members Reception hosted by Fox & Fowle – I look forward to meeting you (after all, I’m new, too!). And please e-mail me your news and views. – Kristen Richards  “Not our fathers’ AIA” was the rallying call at the 2003 Board of Directors retreat on January 11 – the first official event at the new home of the Center for Architecture (hard hats not yet required). Table of Contents
New York New Visions: Write On We may all be a bit amazed about how little design and planning was discussed at the public hearings held last week on the future of the World Trade Center site and the memorial program and mission statement. Issues we may have with the hearing process itself and the development process in general will certainly be the topic of ongoing discussion in the weeks and months ahead. With regard to
the schemes themselves, however, there is a consensus among New York
New Visions participants that it is critically important to give LMDC
our independent professional comments at this juncture. You may wish
to review the New York New Visions evaluation of the nine schemes.
It can be accessed through the New
York New Visions page of the AIA New York Chapter website. The
LMDC website includes detailed
information on all nine schemes. It is important that you make your
thoughts and impressions known to the LMDC, through their website
or by hand on the exhibit note cards. That design and planning matters
in this process will only be known to the extent that architects and
planners respond to the presentations with their independent thoughts.
News Flash Dina Frank has assumed the position of President of Mancini Duffy. Al D’Elia, President since 1989, has joined IA Interior Architects’ New York office as Managing Principal. Rafael Viñoly Architects has been selected to design the eight-acre, $650 million Plaza Project in front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. The project includes two new curved steel and glass buildings to house the Center’s education programs, interactive exhibitions focusing on the performing arts in America, and expanded rehearsal and office facilities for the Center and The Washington Opera. The plans also call for central fountain, a pedestrian walkway, and a connection to the waterfront.
Vollmer Associates has acquired Townsend Associates- Architects, an Albany, New York-based full-service architectural firm. Townsend will operate as a division of Vollmer, with its founder, Scott Townsend, continuing to oversee the Albany architectural operations.
Hugh Hardy, FAIA, was presented with Contract magazine's second annual Legend Award at the 24th Annual Interiors Awards breakfast on January 14th.
Tod Williams, FAIA, and Billie Tsien will receive the 38th annual Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture and give a talk at the University of Virginia during its Founder's Day celebration on Friday, April 11. An accompanying exhibition of their work will be held in the Elmaleh Gallery at the School of Architecture. Rick Bell, FAIA, Executive Director of the AIA New York Chapter, will be on a panel Monday, 1/27at SFMOMA discussing planning for Lower Manhattan and the WTC Memorial. The two other speakers are Stanlee Gatti, President of the San Francisco Arts Commission, and Joseph Rosa, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The 2003 American Planning Association (APA) National Awards Jury has created a special award – The American Vision Award – to honor Imagine New York, a project of the Municipal Art Society. The award will be presented at the APA National Planning Conference March 29-April 2, 2003 in Denver. RFP’s & Q’s Expression
of Interest (EOI): Architectural and Engineering design
services for renovation of the United Nations Headquarters in New
York.
Request for
Qualification: Brooklyn Bridge Park
– waterfront parks, esplanade, water's edge structures, street
improvements, and infrastructure.
Request
for Qualification: for Design Services for Aquatic Facility and Community
Center,
Town of Orangetown, Rockland County, NY Deadlines January 30: Architectural League of New York Young Architects Competition: Inhabiting Identity January 31: Building Design & Construction’s 6th Annual Building Team Project of the Year Awards January 31: James Beard Foundation 2003 Restaurant Design Awards February 2: Tel Aviv Museum of Art Competition: An open, double-staged competition for designing a new building to include The Israeli Art, The Architecture, and The Education Wings.
February 14: 2003 DuPont Benedictus Awards (jury includes Santiago Calatrava, SA; Lewis Koerner, AIA; and, Julie VandenBerg Snow, FAIA
March 1: Call for proposals for the Diversity Conference, November 19-20, part of Build Boston 2003.
March 1 (registration): BSA Urban Design Competition. Co-sponsored by the national AIA Housing PIA; Rural and Urban Design Committee, and AIA New York Chapter. Submission deadline: May 6 March 3: New York State Council on the Arts Architecture, Planning and Design Grants: Up to $10,000 will be available for architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, and scholars to realize specific projects that advance the field and contribute to the public's understanding of the designed environment (NY State residents only). January 13 Public Hearing: The Nine Plans “The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have announced…two unprecedented public meetings regarding the future of the World Trade Center site… Participants at any of the six locations will then have an opportunity to voice their comments, which will also be broadcast simultaneously on large screens at each location.”
These are the declarations that get the heart beating a little faster. Transparency. Public participation. Design excellence.
In reality, the microphones flitted in and out, video clips of the nine design plans were barely operable, and public comment from non-Manhattan locations could not be transmitted. Even worse than the technical flaws, the LMDC’s first attempt to rally a town meeting since revealing the nine “new” designs for the World Trade Center site, also revealed the public’s exhaustion with the rebuilding process.
After introductory remarks from the LMDC’s Kevin Rampe and Alex Garvin, moderator John Schiumo (NY 1) opened the floor to public comments. As of 6:45, only 62 participants had come to the meeting’s Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island locations. Even though Pace University’s 700-seat Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts held a capacity crowd, it was overwhelmed by members of the media.
Building on Hardy’s comments, Holly M. Leicht, who has overseen the Municipal Art Society’s Imagine New York visioning seminars, urged officials to think outside the box, remarking: “Many participants feel that a master plan is needed that emphasizes uses over design and that focuses not just on the 16-acre site but all of Lower Manhattan and the region.”
Other faces – and commentary – are becoming familiar. Jon Hakala, a representative of Team Twin Towers (and who I saw eagerly eyeing the crowd at the Winter Garden presentation in December), was the first to begin the comment period. “We will rebuild 110 stories of occupied height and we will go back,” he said. Others echoed Hakala’s opinion to rebuild the WTC as it originally stood. Among his additional comments that resonated in later presentations (including John Lumea on behalf of the Phoenix Project), was the complaint about the lack of public participation in the decision-making process, and calls for an international design competition for the whole site.
If such legitimate concerns about the transparency of the decision-making process, building security, and other presentations were some of the most memorable of the evening, they were also the least focused on the nine design plans that were revealed in December. Thanks to public exhaustion, new voices were not heard, forcing little progress in the dialogue toward a new World Trade Center.
In fact, some of the event’s new voices wanted nothing but to peddle their own plans. The public hearing was practically exposed as a farce when the legendary, if frequently incoherent, Abe Hirschfeld proposed building a secure, spacious garage underneath the site, a museum (with “restaurant at middle-class prices”) at grade, and the New York Stock Exchange and “innovative” open-air housing (“like the Hamptons”) above that.
Other commentary
did focus on the nine proposals, and brought to light interesting
rifts in public opinion. Contrary to most urban planners’ and
architects’ belief that the WTC severed Battery Park City from
Lower Manhattan, several Battery Park City residents expressed that
West Street should not be buried. Although their arguments legitimately
questioned the cost of such a gesture, one could not help but think
that the residents favored their seclusion. They also condemned a
West Street promenade, the construction of which would require widening
the street and eliminating public green space in Battery Park City. January 14 Public Hearing: Draft of Memorial Mission Statement and Program The second round of public hearings went much as the first, if perhaps a slightly smaller crowd at Pace University. Anita Contini, LMDC’s Vice President and Director for the Memorial, Cultural and Civic Programs, walked the audience through the year-long process of developing the Memorial Mission Statement and Program draft, then presented its key elements.
Some familiar faces from the previous evening were on hand. Many had missed their three minutes the night before, and took the opportunity to add their voices to the call for an open international competition for the WTC site design. Moderator John Schiumo had some difficulty keeping the focus on the subject of the memorial draft.
The AIA New York Chapter position on the Memorial Program was presented by Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA. In addition to calling for an open memorial process and a clarified mission statement, he said: “How the memorial becomes part of the planning process needs more attention in regard to the schedule. At the point when the competition winner is announced, the site planning, including transportation planning, should not be complete. The…entrant who wins the competition must be able to help change a plan that may have developed significant momentum.” His statement reflected many of the comments made on both evenings regarding the seeming disconnect between the site and memorial planning.
Heart-rending was the child with a large sign that said “My Daddy is not garbage,” while her mother, representing WTC Families for a Proper Burial, called for the unidentified remains at the Freshkills landfill to be returned to the memorial site. There were also empassioned pleas for a separate memorial for the uniformed forces lost on 9/11.
Webcasts
of both public hearings are now online and viewable at a number of
Internet connection speeds. For the AIA New York Chapter Position
Statements on the Nine Plans and the Memroial Program, click
here. January 15: Q & A: Architects Discuss Their WTC Proposals – Part 1
Gray found a seat among the 700 other people in attendance, many of whom remained until the event’s conclusion at 10 pm. In 30-minute intervals, the details of each of the team’s designs were projected giant-size onto screens above the stage, including new street patterns and diagrams of public spaces; explanations of new ways of using and reusing energy; and of course, new tall buildings, bringing with them a whole new way of looking at architecture.
Some of the evening’s
most interesting moments happened in between explanations of the plans
themselves – times when the personalities of the teams, as well
as their frustrations with the process thus far, were made as apparent
as their ideas for the site. This included Richard Meier’s impassioned
commentary on “an almost entirely absent business community and
political leadership in the most important conversation going on anywhere
right now;” and Steven Peterson’s weary attempt to make
the public understand the need, this moment, for urban design rather
than architecture. January 16: Q & A: Architects Discuss Their WTC Proposals – Part 2 The scene at Town Hall was a bit surreal with a packed house of primarily architects and architecture students, and about 14 members from the seven teams seated at a long table on stage (not a little reminiscent of a Last Supper tableau). Questions were posed by Terence Riley (MoMA), Rosalie Genevro (Architectural League), and Anthony Vidler (Cooper Union). Many of the questions seemed a bit convoluted, but the answers were eloquent (and brief).
Charles Gwathmey: “The passion and compassion [of the design teams] has been astounding, and I am stunned by the silence of the developer community and politicians.”
Peterson/Littenberg: “It’s time to stop waiting for an ‘architect messiah’ and break down the argument into smaller pieces and more understandable bites for the public.”
Norman Foster: “Harness creative energies and public interest and response, and channel into a master plan.”
United Architects: “The diversity of our responses is writing the program for the LMDC.”
Daniel Libeskind: “This can’t be designed by committee.”
SOM: “It is implausible that one architect can design the entire site.”
Hopefully, the
events of this intense week will help clarify for the public –
and the powers-that-be – what Terence Riley called “the
misunderstood role of architects as urban decorators.” Classifieds CHELSEA architecture firm has up to three workstations with great light and views available for rent OR can sublet 1500 sf of finished studio space with private entrance. Shared copy, fax, plotter, conference. Call Jim 212-645-3600 TRIBECA OFFICE SUBLET: 800 SF ARCHITECT'S OFFICE WITH 13 FT CEILINGS FURNISHED WITH FOUR WORK STATIONS, RECEPTION AND CONFERENCE AREA. $ 1,800.00 per month (or will rent half office for $ 1,000.00 per month). CALL: (917) 658-5861 Office Space Available: Soho Corner Office, within 5,000 sq. ft. Architectural Office. Private, secure 10' x 16' carpeted office w/ views. Shared access to Conference Room, Library, Kitchen & Blueprint Machine. Convenient to subways. Contact mboddewyn@gaynordesign.com or call 212-334-0900. Office space: 10 by 12 area with big windows; $ 1000 per month for licensed professional. Share flower district loft with small architecture firm. We have in-house CAD, library, contacts. Fax to Lynne Funk at 212-929-0792 or see LFAArchitects.com and email us CHIEF ARCHITECT: Executive responsibilities include scope development, architectural design, construction support/inspection. REQUIREMENTS: NYS Architect Registration, Bachelor of Architecture, 15yrs experience; 10yrs management, $90,000-$135,000 MTA-NYC Transit, HR Field Services-CPM AIA-001595, 2 Broadway-B8.81, NY, NY 10004 Fax:646-252-2256 Email:cpmr@nyct.com Professional Development courses for architects at The Cooper Union carry AIA/CES credits. *Effective Contract Negotiating *Future Modern Architecture *Maya for Architects *Building Highways, Bridges, and Tunnels: Professional Practice for Cost Estimating Spring term starts in February. For information, call 212.353.4195 or visit www.cooper.edu/professional Many other courses available. IS YOUR SUCCESS BUILT ON THE WORK OF OTHERS? You didn't become a successful architect by wearing blinders. You stood up for your vision, and you realized it with cutting-edge software. You want others to respect your creativity. Software developers deserve the same respect. Fight software piracy in your office. VISIT WWW.BSAARCHITECT.COM. Calendar Friday, 01/24/2003, 11:00 a.m. DOWNTOWN: INSIDE AND OUT Location: 1 Bowling Green at the foot of Broadway. Sponsored by: Municipal Art Society Description: Highlights will include the former U.S. Custom House, the booking hall of the former Cunard Building, the Regent Wall Street Hotel (formerly First National City Bank), the public spaces of the Morgan Bank headquarters, a modern lobby or two, and even the 1905 Wall Street subway station. Leader: Joseph Svehlak, urban historian. Meet at the steps of the former U.S. Custom House (now the National Museum of the American Indian) at 1 Bowling Green at the foot of Broadway. Reg. Tel: 212.439.1049 Member Price: $10.00 Nonmember Price: $12.00 More Info Tuesday, 01/28/2003,
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6:30 p.m. Wednesday,
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6:30 p.m. Saturday,
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6:00-7:30 p.m. Sunday, 02/09/2003,
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5:30- 8:00 p.m. Tuesday, 02/11/2003,
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02/20/2003, - 2/21/2003 8:00 a.m-6:00 p.m. Wednesday,
02/26/2003, 6:30 p.m. AIA
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Some
respondents proved exceptions to the observation that the January
13 public meeting did nothing but turn wheels. Hugh Hardy, FAIA, speaking
on behalf of