In this issue:
· Bucky’s 113th Birthday: Savoring the Gift of Global Awareness
· Bucky: Longtime Hero to a Few, at Last Comes into his Own
· LA to NY: Neil Denari Meets the High Line
· Steven Holl in China and the Battle for Context

Event: Buckminster Fuller Programs
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.23-09.14.08
Speakers: For a full list of events and speakers, go to the AIANY online calendar
Organizers: The Buckminster Fuller Institute; Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Underwriters: Center for Architecture Foundation; Friends of LaGuardia Place; NYC Department of Transportation’s Temporary Art Program; Lead Sponsor: Spring Scaffolding; Sponsor: Richter+Ratner; Supporters: New York University; Purchase College, State University of New York; Media Sponsor: Metropolis

Buckminster Fuller’s “Fly’s Eye Dome” is installed across the street from the Center for Architecture through July 12.

Jessica Sheridan

For Buckminster Fuller, architecture was an all-encompassing term. He believed that the architect’s role is to reshape people’s relationship with the Earth and provide design solutions for their most pressing problems. He took a multi-disciplinary approach, and because of this, Fuller is one of the grandfathers of ecology, sustainable design, new media, and global trend charting.

Fuller’s scale was humanity, his scope was planetary, and his architectural aesthetic was driven by function — what he called “doing more with less.” The prefabricated Dymaxion, or “4D,” house was suspended on mast-like structures; omni-medium transport featured duck aerodynamics; grain bins were redesigned for military barracks; postwar housing was based on production and easily deployed aircraft technology; and a world map was developed to show long- and short-term world trends. An understanding of the Earth’s ecology and explorations of “energetic geometry” influenced his seemingly disparate designs and artifacts. As both a pilot and navigator, Fuller sought to combine the newest manmade materials with designs based on mathematical tools of celestial navigation.

Coinciding with the Whitney Museum’s retrospective exhibition, Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe (See On View: About Town), the Center for Architecture is celebrating Fuller’s ideas as well. The Center’s library has been set up as the Dymaxion Study Center through September, and one of the prototypes for Fuller’s last geodesic designs, the “Fly’s Eye Dome,” is installed in LaGuardia Park through July 12. The opening week featured events that gathered former associates and experts from numerous fields. Participants were as varied as Fuller’s exploits — engineers, artists, mathematicians, educators, architects, and students, as well as scholars who are providing the first critical assessments of Fuller’s work now that his personal archive is available for research at Stanford University Special Collections. Also, the first $100,000 Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize was conferred on ecological design pioneer, Dr. John Todd. Conversations centered on the impact of genius on society, innovation, environmental stewardship, the mathematics of nanoscale architecture, and approaches to planetary problem solving.

Bonnie DeVarco is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer concentrating on the leading edge of visualization technologies and the history of visual language. She was archivist for the Buckminster Fuller collection from 1989-1995 and is currently completing a book on Fuller titled Invisible Architecture.

Events: Dialogue 1: Fuller’s architectural partners; Dialogue 2: Fuller’s associates
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.25.08
Speakers: Dialogue 1: Shoji Sadao, AIA — President, Fuller and Sadao; Thomas Zung — Author & Editor, Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for a New Millennium; Amy C. Edmondson — Author, A Fuller Explanation. Dialogue 2: Edwin Schlossberg — Principal Designer, ESI Design; Michael Ben-Eli — Founder, Sustainability Laboratory
Moderators: Dialogue 1: Branden Joseph — Associate Professor, Modern and Contemporary Art, Columbia University; Tony Schirripa, AIA — Vice President, Public Outreach, AIANY (introduction), Dialogue 2: Paola Antonelli — Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art; Jonathan Marvel, AIA — Principal, Rogers Marvel Architects (introduction)
Organizers: The Buckminster Fuller Institute; Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Underwriters: Center for Architecture Foundation; Friends of LaGuardia Place; NYC Department of Transportation’s Temporary Art Program; Lead Sponsor: Spring Scaffolding; Sponsor: Richter+Ratner; Supporters: New York University; Purchase College, State University of New York; Media Sponsor: Metropolis

U.S. Pavilion for the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, 1967.

Image courtesy the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller, courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art

Because of Buckminster Fuller’s self-taught, interdisciplinary approach, the architecture community has been slow to give him his due, said Jonathan Marvel, AIA, of Rogers Marvel Architects. But Fuller’s prescient concerns with environmental issues means that now, 25 years after his death, architects are embracing him. “He’s always been a hero to many of us, but it’s only really been when sustainability came to the forefront of our architectural discussions — for economic and environmental purposes — that Bucky has found a placehold in our framework,” Marvel said as he introduced one of two recent panels.

Speakers included prominent associates of the architect-engineer-mathematician-inventor. Edwin Schlossberg discussed his work in running the Fuller-designed World Game in the 1960s. Designed as an alternative to war games, the World Game engaged players in optimizing the distribution of the world’s resources. Long before Google Earth, it was “a paper-and-pencil version of how to do a full-scale modeling environment,” he said. In a pre-Internet era, the research involved in compiling the data was an enormous undertaking, but “one of the qualities about Bucky was this absolute convinced optimism that problems could be solved,” Schlossberg said.

Shoji Sadao, AIA, discussed his collaboration on a 250-foot-diameter geodesic dome that served as the U.S. Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal. Made of small identical parts, the immense structure embodied Fuller’s ideal of using minimal materials for maximum results. “I think the lasting significance of the dome is that after Expo 67, it seemed to become an iconic image for all the rest of the fair,” Sadao said, adding that in the wider cultural realm, spherical structures also became popular in images of future cities.

Fuller’s former engineer, Amy Edmondson, best captured Fuller’s charisma and enthusiasm. She recalled one day when she completed a new miniature dome model. She was incredulous when he excitedly announced plans to change his next day’s lecture to a communal building session to create a full-size, 25-foot version. But next day, as she saw the attendees come together to build it, it was “as if people had been waiting their whole lives to put down their felt-tipped pens, stand outside in the sun, their backs aching, for hours, holding things up, instructions flying back and forth,” she recalled. Twenty-four hours later, a 25-foot dome stood before them. “It was a lesson for all of us… not just in geometry and structure and design, but in motivation and teamwork and empowerment.”

As to Fuller’s current significance, Edmondson said that while it’s “splendid” to have events such as the current Whitney Museum exhibition (See On View: About Town), his work truly carries on in each of us. “It’s in our own minds and our own talents to do integrative work in support of life, or ‘livingry’ — his term.”

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

Event: New York Fast Forward: Neil Denari Builds on the High Line
Location: Museum of the City of New York, thru 09.21.08

A view of the seventh floor of the future HL23, designed by Neil Denari, AIA.

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

High Line 23 (HL23) is the first foray of Neil Denari, AIA, into the NYC architecture scene, and it is his first freestanding building. The 14-story condominium project at 23rd Street and 10th Avenue folds, expands, and cantilevers above the High Line in response to strict zoning guidelines while providing views of the Hudson River. Los Angeles- based Denari is known for his use of computer technology and production to produce new forms suitable for contemporary life at many scales, from urban planning to furniture design. The New York Fast Forward: Neil Denari Builds on the High Line exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York documents the building’s design, featuring models, full-scale building sections, and computer renderings. Also on view are historic and current photographs of the High Line.

The museum’s double-height circular stair in the lobby displays “Eco-Vert,” a steel sculpture designed by Denari and fabricated by TISI that seemingly defies gravity by folding and bending in a similar manner to HL23. A full-scale metal panel mock-up of the façade and base detail of the steel structure allows an up-close examination of the details. Construction documents and a slideshow of three-dimensional renderings and images provide a window into the design process. The walls of adjoining galleries are covered with HL23 graphics. One can get a sense of what it’s like to stand in an apartment through a large-scale, cut-away model. The view, unfortunately, is left to the viewer’s imagination.

The exhibition is informative, but it is a surprising venue to display a private development that has yet to be built given that the museum programs events geared towards community activism itself. While the exhibition is successful at showcasing the design, it carefully sidesteps any controversial issues surrounding it. Instead, it displays iconic photographs of the High Line, documenting its intentioned use, subsequent grassy decay, and current efforts to turn it into an urban park. The photographs explain the context for which HL23 was created, yet they do not provide a complete picture. Literally and figuratively, HL23 acknowledges this context while gracefully pulling away.

Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, is a designer with TEK Architects, freelance writer, and member of the National Associates Committee.

Haley recently talked with Li Hu, partner of Steven Holl Architects and director of its Beijing office, in search of a perspective on challenges many other NY-based firms face as they develop projects in China.
Event: Interview with Li Hu — Partner, & Tour with Hideki Hirahara, Associate, Steven Holl Architects
Location: Offices of Steven Holl Architects, New York and Beijing 9.17.07 & 10.15.07

Linked Hybrid under construction in Beijing.

Annique Fung

With four major commissions in design and under construction in China, NY-based Steven Holl Architects (SHA) has jumped full force into the maelstrom of China’s rapid urbanization. Amidst the web of regulatory, environmental, and cultural forces reshaping China’s cities, SHA is faced with building new contexts integrated with existing neighborhoods.

With the recent onset of speculative development in cities such as Beijing, building regulations are constantly evolving, making each new building a “product of a specific moment in history,” explains SHA partner Li Hu. For example, modifications to zoning requirements that stipulate maximum apartment size would preclude approval of projects currently under construction. As a result, to avoid “getting stuck,” the design process must move quickly with a focus on “big urban concepts.”

Another challenge is environmental decay accompanying China’s urbanization, for which SHA has adopted several sustainable approaches. Linked Hybrid in Beijing integrates geo-thermal wells, green roofs, solar shading, and gray water recycling, while the Vanke Center in Shenzen is slated to be the first LEED Platinum building in China. “It is not easy to do a LEED building at this scale,” admits Li Hu, but they are “lucky to have good clients” who support these goals.

When it comes to urban context, every project starts with the site and an understanding of the city. But in cities such as Beijing, where the traditional urban fabric is rapidly disappearing, what is the definition of context? It is mostly “a tabula rasa,” argues Li Hu, and the challenge is “to set a new example for buildings in this new higher-density, high-rise context.” Linked Hybrid — a mixed-use housing complex conceived as “a city within a city” — aims to set this example, in addition to housing 2,500 residents. The project integrates a multi-leveled series of public and commercial programs that serve everyday needs from shopping and recreation to entertainment and social gatherings. The “porosity” of points along the perimeter and the active ground level uses links up with existing street life; the cinema and hotel in the central space spur residents to mingle with neighboring communities. In contrast to Beijing’s many introverted gated developments, the ultimate goal for Linked Hybrid is “to make great urban space that is not isolated but connected.”

Gregory Haley, AIA, AICP, LEED AP, is a project architect and urban designer at Studio V Architecture, and has taught at the Boston Architectural Center and NYIT School of Architecture.