06.09.09
This issue launches the At the Center for Architecture Foundation section of e-Oculus. Watch for regular updates about CFAF new and events.
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- Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
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In this issue: Event: Design Awards Symposium — Interiors Winners 
(L-R, top): POP Space by Rogers Marvel Architects; Finger Apartment by noroof architects; NYPL Francis Martin Library by 1100 Architects; Betances Community Center and Boxing Gym by Stephen Yablon Architect; (L-R, bottom): Sheila C. Johnson Design Center by Lyn Rice Architects; Nike Geneology of Speed by Lynch Eisinger Design; Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art by Polshek Partnership Architects; and Malin + Goetz by a+i architecture. Courtesy AIANY Of all the AIANY Design Award categories, Interiors was the most competitive with 118 entries. The jury awarded no honor awards, but eight interiors won merits. The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, has won numerous awards already, including an AIANY Design Award in the Projects category in 2007. Lyn Rice Architect took four adjacent buildings, each with its own labyrinth of circulation, and stripped them down to their shells. Then, as Lyn Rice, AIA, explained, “The program evolved in the process.” With found space that was formerly a maintenance shop, he created an urban quad, developed a new identity for the school, and tied it into the fabric of the city. By placing window benches inside and out of the glass façade, and pouring concrete floors at the same level as the street, student works are on view to passersby. There was originally no budget and no program for the Nike installation, and according to Christian Lynch of Lynch Eisinger Design, “That was not a comfortable zone to be in.” The partners decided to build the “idea” of speed by playing with metal, letting the material tell the story. The curved metal wall was not welded together, but rather molded. Despite looking like a high-ticket project, which was a drawback for the jury, the installation cost only $125/square foot, including before/after demolition. There were so many different parties Stephen Yablon, AIA, had to satisfy for the Betances Community Center and Boxing Gym. He particularly wanted to make this community in the Bronx feel like they owned the building. Yablon united two structures, raised the roof to create a triple-height space that topped the ring, added “punches of color,” and designed a building that used boxing as a metaphor for success and survival. Yablon thanked the NYC Department of Design & Construction for recognizing the importance of safe places for kids while upholding a high level of design. The New York Public Library was interested in innovative ideas, according to Juergen Riehm, FAIA, principal of 1100: Architects. His firm was attracted to the Francis Martin Library because it is housed in a semi-modernist building with an unusual shape. The firm gave the second floor children’s library an open layout by getting rid of most of the partitions. The kids can see their own reflections in a shiny white membrane. Bright color accents were added and a “wall of fame” highlights notable Bronx natives. Malin + Goetz had outgrown its flagship store in Chelsea and hired a+i architecture to design an expanded space for the manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of skincare products. Konyk Architecture originally designed the front of the space is just a few feet wide. Since the apothecary was launching a new line, a new look for what had been the back office was in order. The outcome is a sensual environment with room for the client’s collectibles in a dark wood centerpiece. The space will become a prototype for the line in department stores. Built they way they were intended to be, privately owned public spaces can be welcoming, engaging places that enhance urban living. But the through-block passageway at the Metropolitan Tower was just the opposite. The new owner asked Rogers Marvel Architects to remedy the situation by enlivening the space. The firm carried the sleekness of the black façade of the building into the lobby area. An LCD strip that runs the length of the space carries text and digital art, and a color-changing LED reception desk draws people to it. The only award winning residential interior was noroof architect’s Finger Apartment, named such because of its configuration: public spaces in the front, private in the back, and bath and kitchen in between. The home to two adults, one a gourmet cook who likes to entertain, and two kids, is a mere 540 square feet. Yet, the building seems to satisfy the family’s needs by creating space where none seems to be available. According to the firm’s partner Margarita McGrath, AIA, LEED AP, the client’s nine-year-old says the apartment is a ship! The architects turned fireplaces into storage bins, designed a desk that transforms into a bed, and created built-in storage under the floors. Event: Building Type Awards Symposium: Housing Winners 
(L-R, top): Museum Residences in Denver by Studio Daniel Libeskind with Davis Partnership Architects; Project Place Gatehouse by Hacin + Associates; (L-R, bottom): FP3/Fort Point Channel by Hacin + Associates; Visionaire by Pelli Clarke Pelli; Switch Building by nARCHITECTS. Courtesy AIANY The 2008 expansion of the Design Awards, adding the Building Type Awards (BTAs), a collaborative New York-Boston program, allows a wider and more detailed examination of the state of the art in specific areas (this year, Housing and Health Facilities). The symposium honoring the Housing winners anatomized an array of innovations on different scales, constructed for residents occupying different points on the economic spectrum. In luxury apartments and social-service housing alike, the emphasis fell on what Pelli Clarke Pelli’s Craig Copeland called “sustainability as a marketable quality” — a nearly effortless incorporation of green details into residences that are both graceful and financially viable. Panelists emphasized the concept of architectural activism, narrowing the design gap between market and subsidized forms of housing. Socially and environmentally progressive housing, in the hands of the kind of talent represented here, can give residents an enlivening atmosphere while offering visionary developers a fair and reliable return. Boston’s Hacin + Associates took home Honor Awards for two entries, the FP3 adaptive-reuse loft condos at Fort Point Channel and the Project Place Gatehouse, a mixed-use halfway house that integrates 14 studio apartments with a restaurant, communal spaces, and the offices for Project Place, a nonprofit organization that transitions the formerly homeless back into employment and stable life. Both these projects merge modern geometries into Boston’s eclectic old building stock. FP3 threads a new structure through two preserved and renovated 1900-vintage buildings, handling the complexity of building on landfill in a seismic zone on a site where fire had destroyed a previous building. Capping all three buildings is an angled, prepatinated-copper-clad penthouse that honors existing cornice lines, view corridors, and even custom brick sizes. The striped brick Gatehouse emphasizes openness, natural light, and connections to the neighborhood, foregrounding its internal functions through external detail. The 14 interior designers engaged to create distinctive spaces have agreed to stay on and maintain them. Pelli Clarke Pelli’s 250-unit Visionaire is the latest in the firm’s series of green towers in Battery Park City (BPC) for Albanese Development (along with the Solaire and the Verdesian, joining the latter in achieving LEED Platinum). It strikes a nautical profile with its curved and “tuned” curtain wall combining low-emissivity glass and terracotta rain-screening. Copeland pointed out that the amount of amenity-rich housing this building creates on 0.67 acres compares favorably with what suburbia would offer in 100 acres, saving a large spatial footprint and adding 40,000 square feet of headquarters for the BPC Parks Conservancy plus two public garden spaces. Integrated photovoltaics, wind cogeneration, natural gas-powered cooling, and an efficient filtration/humidification/ dehumidification system allow local thermal and air-quality control while drawing relatively little energy: costs run some 40% below those seen in an ordinary code-compliant building. Eric Bunge, AIA, of nARCHITECTS (whose bespoke spelling hints at “n as a variable”) took some heady risks with the six-story Switch Building, a Merit Award winner on the Lower East Side that has attracted publicity despite a location in the shadow of Bernard Tschumi Architects’ Blue, and an alarmingly accelerated design schedule, including ad hoc revisions responding to changing instructions by the developer. The Switch is the firm’s first ground-up building and its first façade design; it incorporates alternating bay windows and Galvalume cladding panels, echoed by alternating rear balconies that create double-height spaces for light. Beyond the exterior, the innovation offers unique views and lighting subtleties to every apartment. Bunge and colleagues scrupulously “never turned a corner with a detail,” exterior or interior, front or rear, bringing material contrasts to a neighborhood not previously known for orderly, elegant forms. Studio Daniel Libeskind, winner of a Merit Award for the Museum Residences in Denver, was unable to participate in the panel. The firm’s seven-story luxury complex across the street from the Denver Art Museum provides context and balance for the museum’s famously aggressive geometries, and a detailed presentation on this project would have been a welcome opportunity. An extended discussion segment demonstrated the willingness of both the panelists and their listeners to drill down and consider specifics of function and program: strategies for venting exhaust, double glass skins, mixed-income designs that avoid stigmatizing the most affordable segments — the myriad details that add up to new varieties of urban livability.
Event: Washington Square Park: Designs Over Time 
Washington Square Park. Jessica Sheridan Bathers may have returned to the fountain in Washington Square Park, but the face of the park has changed profoundly since renovations began in December 2007, according to George Vellonakis, landscape architect at the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. In his recent presentation, he discussed his design in the context of Washington Square Park’s designs over history. Vellonakis aimed to “respect the layers of design” woven into the park’s layout, while also introducing new innovations. Vellonakis’s design provides the park its first face-lift since a 1967 redesign, under the direction of Robert Moses. By removing concrete retaining walls and benches from the 1967 plan, Vellonakis created what he called a “more gardenesque approach.” Returning the park’s fountain to the same elevation as the surrounding park eliminates the need for ramps that used to lead to the central plaza. The design also attempts to “recapture” the park’s lawns for “passive recreation.” To start the evening, Adrian Smith, ASLA, senior associate at EDAW, provided a summary of Washington Square Park’s previous incarnations with a historical slideshow. Originally a marsh fed by Minetta stream, the area that would become Washington Square Park first served as a potter’s field, or public burial ground. In the 1820s, the Square became a military parade ground. A Tammany Hall-financed redesign in the 1870s enlisted landscape designer Ignaz Anton Pilat, who, influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, introduced more curvaceous paths to soften the military-straight lines of the parade ground. The most prominent features that link the new design to the past are these diagonal paths crisscrossing the central plaza. After presenting “before” and “after” photos of his redesign, Vellonakis took comments from the audience. Several audience members criticized Vellonakis for not having enough community input. Panelist Nancy Owens, ASLA, of Nancy Owens Studio, addressed the issue by asking rhetorically, “Do we want input from the community? Or are we marketing our own designs?” Whether the public had enough say or not, so far the masses have returned seemingly unaware of the politics leading to its fruition.
Event: Good Schools: Inside and Out Perhaps the most pertinent question of the evening came from a sculptor and concerned parent whose middle schooler is competing for a spot in one of the many over-crowded NYC schools. “Why make art when we need more seats?” At a recent discussion about what makes good schools, Michele Cohen, director of Public Art for Public Schools, addressed the question by examining the history of art in the city’s schools, the subject of her recent book Public Art for Public Schools (Monacelli Press, 2009). Cohen presented some of the city’s early public schools, the neo-gothic fortresses designed by CBJ Snyder. Those schools have stood the test of time, largely because so much effort was put into their construction, she stated. What the impressive façades of those buildings prove is that building schools is about more than using sturdy, cost effective materials. It’s about investing in the schoolhouse as a center of civic pride. Cohen shared the lectern with Paul Broches, FAIA, LEEP AP, partner at Mitchell/Giurgola Architects, sculptor Ned Smyth, and Sally Young, assistant principal at Forest Hills High School, who focused on a recent addition to the city’s roster of school buildings. At the Mitchell/Giurgola Architects-designed P.S. 156/I.S. 392 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Ned Smyth, known throughout the U.S. for his site-specific public art installations, was selected to design and install a work in the new school’s staircase. A wall of colored-glass tiles, whose light spills out onto the Sutter Avenue-facing courtyard, rises along a monumental stair linking an auditorium, dance and music studios, and gymnasium. After Cohen’s historical perspective on which buildings had become icons within NYC’s schools, P.S. 156/I.S. 392 represents a new point of pride. Central to the project is the artist/architect collaboration, but it is also the building’s public face — the inlaid-glass wall is visible from the courtyard and the street. For Smyth, it created a fun, impromptu stage for the kindergarten through eighth-grade students tromping up and down the stairs; Broches’ intent was for the transparent, light-filled space to draw the community into the building. The result of their collaboration was an icon for the neighborhood, and a sense of pride for the students, Broches stated. Whether it’s a mural or an inspiring entryway, making schools into buildings that the community cares about is worth the effort, Cohen and the panelists all believe. As the School Construction Authority embarks on its biggest building campaign in history, it will be interesting to see how Cohen’s lessons are realized in the next generation of NYC schools.
Event: Strategic Cities: Why some cities can build their visions, why most don’t Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World (Bloomsbury Press, 2009), the latest book by urbanist Jeb Brugmann, explores the development of global urban strategies from local patterns of development. Brugmann counters traditional theories of globalization by arguing that the key to provoking change is linked to the growth of cities and their revolutionary processes. Globalization, as defined by the author, is the process by which people take economics of one city and implement similar strategies in cities around the world. The entrepreneurial premise of this idea is supported by the empowerment of the urban migrant and the anticipated two million people expected to move to urban areas over the next 25 years. As the phenomenon of urban migration progresses and the world’s population propagates, Welcome to the Urban Revolution challenges: how does that affect the way we plan and manage urban centers? Touching upon key concepts of his book, Brugmann discussed the success of “strategic” global cities such as Barcelona, Curitiba, and Chicago in terms of their development and subsequent management. These cities represent unique and specific responses to the urban climate in which they were planned with the ultimate evaluation residing in the user communities. Curitiba, Brazil, has created an “ecology of solutions,” according to Brugmann, through density strategies and a diversification of bus transport availability in response to the city’s growth crisis. These systematically generated responses to globalization — Brugmann’s “urban strategy”– are dependent upon strategic institutions, political patronage, and an agenda-driven user community. By transforming our cities into effective solutions, the array of global crises, including poverty, epidemic, recession, and global warming, are addressed by stable political, economical, and ecological mechanisms.
Event: New Practices San Francisco: Winner’s Symposium 
Courtesy AIA San Francisco AIANY’s New Practices Program, an annual portfolio competition and exhibition, has gone bi-coastal: New Practices San Francisco premiered this year with six winning firms. To kick off their exhibition opening at the Center for Architecture, which will be on view through 09.19.09, winners gathered to discuss their practices by presenting one project each. Apparently, it is as difficult to get projects built in San Francisco as it is here, in NYC. San Francisco promotes low-scale architecture, Thom Faulders of Faulders Studio explained, but “as the city gets more complex, it gets more interesting.” Owen Kennerly, AIA, principal of Kennerly Architecture & Planning, noted that there is “a very political aspect to our work” in dealing with neighborhood associations, and it is difficult to get projects approved in San Francisco. Perhaps due to the difficulties of building in San Francisco, only CMG Landscape Architecture presented a project in San Francisco. Faulders discussed his design for Airspace Tokyo, a multi-residential project in Tokyo. Working with Proces2, also a San Francisco-based firm, they designed a screen for the façade. The skin forms a foliage-like protective zone around the building, which was designed by Tokyo-based Studio M/Hajime Masubuchi. To make the skin appear to float, the firm created a layered, open-celled meshwork. In developing the Day Labor Station, Public Architecture founder John Petersen explained the extensive community interview process, and how not all of the responses were positive. Luckily, the design moved forward, comprised of a canopy-covered waiting area for workers and a restroom and small kitchen to generate income. The station, like its transient population, can fit into any urban or rural environment, but the first will most likely be installed in Los Angeles. A 40-acre site in Sonoma County provided a blank slate for the Summerhill Residence by Edmonds + Lee Architects. The three separate buildings — a main house, guesthouse, and detached garage — were articulated through a process of “simple push and pull,” Robert Edmonds, AIA, explained. Organized in a way that angled glazing makes the façades seem to reach for each other, the spaces between the buildings provide outdoor space and circulation. Six months after Jeffrey Day, AIA, moved to Omaha for a teaching position, he started Min|Day with partner E. B. Min in San Francisco. Functioning as if in a long-distance relationship, the partners don’t feel particularly embedded in any one place. Day discussed their design for a vacation home on Lake Okoboji in rural Iowa, which establishes a sanctuary along a densely populated shore. Sited on narrow lot, the house is designed as a gradient that obscures the neighbors and opens up to the lake. Kennerly Architecture & Planning designed a photography studio on the site of an old barn in Marin County. Situated between existing trees, the studio “touches the land lightly,” Owen Kennerly, AIA, explained. The firm salvaged redwood planks from the barn to be integrated into the floors and façade. Translucent corrugated polycarbonate forms the roof, and sheets of muslin help to modulate the light for photo shoots. The work of CMG Landscape Architecture explores the community’s relationship to public space. The design for Mint Plaza aimed to transform a downtown back alley into a public pedestrian plaza and festival space. An arbor, rain gardens, and orange chairs shape the space and provide flexibility for the public and local workers to use. For more information on the program, exhibition, and competition, visit the New Practices San Francisco website.
Event: Shaping the City: A Strategic Blueprint for New York City’s Future 
Courtesy AIANY Because of the recent economic downturn, we couldn’t be in a more exciting time for planning, says Amanda Burden, FAICP, Hon. AIA, commissioner of the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP). NYC’s future, in terms of master plans, neighborhood character, outdoor spaces, streetscapes, and general environmental quality of life are in the hands of Burden and her department. So what exactly are they up to? Efforts range from widely publicized projects such as the rescue and restoration of Coney Island as a year-round destination, to smaller low-key projects like increasing the availability of neighborhood grocery stores through developer incentives. Burden’s esteem for street life and open spaces — inspired by her mentor, urbanist William “Holly” Whyte — resonates in her administration’s ventures. Vitality and sociability are enhanced by sidewalk cafés (legalized under Burden’s reign), privately owned public spaces, and re-zoning in all five boroughs to improve people’s lives. Burden espouses offering New Yorkers a variety of housing options and retail opportunities, waterfront access, cultural and entertainment destinations, and neighborhoods that are characterized by specific features to diminish anonymity in our city. Growth opportunities are anticipated by the subways, says Burden, and grow we must. Termed by the commissioner, a “city of neighborhoods,” NYC has proven to be a global city of opportunity comparable to Shanghai or Tokyo, as opposed to Chicago or San Francisco. As our city’s population propagates, DCP is responding with initiatives that enhance the public realm, introduce innovative architecture, improve access to public transportation, and promote sustainable growth. And, according to Burden, a true New Yorker, “New York should demand nothing less.”
Washington Square Park. Jessica Sheridan After years of construction, and persisting through community outrage and political strife, Washington Square Park has finally re-opened. With a centered fountain and improved accessibility, I was pleased to see the park return to its original state of crowded inhabitation. At my first visit, even though I knew that changes had been made, I found it difficult to tell what was different from the previous incarnation. It took a while to sense the symmetry of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation’s reconstruction to register. After sitting in various places throughout the afternoon, I began to feel the openness at the center of the park where the fountain now aligns with the arch, as well as on the increased grassy areas. Although I was extremely skeptical about whether the design improvements were necessary, and I was disappointed to have lost the park for so long during construction, I was surprised by the power of subtle shifts in the design. The slightest increase of openness can have a major effect on the experience of space. This is a project that successfully proves the rule. In this issue: Geochemistry Building Supports Climate Change 
Gary C. Corner Geochemistry Building at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Payette Designed by Boston-based Payette, the 70,000-square-foot Gary C. Corner Geochemistry Building at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY, is home to hundreds of research scientists who study the evolution and future of the natural world, including the dynamics of the solid earth, circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, and transport of materials via wind and water. A supporter of climate change research, Payette sought to demonstrate that sustainability is more than using green materials and power. The project is notable for its siting and building organization strategies. The imbalance between the number of laboratories and offices required led to an innovative skip-stop massing strategy. A two-story wing of 15-foot-high laboratories was coupled with a three-story wing of 10-foot-high offices. Separating the laboratory and office functions not only reduced the building footprint, it also allowed for a highly responsive energy infrastructure. The lab side is a high-energy environment with complex mechanical systems, while the office side is a low-energy structure with modest systems and operable windows. A Studio Refines Corian 
DuPont Corian Design Studio. Morris Sato Studio The Morris Sato Studio’s custom-designed DuPont Corian Design Studio for Evans & Paul DuPont and Dolan & Traynor recently opened in the Flatiron District. The 5,000-square-foot studio is a multi-sensory experience and features a multiplicity of surfacing solutions and applications. The firm defined the space by using the Japanese concept of a borrowed landscape, and the technologies used within the space were designed to draw people in close to the material. Highlights include “starry sky” lighting, featuring 74 pieces of thermoformed Corian. Passively Efficient in Brooklyn Private School Designed for Its Curriculum 
Mandell School. JRS Architect The Mandell School will be expanding into a new facility in a 15-story residential building that is part of Columbus Square, a three contiguous block retail and residential community currently under construction on the Upper West Side. The 50,000-square-foot build-out, designed by JRS Architect and Aragon Construction, consists of the building’s entire second floor, half of the first floor, and a cellar, and will serve 650 students. The classrooms will be designed around the curriculum. The school will feature a black box theater for student productions, a 20-foot-digital screen that will display student artwork, a vertical garden in the sub-level cafeteria, and a roof garden complete with a poetry reading space. In addition, the team is building a 10,000-square-foot learning center for the school in a residential building nearby that will contain a library and media station. Center for Light Industry and Artisans Rehabilitates Derelict Factory Cancer Research Interrelates at New Research Center 
Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Center at UCSF. Rafael Viñoly Architects The Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, has recently opened its doors. Designed to encourage interaction and collaboration among three different cancer-related research programs, the approximately 162,000-gross-square-foot, five-story building mediates the city/campus transition with two interlocking L-shaped masses above a stone base. The building’s functional order develops around a sky-lit multi-story atrium located between the lab and the office blocks that also is used for public functions. Terraced floor levels are linked by a series of bridges and cascading stairways. The facility’s program includes research labs that feature an open, flexible environment to serve future planning needs by incorporating custom modular lab bench systems with integrated utilities, faculty offices, conference rooms, open break rooms and lounges, a seminar room, lobby, and rooftop terraces. In this issue: NCARB News NCARB’s comments centered around four areas: To download NCARB Comments on the NAAB 2009 Conditions for Accreditation, Public Comment Edition, click the link. Information about accreditation and the schedule for development of the final 2009 Conditions for Accreditation is available on the NAAB website, too. Passing: Bernard Rothzeid, FAIA In addition to key work in restoration, Rothzeid had a longstanding involvement with residential design and health-care facility planning and design. At the time of his death, he was overseeing the design of a $30 million, 273,000-square-foot hospital complex for the American Hospital in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Rothzeid was elected to the College of Fellows of the AIA in 1979, and in 1986 he received the Augustus Saint Gaudens Award from The Cooper Union, his alma mater’s most prestigious honor. He also taught at The Cooper Union and at the School of Architecture and Environmental Studies at City College in New York. Contributions in his memory may be made to Cooper Union, 30 Cooper Square, New York NY, 10003. A memorial will be announced at a later date. 
Summer@theCenter 2008. Photos by Center for Architecture Foundation staff Remember the excitement you felt when you first started noticing design in the world around you? At the Center for Architecture this summer, young people have a chance to discover this at an early age through the Center for Architecture Foundation’s summer studios. Offered as one-week sessions for 3rd-12th graders, Summer@theCenter studios immerse young people in hands-on architecture projects that introduce them to the process of design and help them see the important role architecture plays in shaping our environment. Programs take place at the Center and throughout the city on site visits, museum trips, and walking tours. These trips provide inspiration and information for students’ own art and design projects during the week. Each studio investigates a different topic in architecture and targets a particular age group. This summer, elementary and middle school students will explore NYC’s “Secret Places” and create their own guide to these hidden treasures, incorporating photography, drawing, pop-up techniques, and writing. Middle school students can also develop a cell phone walking tour guide to SoHo, to be enjoyed by others throughout the year, and will be included in the Center’s Context/Contrast: New Buildings in Historic Districts 1965-2009 exhibition this fall. Elementary students will also have the opportunity to create Pop Art-influenced buildings in a range of media as they consider the work of Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenberg, and others on trips to MoMA and the Whitney Museum. High school students can create a piece for their portfolios in our “Design/Build: Chairs” studio, in which students will construct a piece of functional furniture from corrugated cardboard. Learning shouldn’t come to a stop in the summer, but it needs to include fun, friends, fresh air, and lots of creative exploration. Help your child discover their own design sensibilities in a Summer@theCenter studio. Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis and space is limited. Full program descriptions, registration and tuition information are at www.cfafoundation.org.
Design Trust’s 2007 publication Taxi 07: Roads Forward includes several recommendations that have now been adopted by the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission: additional service training for drivers, rideshare fares, and group-ride locations. The TLC will also pilot a roof light that displays destinations; the roof light was first exhibited at the Design Trust’s Taxi 07 Exhibit at the 2007 NY International Auto Show. The AIA National Associates Committee (NAC) selected four recipients to receive the 2009 Jason Pettigrew Memorial ARE Scholarship, including Venesa Alicea, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP… The 2009 winners of the Municipal Art Society’s MASterworks Awards are, in the following categories: Best New Building, The Standard Hotel by Polshek Partnership; Best Restoration, The Lion House at The Bronx Zoo by FXFOWLE Architects; Best Renovation/Adaptive Re-use, The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons, The New School for Design by Lyn Rice Architects; Best Neighborhood Catalyst, TKTS Booth by Perkins Eastman (based on a design by Choi Ropiha); Best Neighborhood Catalyst: Honorable Mention, Melrose Commons by Magnusson Architecture and Planning… Illustrations from McGraw-Hill Construction’s Architectural Record were recently honored in the American Illustration competition… The Visionaire by Pelli Clarke Pelli (design architect) and SLCE (project architect), has received LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), marking it as the greenest residential condominium in the U.S. and the only LEED Platinum condominium on the east coast… Finalists in the America’s Best Restroom VIII contest include Radio City Music Hall; through 07.31.09 the public can vote for the winner at http://www.bestrestroom.com… Adi Shamir will step down from her position as Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute in June 2009… Callison acquired RYA Design Consultancy, a Dallas-based architecture and design firm with an office in NYC…
06.02.09: AIANY Chapter’s Annual Meeting was held at the Center for Architecture.
AIANY President Sherida E. Paulsen, FAIA, confirms the 2009 Medal of Honor on Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Sam Lahoz 
(L-R): Illya Azaroff, AIA, Vice President for Design Excellence; Anthony P. Schirripa, AIA, IIDA, AIANY First Vice President/President Elect; Jim McCullar, FAIA, AIANY Past President; Louise Braverman, FAIA, Louise Braverman Architect. Kristen Richards 
(L-R): Ricardo Scofidio, AIA, Principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Rick Bell, FAIA, AIANY Executive Director; Ernie Hutton, FAICP, Assoc. AIA, Alternate Director for Public Outreach. Kristen Richards
06.04.09: The New Practices San Francisco exhibition opened at the Center for Architecture.
The New Practices San Francisco installation from above. Kristen Richards 
Matt Bremer, AIA, AIANY New Practices Committee Co-chair (left) with Anthony P. Schirripa, AIA, IIDA, AIANY First Vice President/President Elect (right). Kristen Richards 
05.28.09: Commissioner Adrian Benepe cuts the ribbon re-dedicating the renewed Washington Square Park. Rick Bell, FAIA
05.28.09: At its annual luncheon benefiting the Scholarship Fund, the ACE (architects, constructors, engineers) Mentor Program of Greater New York announced 66 college scholarship awards, totaling $271,500.
Scholarship winner Emily Portanova from Maria Regine High School receives $48,000 Manhattan College Scholarship from Tim J. Ward, Dean, School of Engineering Manhattan College. Courtesy ACE Mentor Program
06.02.09: Skanska USA Building opened its new offices on the 32nd floor of the Empire State Building, designed by Cook + Fox.
(L-R) Bob Fox, AIA, and Rick Cook, AIA (Cook + Fox); Phil Pitruzello (Columbia University); Serge Appel, AIA (Cook + Fox); and Steve Pressler (Skanska). Capelin Communications 2009 Oculus Editorial Calendar Winter Issue: Health & Architecture. Architecture designed to promote fitness, health, and wellness will be profiled. Projects selected from within this growing field will demonstrate sensitivity to generational and demographic issues, sustainability, and technology. If you have suggestions, please contact OCULUS editor-in-chief Kristen Richards. 06.25.09 Request for Proposals: Dudley Square Municipal Office Facility 07.01.09 Call for Presentations: AIA 2010 Convention 07.15.09 Call for Entries: The Chain of Eco-Homes 07.31.09 Call for Entries: 2009 AIANYS Honor Awards - pdf 08.01.09 Call for Papers: Nexus 2010: Relationships Between Architecture and Mathematics Conference 09.01.09 Call for Submissions: 2009 Upjohn Research Initiative 09.15.09 Call for Entries: Brickstainable: Re-thinking Brick 09.28.09 Call for Entries: The Self Sufficient City: Envisioning the Habitat of the Future Center for Architecture Gallery Hours
Join an Architalker for a Hosted Tour of Center for Architecture CURRENT EXHIBITIONSNew Practices San FranciscoJune 04 - September 19, 2009
New Practices San Francisco is the 2009, West Coast premiere of AIA New York’s annual portfolio competition and exhibition. New Practices San Francisco is a platform for recognizing and promoting new and emerging architecture firms within San Francisco that have undertaken innovative strategies — both in projects and practice. The New Practices program was launched in 2005 by AIA New York to showcase promising new architectural firms. New Practices San Francisco will be on view at the Center for Architecture from June 4, 2009 through September 19, 2009. It will then be on view at the Center for Architecture & Design, San Francisco, from November 12, 2009 through January 29, 2010. The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of programs organized by the AIA New York Chapter in collaboration with the New Practices Committee and AIA San Francisco. Congratulations to our 2009 New Practices San Francisco Winners: * CMG Landscape Architecture Exhibition Design: Matter Practice, 2008 New Practices New York winning firm. Graphic Design: Organized By: This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the following sponsors: Lead Sponsor: Presenting Sponsor: Hafele The Global Polis: Interactive InfrastructuresMay 15 - August 29, 2009
What is infrastructure? For much of the twentieth century, the answer to this question was guided by the ideology of functionalist urbanism, a school of thought that said that all healthy cities served four major needs – work, housing, recreation, and transportation. Today, we no longer take this view for granted, for it is a perspective that makes no provisions for community, identity, or history. At the same time, we still lack an alternative model for visualizing the city that can deal adequately with the public health and quality-of-life issues that the early functionalists sought to address. Our capacity to balance urban development with the demands of ecological imperatives and social needs has only worsened in recent decades, and this exhibition asks whether the trend can be reversed. Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures documents a series of contemporary experiments in planning, architecture, and design that treat cities and their environments in holistic terms, as a complex social, political, and ecological matrix – not just as an assembly of buildings, roadways, bridges, pipes, and tunnels (although each of these is important). Infrastructure cannot be divorced from the structure of democracy, from the environment at large, and the contributions to this exhibition highlight the important role that community, communication, participation, and the sharing of knowledge can play in informing understanding of the urban fabric. This spring and summer, a series of workshops and public programs will be held to generate discussion and debate about civic participation, urbanism, and design. Drawings and diagrams produced in the workshops will be incorporated into the exhibition as an evolving presentation of ideas. Exhibition and related programs organized by AIA New York in partnership with Architecture for Humanity New York (AFHny) , The Austrian Cultural Forum, and the American Institute for Graphic Arts New York (AIGA NY). Curator: Nader Vossoughian SPONSORS Underwriter: Center for Architecture Foundation
Supporter: Consulate General of The Netherlands Friend: Times Square Alliance Helfand Spotlight Series:
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