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11.10.09 Editor’s Note: According to the last e-Oculus poll, 53% of readers did not know we do podcasts. Click here to check them out.
As we are just launching podcasts, we want your feedback. Please e-mail me with comments, criticisms, and suggestions at eoculus@aiany.org.
- Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
Note: Be sure to follow Tweets from e-Oculus and the Center for Architecture.
Event: Energy Code Changes: What the Design Team Needs to Know (5-part series)
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.26-28, 11.03-04.09
Speakers: Session 1 — Overview of the Greening of the NYC and other Codes: Chris Garvin, AIA, LEED AP — Senior Associate, Cook+Fox Architects & Project Leader, Terrapin Bright Green; Session 2 — Lighting Design and the Energy Code: Hayden McKay, AIA, FIALD, FIESNA, LEED AP — Principal, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design; Shoshanna Segal, IALD — Associate, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design; Session 3 — Mechanical Systems and the Energy Code: John Rundell, LEED AP — Buro Happold; Session 4 — Building Enclosures and the Energy Code: Michael Waite, PE, LEED AP — Simpson Gumpertz & Heger; Session 5 — Energy Modeling and the Energy Code: Adrian Tuluca, RA, LEED AP — Principal, Viridian Energy and Environment
Organizers: AIA New York Chapter; AIANY Committee on the Environment; Building Enclosure Council; AIANY Building Codes Committee; ASHRAE; Urban Green
As of this past September, New York State instituted the latest update to its energy code. Currently, all projects in New York must comply with the Energy Conservation Construction Code of New York State (ECCCNYS) or ASHRAE 90.1-2004. With the city’s plans for all buildings to reduce energy consumption by 2030, the codes and regulations will become more stringent while greater enforcement will be put into place. The Greener Greater Buildings Plan, part of the Mayor’s PlaNYC, sets a goal of achieving a 30% reduction in NYC’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. In addition, there are rumors that once the Department of Buildings begins new mandatory auditing procedures, projects that do not meet the current energy code will lose their permits. Because of this, the AIANY Committee on the Environment teamed up with the Building Enclosure Council, AIANY Building Codes Committee, ASHRAE, and Urban Green to produce a five-part series on what architects need to know about the ever-changing energy codes.
Prescriptive vs. Performance-Based Methods
To calculate energy use in a building, architects have a choice to use either prescriptive or performance-based methods. The prescriptive method is the cheapest, fastest way, as COMcheck (for commercial buildings) and REScheck (for residential) are readily available online. These programs filter information provided by architects and engineers to determine code compliance. While all methods provide a choice to use ECCCNYS or ASHRAE 90.1-2004 (not to be confused with ASHRAE 90.1-2007, the code required for LEED), all of the speakers recommended using ASHRAE 90.1-2004.
Performance-based methods involve energy simulation, a process that takes longer, is more expensive, and often requires additional consultants. However, energy modeling is sometimes required, and, as codes become stricter, it may become inevitable for new projects.
Continues…
Event: How Do We Design Successful Cities? Challenges and Solutions
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.27.09
Speakers: David Burney, FAIA — Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC); Richard Plunz — Professor of Architecture & Director, Urban Design Program, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, & Director, Urban Design Lab, The Earth Institute
Introductions & Responses: Michael Plottel, AIA — Project Executive, DDC; Anna Torriani, AIA — Partner, Atelier Pagnamenta Torriani
Organizers: AIANY Public Architecture Committee
This discussion of possible urban futures began with Director of the Urban Design Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation Richard Plunz’s recent fact-finding trip to China with Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia’s Earth Institute. Plunz, admitting his own lack of preconceived knowledge about China, described what he found there as “fascinating and terrifying.” To these observations NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) Commissioner David Burney, FAIA, expressed a degree of skepticism about the implications of the evening’s official title — a literal discussion of how to design successful cities, he noted, presumes that anyone actually can — and some points for comparison based largely on the experiences of New York and London. In the West’s premiere cities, the economic base, built environment, and cultural accommodations that add up to forms of successful urbanism have evolved over centuries. Plunz and Burney both suggested that China’s effort to do something similar, but larger and faster, is unpredictable, risky, and impossible to ignore.
Plunz got the impression that “the Chinese are very proud of their problems,” but also that they are serious about confronting them. China’s urbanization strikes him as not only unprecedented in scale and speed — Shenzhen, for example, grew from a town of 35,000 to a city of 9 million in three decades, and the nation now has over 100 cities of a million or more — but somewhat unformed. “In many ways,” he said, “Chinese urbanization is relatively primitive in the sense that the cities are really examples of the first phase of something.” No one within or outside China has a clear idea how to establish a reasonable quality of life for such a population, from basic questions of food production, and distribution (despite a projected 23% drop in arable land by 2049) to the preservation of cultural identity. Identifying five major representative challenges for Chinese urbanism, Plunz terms them urban implosion (the problem of rapid growth), urban equilibrium (the urban-rural disjunction), urban fabric (the problem of preservation), cultural transformation (the problem of consumption), and education for innovation (the problem of advancement).
“Building a consumer economy with 1.3 billion consumers,” Plunz says, puts China in a position no nation has ever been in, even the 20th-century U.S. as it approached its high-consumption phase. China is polluting its cities alarmingly, but it is also producing 80% of the world’s solar panels, hedging its bets in the transportation sector by producing mass transit as well as autos, and taking constructive steps in advanced technologies such as superconductors and biomass-based fuels. The intelligence of China’s leadership impressed him, and their methods of governance struck him as offering certain adaptive advantages despite the obvious objections from a democratic perspective. In any assessments made across the borders of culture, chronology, and scale, Plunz recommends circumspection: “It’s not the same game for them that existed for us over the last 50 years.”
Burney shares Plunz’s sense that continuity between prior experience and the hyper-urbanized future may have its limits, noting that even the successes of figures like Christopher Wren and Baron Haussmann have left us with no bulletproof guidelines for how to produce an ideal city. Still, certain examples do offer grounds for optimism. An almost obsessively planned district like Battery Park City and a virtually unplanned one like London’s Canary Wharf can end up closer in form than one might expect, he noted. There are certain qualities that planning and design can enhance, as the UK’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has broadly sketched in its document World Class Places. Here, multiple city agencies have embedded similar principles into rezoning, steering growth toward transit-rich sites, health programs opening schoolyards as public playgrounds, and greening efforts expanding access to parks and plazas. “There seems to be some sort of consensus growing about how we define successful urban space,” Burney summarized; “I think there’s less consensus as to how we get there.”
Note: Bill Millard sat down with Burney to discuss his ideas further. To listen to the Podcast, click here.
Bill Millard is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in OCULUS, Icon, Content, The Architect’s Newspaper, and other publications.
Event: Roundtable Discussion on “Appropriateness”
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.04.09
Speakers: Harry Kendall, AIA — Partner, BKSK; Richard Cook, AIA — Partner, Cook+Fox Architects; Bill Higgins — Principal, Higgins Quasebarth & Partners; Margery Perlmutter, AIA — Partner, Bryan Cave & Member, Landmarks Preservation Commission
Moderator: Mark Silberman — General Counsel, Landmarks Preservation Commission
Organizer: AIANY Historic Buildings Committee
Sponsors: AIANY Historic Buildings Committee
Historic Front Street (left) and 24 Peck Slip by Cook+Fox Architects.
© Karin Partin for Cook+Fox Architects (left); © Seong Kwon for Cook+Fox Architects (right)
What does it mean for architecture to be “appropriate?” It’s quite a nebulous, subjective term, yet the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has the tricky task of evaluating it before granting a Certificate of Appropriateness for new architecture in a historic district. Since the mid-1960s, the LPC has granted around 250 such approvals, said Mark Silberman, LPC general counsel, at a recent panel presented in conjunction with the exhibition Context\Contrast: New Architecture in Historic Districts, 1967–2009.
Weighing those decisions can be “difficult and perplexing,” because while landmarks law provides some general guidelines, “it’s pretty broad,” Silberman remarked. “It doesn’t really guide us, the commission, as to this question of, well, what is that new building to be? Is it supposed to be a copy of an old building?” Or should it instead be boldly contemporary, “a landmark of the future?” While the law provides no exact formulas, the LPC has always been sympathetic to the notion of progress in historic districts, rather than seeking to freeze them in time, he said.
The issues really came alive through the presentations of Harry Kendall, AIA, of BKSK, and Richard Cook, AIA, of Cook+Fox Architects. Kendall and Cook discussed their firms’ approaches in various projects, including two that appear in the exhibition: 114-116 Hudson Street, a residential project in the Tribeca West Historic District; and Historic Front Street in the South Street Seaport Historic District, a large mixed-use project that involved restoring 11 buildings and designing three new ones.
In researching the history of the Front Street area, “We started to think that there were many things that were relevant to a discussion of appropriateness that weren’t necessarily tangible at all,” Cook said. “They weren’t about bricks and mortar.” Inspirations including Moby Dick by Herman Melville and a 1936 Berenice Abbott photograph showing a schooner at Pier 11 with city buildings in the background helped the architects understand the maritime history of a place filled with “ghosts of our past,” he added.
In the design of one new building at 24 Peck Slip, the glassiness of a façade has a contemporary feel, but “wood solar shades might allude to the wood sailing vessels,” and tension rods for canopies “crisscross in a crazy pattern and allude to rigging of a ship.” In a nearby building at 217 Front Street, a window design evokes the form of a whale’s tail, an homage to Melville. Using 10 geothermal wells for the project’s heating and cooling not only boosted sustainability, it also reduced noise and kept roofs uncluttered by cooling equipment, preserving the look of the roofscape.
BKSK’s project on Hudson Street involved restoring an existing building from the 1840s and creating a contemporary expansion in an adjacent vacant lot. The expansion’s glass-and-metal façade forms an abstract grid that subtly echoes the lines of the masonry buildings to either side. However, the new design is different enough that it didn’t look jarring to make the addition slightly taller than the existing building, Kendall said.
While the notion of appropriateness takes center stage in new architecture in historic districts, the issue is really commonplace, Kendall remarked. “What we realized was that we had just formed a continuum with something that always goes on in architecture: that when you build something next to something else, you don’t copy it, but you do things that knit it in. We just continued that tradition: context and contrast.”
Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for OCULUS, The Architect’s Newspaper, I.D., Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.
Event: Five Principles for Greenwich South: A New Model for Lower Manhattan
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.30.09
Introduction: Chris Reynolds, AIA, LEED — Alliance for Downtown New York
Speakers: Elizabeth H. Berger — President, Alliance for Downtown New York; Stephen Cassell, AIA — Principal, Architecture Research Office; Neil Kittredge, AIA — Partner, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners; Paul Lewis, AIA — Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis;
Panel Respondents: Rick Bell, FAIA — Executive Director, AIANY, Greenwich South Study Committee; Eric Anderson — Anderson Equities, Greenwich South Study Committee; Jordan Gruzen, FAIA — Principal. Gruzen Samton Architects & Co-Chair, New York New Visions
Moderator: Ernest Hutton, FAICP, Assoc. AIA — Co-Chair, New York New Visions & AIANY Planning and Urban Design Committee, Hutton Associates
Organizer: AIANY Planning and Urban Design Committee
Sponsors: AIANY; New York New Visions
Courtesy AIANY
The 41-acre swath of land south of the World Trade Center between Broadway and West Street has been the victim of a “300-year cycle of alienation,” according to Elizabeth Berger, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. Since the 1960s, many entities, including the NYC Department of City Planning, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and New York New Visions, have completed studies attempting to tie this area into the fabric of lower Manhattan. Now, the Downtown Alliance has assembled a “dream-team” of 10 designers to contribute their visions for “Greenwich South,” including: Architecture Research Office (ARO); Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners; Coen + Partners; DeWitt Godfrey; Iwamoto Scott Architecture; Jorge Colombo; Morphosis; Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL); Open; Raphael Lozano-Hemmer; Transsolar Climate Engineering; and WORKac.
The Downtown Alliance developed a five-pronged approach to create a vision — rather than a comprehensive plan — for future development. The goals are to encourage mixed-use development, reconnect the city to Greenwich Street, create an east/west corridor, build density designed for people to inhabit the space, and ultimately design a reason for people to both visit and stay.
Downtown Manhattan is home to more than half of the one-time tallest buildings in the world. When it was built, the World Trade Center officially severed Greenwich Street. “It would seem the west side of lower Manhattan was doomed from the beginning of settlement,” said Stephen Cassell, AIA, principal of ARO, a firm engaged by the Downtown Alliance. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel holds more than 3 million square feet of transferable air development rights in the area. Utilizing this space, ARO proposed a public market, park, plaza, and recycling center over the tunnel approach. Paul Lewis, AIA, a principle of LTL and resident of Greenwich South, envisioned a “bicycle epicenter” with bike storage and rentals and shower facilities. Along with Transsolar Climate Engineering, LTL also conceptualized the space above the tunnel entrance as a translucent structure, or a “vertical park,” with an ecological center to produce food, decompose waste, and harvest water. Called a “green sponge,” the facility would cleanse the tunnel’s exhaust air.
Neil Kittredge, AIA, partner at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, claimed that Greenwich Street is the only other iconic connecting street in Manhattan besides Broadway. To maximize its connection to Greenwich Village, the Meatpacking District, and the High Line, he proposed sustainable public transit systems, such as light rail, to carry passengers among these destinations.
The Downtown Alliance has assembled these proposals into a document titled “What If.” As Berger pointed out, its “great work, great process, so what?” There are many roadblocks in the path of progress, such as capturing air rights over the tunnel and interfacing with the MTA, police department, and other stakeholders, not to mention working with property owners to open ground floors of buildings into public connectors. Incentives from city government could prove a potential catalyst, they agreed.
Until these larger issues can be resolved, small efforts are already underway. Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer designed a public art installation. Open developed a way-finding and place-marker system. And Coen + Partners created a green gateway. For renderings and more information on the proposals for Greenwich South, visit the Downtown Alliance website.
Murrye Bernard is a freelance architectural writer in NYC and a contributing editor to e-Oculus.
Event: God Comes to Earth: Designing Sacred Spaces for Environmentally Sensitive Times
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.26.09
Speakers: Michael J. Crosbie, Ph.D., AIA — Editor, Faith & Form; Rabbi Lea Cohen — Congregation B’Nai Chaim, Georgetown, CT; Alexander Gorlin, FAIA — Principal, Alexander Gorlin Architects; Victoria Meyers, AIA — Founding Partner, hanrahanMeyers architects; Henry Stolzman, FAIA — Partner, PKSB Architects
Organizer: PKSB Architects
St. Gabriel’s Church by Larkin Architects (left); Infinity Church by hanrahanMeyers architects.
Larkin Architects (left); hanrahanMeyers architects (right
If you visit Congregation Rodeph Shalom on the Upper West Side, or any synagogue designed by Henry Stolzman, FAIA, of PKSB Architects, look for the memorial wall. Instead of illuminating the names of the deceased, you’ll see small stones. This not only replicates the Jewish custom of leaving a stone on a headstone to mark a visit to the gravesite, but it also brings nature into a house of worship. In his current project, Temple B’nai Chaim in Fairfield, CT, that tradition will be repeated. Clad in stone and glass, floor-to-ceiling windows in the sanctuary will also open to the wetlands beyond.
Sacred spaces were originally built like fortresses — places to escape from this world. They were soaring spaces with light pouring in from above. Today, the trend with sacred spaces is similar to that of other public and private places — to be socially responsible and sensitive to the environment. Michael J. Crosbie, Ph.D., AIA, editor of Faith & Form, cited St. Gabriel’s Church in Toronto, designed by Larkin Architects and completed in 2006, as a space that is intended to create a sense of the greater context of creation for worshippers. The church has a wall of greenery, it collects rainwater, the pews are made from recycled wood, and unadorned concrete serves as a canvas for colored skylights that illustrate the earth moving around the sun.
The Kabbalah and the notion of the tzimtzum, which in Hebrew means contraction, inspired Alexander Gorlin Architects’ design of the North Shore Synagogue in Kings Point, NY. According to Kabbalah teachings, God began the process of creation by contracting his infinite light, forming an empty space in which creation could begin. Natural light is used in the building’s design as a way to sculpt the space of the sanctuary.
Victoria Meyers, AIA, founding partner of hanrahanMeyers architects, was specifically commissioned by the 10th Church of Christ Scientist to create the Infinity Church in Greenwich Village because they appreciated the way her firm works with light. The chapel, currently under construction, features a cubic sanctuary “deformed” by light. The sacred geometries of squares, golden section rectangles, and “spheres of light” will surround worshippers. Three curving walls — from the south, north, and east — evoke the shape of a “Klein bottle” or Möbius strip, simple figures that suggest infinity with no beginning or end.
Linda G. Miller is a NYC-based freelance writer and publicist.
Event: PUERTO RICO NOW: Recent Architecture and History
Location: Center for Architecture, 10.29.09
Speakers: Segundo Cardona, FAIA — Partner, Sierra Cardona Ferrer; Luis Flores, FAIA — Owner, Luis Flores Arquitectos; Jorge Rigau, FAIA — Principal, Rigau Arquitectos
Moderator: Warren James — Author & Designer
Organizers: AIANY Global Dialogues Committee
Sponsors: AECOM; Turner International; AIA Puerto Rico Chapter; Landair; Rums of Puerto Rico
City Skyline, San Juan, PR.
Courtery: WAJAP New York, 2009
Architecture in Puerto Rico has come a long way in a short time. “When I started in 1966, there were barely 150 architects in a population of 2.6 million people,” stated Segundo Cardona, FAIA, of Sierra Cardona Ferrer Arquitectos. “Now there are 1,350 architects and 4 million people. The number of architects in the population has multiplied by six.” Cardona was one of three architects in New York to describe their body of work on the island.
Cardona speaks of his work in reference to the roots of Puerto Rican architecture. The island’s architects take inspiration from construction limitations and from the pervasive nature of the tropical climate. For his visitor center in the Yunque Forest, the building was created simply from timber and concrete and is in the shape of a cruciform. “I wanted to integrate the medium with the message,” he said. “The cruciform expresses a sense of reverence towards nature.” Cardona purposefully left a hole in the middle of the roof so that people would get wet when it rains. “You can’t ignore the climate, so why not pay homage to it.”
Luis Flores, FAIA, of Louis Flores Arquitectos, described how architects in Puerto Rico had established their own identities since the island’s architecture schools opened in the late 1960s. At first, architects were educated to build in a North American style rather than using the traditions of Spanish and Caribbean architecture. “Since then there has been an extraordinary revolution in terms of our awareness and our search for identity,” he said. Flores presented Balneario El Tuque, a pool complex made from concrete blocks and timber pergolas. “What architects in Puerto Rico learned was that you can use the tropicality and the breezes and the sun to their advantage. A minimalist architecture in this climate suggests space.”
Jorge Rigau, FAIA, of Rigau Arquitectos, was the youngest of the speakers, and his take on Puerto Rican architecture was less about handcraft than about style. He explained that he was influenced not only by traditional Spanish architecture, but also by late 20th-century tectonics. A career immersed in architectural education also contributed to his urban thinking, he claimed. This was best represented in a project in Isabela that re-imagined 35 kilometers of irrigation channels as landscaped nature trails for tourists and school groups on the island. “Design is not necessarily just about buildings, but also about making something happen,” he said.
The post-talk discussion centred mainly on sustainability, and how Puerto Rico is reacting to the climate change agenda. Cardona said that the primacy of the tropical climate meant that all Puerto Rican architects had to think about sustainability, but added that the stipulations of LEED ratings would not work in his country. Rigau explained that there was more skepticism about green architecture on the island. “In Puerto Rico, there is a saying that when things are green, we have to wait for them to ripen,” he said. An audience member asked if air-conditioning is the largest obstacle to lowering energy use. Cardona responded that air-conditioning is not needed. “We have a blessing — our climate,” added Flores. “We have another blessing,” cut in Rigau. “We can’t afford it.”
Dan Stewart is a freelance journalist and writer. He has written for The Mail on Sunday, The Week, Building Magazine, Time Out, and Little White Lies on current affairs, architecture, and film.
Event: A City of One’s Own: Architecture and Urbanism as Cultural Heritage in Barcelona
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.02.09
Speakers: Eulàlia Bosch — Curator & Program Designer, Education and the Arts
Organizer: AIANY; The Catalan Center at New York University, an affiliate of the Institut Ramon Llull
With an ardent aptitude for educational outreach, Eulàlia Bosch has centered her career as philosopher, curator, writer, and web designer on the integration of didactics in contemporary art, digital media, and urban studies. Comparing the process of education to bovine rumination, Bosch believes the collection of knowledge in the cultural “fields” of a city is best reflected upon in schools, equated with “barns,” and then transformed into academic nourishment through dialogue. Bosch’s work seeks to reinvent the traditional learning environment and blurs the boundaries of education, infusing urban life with the public exchange of information.
In collaboration with Ramon Espelt, Bosch is responsible for educational websites that look at cultural centers in Barcelona under multiple lenses. A website dedicated to Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà, www.lapedreraeducacio.org, explores the building from every angle, providing literary, film, and graphic references; perspectives of artists, inhabitants, and neighbors on the space; as well as history, architectural details, and visual metaphors. Most importantly, the website serves as an interactive platform to contribute, collect, and reflect on information. A multi-faceted resource unique to other institutional websites, the educational component of Bosch and Espelt’s creation is limitless and self-renewing.
According to Bosch, a city becomes a city of one’s own when it is recognizable in its details. Through her work, Bosch is achieving this for future generations by creating cultural grazing lands, both digital and physical, that embody Barcelona and open new public perspectives on its cultural landscape.
Jacqueline Pezzillo, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.
Event: Adaptive Building Initiative
Location: The Cooper Union, 10.28.09
Speakers: Chuck Hoberman — Hoberman Associates & Adaptive Building Initiative; Craig Schwitter, PE — Buro Happold Consulting Engineers & Adaptive Building Initiative
Organizers: The Architectural League of New York
Adaptive Building Initiative designed an automated shading system, shown in open and closed positions, for Foster + Partners’ Aldar Central Market in Abu Dhabi.
Foster + Partners
When energy (in the form of light and heat) enters and exits a building in an uncontrolled fashion, unwelcome fluctuations in the internal environment result: spaces become too hot or cold, too bright or dark. Typically, fossil fuel-guzzling mechanical systems are used to counter these effects, making the building sector as a whole one of America’s biggest energy drains. However, if a building’s outer envelope could prevent unwanted energy transfers from occurring in the first place, mechanical workarounds would be unnecessary and energy consumption would drop dramatically.
This is the challenge that the Adaptive Building Initiative (ABI), a joint venture established in 2008 by Buro Happold and Hoberman Associates, has set for itself. As its name indicates, the firm designs building envelopes that can respond intelligently to environmental cues by changing shape or size. Projects include several shading systems for Foster + Partners projects, each consisting of a series of geometrical panels programmed to adjust for the amount of sunlight as needed.
ABI principals Chuck Hoberman and Craig Schwitter, PE, view their firms as part of an emerging movement that will fundamentally change building design as environmental concerns grow. “It’s a space that’s very undefined, I think: this concept of how energy can affect architecture,” said Schwitter. “The parameters are changing under our feet.”
Sarah Wesseler is a marketing coordinator at Gruzen Samton.
(L-R): 5414 Arthur Kill Road, Tottenville; Charles Kreischer House; St. Peter’s Lutheran Evangelical Church; Manee-Seguine Homestead.
Fran Leadon
I made nine trips to Staten Island last summer, visiting hundreds of buildings and parks for inclusion in the upcoming fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City (Oxford University Press, 2010). One trip was by ferry (free); the other eight were by car (Verrazano-Narrows Bridge tolls: $88). Staten Island had been a mystery to me before my recent forays. Now I have a better sense of its geography (twice the size of Manhattan), its architecture, and its history.
One unique feature of Staten Island is the undercurrent of rural life peaking through more recent development. If you look hard enough, there are fragments everywhere of an agrarian and seafaring life that now seems distant in the city’s collective memory. But change came relatively recently, its remaining farms and open tracts of land mostly plowed under by the wave of suburban development that followed construction of the Narrows Bridge in 1964. While there are still stretches of virtual wilderness on the island, especially along its southern shore, many historic settlements such as Sandy Ground and Princes Bay have been virtually obliterated over the last 30 years by banal tracts of cookie-cutter housing.
A drive down the old Arthur Kill Road is instructive but disorienting, its hairpin turns unnerving. Twisting and narrow, the road was clearly built for the occasional horse and carriage, not for today’s rush hour SUVs. The Arthur Kill winds its way from the geographical center of the island at Historic Richmond Town past 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century graveyards and roadside taverns in Rossville and Charleston to the remnants of a former factory town called Kreischerville, where some amazing architecture awaits: the Charles Kreischer House, a turreted Stick Style extravaganza (1888), the trim, wood-framed St. Peter’s Lutheran Evangelical Church (1883), and Kreischer’s spare, functional worker’s housing (1890) — all landmarks in a veritable ghost town overtaken by woods populated by deer and feral cats.
The Arthur Kill ends in the far southern corner of the island at Tottenville, a village seemingly suspended in time. Along Main Street are all the sights one would expect to find in small-town America, including a Masonic Lodge and abandoned movie theater, an impressive collection of intact Queen Anne, Stick Style, and Italianate houses, and even one stunning but out-of-place Modernist specimen, the Dr. Henry Litvak House by architect Eugene G. Megnin (1949).
Landmarks on Staten Island are generally not treated very well. One would think that the Manee-Seguine Homestead (1690), an important example of 17th-century roadside architecture (it once functioned as an inn) would be beautifully restored and open to public tours. Instead, it is a ruin, concealed from view in a thicket, slowly decaying and returning to the earth. Historic Richmond Town is a vital collection of 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century landmarks (houses, sheds, stores, outhouses, a railroad depot) originally located elsewhere on the island, now protected from demolition or gradual disintegration. Historic Richmondtown feels like a kind of intensive care unit for neglected buildings; an architectural hospital of sorts, where old Federalist and Queen Anne gems are rescued and brought back from the brink.
Norval White, FAIA, is an architect, architectural historian and professor who has designed buildings throughout the U.S. In addition to the AIA Guide to New York City, he is the author of The Architecture Book and New York: A Physical History. He currently resides with his wife Camilla in Roques, France.
Elliot Willensky, FAIA, (1934-1990) was an architect and architectural historian. He served as vice chairman of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, and was the official Borough Historian of Brooklyn. He also wrote a popular history, When Brooklyn Was the World, 1920-1957.
Fran Leadon, AIA, is an architect and professor at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. He lives in Brooklyn.
On 11.01, the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) launched its Credentialing Maintenance Program (CMP) for all LEED Accredited Professionals. As a LEED AP who wants to stay active, I signed on to the agreement that I will complete 30 continuing education hours biennially and pay the $50 maintenance fee. Since I attend events regularly at the Center for Architecture, which is now incorporating Sustainable Design credits for CEUs, I thought it would not be too difficult to maintain 15 CEs per year to continue my LEED accreditation.
Once I logged on to the CMP Report Summary page, however, I realized that the system is much more complicated than I thought. Not only do I have to complete 30 hours overall, I have to complete a minimum amount of hours related to each section of LEED: four CEs for Project Site Factors; three for Water Management; six for Project Systems and Energy Impacts; three for Acquisition, Installation, and Management of Project Materials; five for Improvement to the Indoor Environment; two for Stakeholder Involvement in Innovation; and one for Project Surrounding and Public Outreach. In addition, six of the 30 hours must go toward LEED-specific training. To enter my CE hours I had to submit the date, subcategory, the type of event, a brief description, details about the event hosts, and information about the speakers, along with the number of CE hours I am reporting. After all of this, which I did a week ago, I am still waiting for approval from GBCI.
In the end, not only is self reporting tedious, but it is also unclear whether AIA SD CEUs will count toward LEED CE’s. The only listed approved provider is the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and it seems from the website as if there is an organization — called Education Reviewing Bodies, or ERBs — that makes the decision whether or not a credit is LEED-worthy. For architects who have to complete 18 CEUs per year of AIA credits, how are they supposed to complete 15 CEs in addition that are solely generated by USGBC programming?
I am an advocate for sustainable design, and I was a proponent for LEED when it first launched. What I do not understand, however, is why organizations that provide continuing education for architects and engineers are not collaborating with the GBCI to develop the standards and provide sufficient training. At a time when sustainability is being integrated more into the practice of architecture, many believe that LEED will eventually become obsolete. In my opinion, the GBCI certainly is speeding up this process.
In this issue:
· New York’s Bravest Receive Design Excellence
· Museum of Jewish Heritage Expands View
· LEED Platinum Building Serves as Test Lab to Improve Respiratory Health
· Sponge Park & Eco Dock Are in Brooklyn’s Future
· Museum Hotel Fosters Arts, Urban Revival
· Crocker Art Museum Triples for 125th Anniversary
New York’s Bravest Receive Design Excellence
Engine Company 201.
© Albert Vecerka / Esto, courtesy FDNY
Engine Company 201 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, designed by RKT&B Architecture and Urban Design, is the first completed firehouse as part of the NYC Department of Design and Construction’s Design Excellence Program. It is also the city’s first firehouse to be built with glass doors at ground level, expressing the importance the firehouse plays in the community by visually connecting firefighters with the neighborhood they serve. The design gives top priority to apparatus floor functions, response time, and operational efficiency of the shared spaces. The second floor contains offices, bunkrooms, bathrooms, lockers, and storage facilities, with horizontal and vertical circulation allowing fast access to the trucks on the ground floor. The third floor contains private spaces and includes a dormitory bunkroom, study facilities, and locker rooms. Design elements include a Maltese Cross, which is embossed on the street-level glass doors and expressed as an illuminated light box on the third floor façade. Brightly glazed red brick is used throughout, and a pre-existing ground floor memorial dedicated to fallen heroes has been preserved.
Museum of Jewish Heritage Expands View
Keeping History Center.
Melanie Einzig
The recently opened 2,200-square-foot Keeping History Center is the first permanent addition to the Museum of Jewish Heritage since the Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates-designed Robert M. Morgenthau Wing opened in 2003. Designed by the interdisciplinary design firm C&G Partners, and Potion, a design and technology firm, the center is located at the end of a special exhibition hall that contains the Garden of Stones Timekeeper, a time-lapse showcase of Andy Goldsworthy’s sculptural installation. With panoramic views of New York Harbor, modular Plyboo chevron-shaped benches echo the room’s position in relation to the Statue of Liberty. They are located in circular listening stations that play “Voices of Liberty,” a soundscape of immigrant voices describing arriving in America for the first time accessed via an iPod Touch. One of the voices is Daniel Libeskind, AIA, who arrived in New York in 1959.
LEED Platinum Building Serves as Test Lab to Improve Respiratory Health
The Eltona.
Danois Architects
The Eltona, a five-story residential building in Melrose Commons in the South Bronx, is a standout with the 10 wind turbines mounted on its parapet to generate electricity for the building. The 70,566-square-foot, LEED Platinum project, designed by Danois Architects, contains 63 residential rental units ranging from one to three bedrooms, with a ground-floor community room, 6,800 square feet of landscaped recreation space, and an adjacent community garden. Located in an area known as the “Harlem-South Bronx Asthma Corridor,” residents will serve as subjects for the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which will investigate and quantify what effects living in a green building may have on respiratory health of asthma sufferers. Not only is the building 100% smoke-free, each apartment will have a separate air ventilation system, and all public areas will be served by high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter systems. Blue Sea Development, the building management company, constructed the $16.5 million Eltona in partnership with agencies including the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Housing Development Corporation, and the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal.
Sponge Park & Eco Dock Are in Brooklyn’s Future
Eco Dock Prototype.
Guardia Architects
The development of the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, designed by dlandstudio, recently took a step forward when the fiscal year Interior and Environment Appropriations conference report was approved in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill includes $300,000 for the project, which will incorporate greenery along the banks of the canal to manage excess runoff and help improve water quality. Still awaiting decision is whether the polluted canal will be declared a U.S. Superfund site.
With funding in place, the first of several planned Eco Docks will be constructed by next summer. Designed by Guardia Architects and located at the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, the dock will be a flexible, lightweight, 20-by-40-foot barge. Cost-effective to build and easy to maintain, the project will become a prototype to extend up the Hudson River to Albany, with numerous Eco Docks ready for visitor drop-off and pick-up, community programs, and possibly, ferry service. The docks are a legacy project of the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission, spearheaded by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance in partnership with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.
Museum Hotel Fosters Arts, Urban Revival
21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati.
Deborah Berke & Partners Architects
Deborah Berke & Partners Architects, who served as design architect for the original 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville, KY, will repeat the role at the new 21c Museum Hotel in Cincinnati. The renovation will restore the 97-year-old former Metropole Hotel, recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Building on 21c Museum Hotel’s mission of engaging the public with contemporary art, the hotel will feature a contemporary art museum with more than 8,000 square feet of exhibition space. In addition, the facility will contain 160 guest rooms, a restaurant and bar, and meeting spaces. Located adjacent to the Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati (by Zaha Hadid Architects) and across the street from the Aronoff Center for the Arts (by César Pelli, FAIA), the new museum/hotel is expected to help foster the ongoing revival of the city and strengthen its role as a cultural destination. The firm will collaborate with Pittsburgh-based Perfido Weiskopf Wagstaff + Goettel as executive architect, noted for its experience in historic preservation projects.
Crocker Art Museum Triples for 125th Anniversary
Crocker Art Museum.
Courtesy Crocker Art Museum
Next October, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, CA, will open a new 125,000-square-foot expansion/addition, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, which will more than triple the museum’s current size. The new building will complement the historic museum and expand its capacity for its growing collection, traveling exhibitions, and educational programs. Upon arriving at the new museum, visitors will enter a two-story, glass-walled court from a new 7,000-square-foot open-air courtyard. The indoor and outdoor spaces of the first floor will provide a community gathering place. The building will also include: expanded educational and art studio space; a teacher resource center; a space for participatory arts programming; an expanded library; student exhibition galleries; a 260-seat auditorium and meeting center; a café with indoor and outdoor seating; a redesigned store; space for onsite collections care and storage; and a new conservation lab. A Works on Paper Study Center will improve access for visiting scholars studying the Crocker’s master drawings collection.
In this issue:
· Get involved in New York City!
· Women’s Senate Network Welcomes AIA
· Save the Dates for AIA New York State
· AIA Releases More Online Contract Documents
· Diagrams Look at Licensure
· NCARB Releases Stats on the States
Get involved in New York City!
AIANY is encouraging members to join their local community boards, and it’s offering resources to help. The deadline for applications for the 2010 Community Boards is fast approaching — 01.15 in Manhattan — and applicants are required to attend a community board meeting before applying. Click here to see when and where the last meetings of 2009 will be held in Manhattan, or find community boards in the other boroughs here . Stay tuned to the AIANY Advocacy Page to learn details of a December info session with Shaan Khan, Director of Community Affairs from Borough President Scott Stringer’s Office. To read more about how to join a community board in Manhattan, click here.
Women’s Senate Network Welcomes AIA
Female politicians of the U.S. Senate met on 10.18.09 in NYC for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) Women’s Senate Network policy forum. Leaders from the business and nonprofit sectors met with senators, including Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). AIA brought a delegation to the forum, led by AIA EVP/CEO Christine McEntee. Along with AIA Vice President Pam Loeffelman, FAIA; Beverly Willis, FAIA; Marnique Heath, AIA; Frances Halsband, FAIA; and Shirine Boulos, AIA, the group spoke about energy and design issues. Read more about the conference here.
Save the Dates for AIA New York State
AIA New York State (AIANYS) has announced that the 2010 Lobby Day will be 04.20.10, and the annual AIANYS convention will be 10.14-16.10. AIA Buffalo/Western New York will host. Read more at www.aianys.org.
AIA Releases More Online Contract Documents
In the last issue of Around the AIA, we announced Contract Documents on Demand, digital versions of 16 of the most popular AIA contract documents. On 11.03.09, AIA released three new software documents:
· C191-2009 Standard Form Multi-Party Agreement for Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
· B108™-2009, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect for a Federally Funded or Federally Insured Project
· Standard Form of Architect’s Services: Programming
Read more about the important releases here.
Diagrams Look at Licensure
Stairway to Architecture is a new website graphically representing the architectural profession in diagrams by Matthew Arnold, AIA. A profile of the country’s architecture schools — with number of applicants, class size, and accreditation rate — is based on National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) and National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) statistics. Data from AIA New York State’s 15,000+ active, licensed architects shows the rate of licensure and trends in accreditation. For example, statistics show that in 2009, the average amount of time between graduation and licensure was over 11 years — quite a jump from 1983, when the Architect Registration Exam (ARE) was introduced and the “average” test-taker had been out school for less than five years.
NCARB Releases Stats on the States
Another set of numbers was recently released from NCARB. Its 2009 survey of state architectural registration boards counted 101,673 architects in the U.S (not including the close to 118,000 reciprocal architects, or architects with licenses in more than one state). California leads the pack with more than 20,000 registered architects (15,816 residents); New York follows at a distant second with 15,023 — 8,780 are New Yorkers. Read more about the NCARB survey here.
Teachers learning about architecture and design.
Glenda Reed
Some 30 classroom teachers came to the Center for Architecture on 11.03.09 for “Learning from the Built Environment,” a professional development workshop put on by the Center for Architecture Foundation. During the four-and-a-half hour workshop, design educators Catherine Teegarden and Tim Hayduk modeled ways that teachers can incorporate architecture and design into classroom activities.
One of the more challenging exercises asked teachers to build a scale model of the Center’s library, where the workshop was held. Working in groups, they measured the room’s dimensions and drew scaled plans and elevations. Using the drawings as templates, each group transformed their two-dimensional drawings into a three-dimensional scale model of the library space. Walking through the process demystified a project for the teachers that could be daunting to a class of fourth graders. The event culminated in a guided tour of student projects in the Foundation’s annual exhibition on view in the lower level of the Center. One educator claimed the show “helped me to visualize what children are capable of constructing, and that these design projects can be expanded into whole units of study.” Teachers left the workshop equipped with new ideas and a classroom-ready activity packet.
This professional development workshop was part of the Foundation’s larger mission to promote public awareness and a broader appreciation of the impact of architecture, design, and planning in the built environment. The Foundation’s professional development initiative most often occurs in conjunction with Learning By Design:NY (LBD:NY), an in-school residency program that pairs design educators with classroom teachers. By educating teachers, the Foundation can reach many more young people than would otherwise be possible. For more information about LBD:NY and future professional development opportunities please visit www.cfafoundation.org.
Did you attend the recent 5-part series at the Center about the energy code?
Note: Results from this poll are non-scientific.
Have you listened to one of the new AIANY podcasts?
Note: Results from this poll are non-scientific.
With Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, there are a plethora of options for architects to reach out to peers and clients online. The recently launched website Architizer was created by architects, for architects. This free tool allows architects to post personal, firm, and project profiles, which all link to each other. Since projects often have dozens of contributors, Architizer links them all, from interns to construction managers.
Architects and firms can upload information and tag photos of their most recent projects. Curators can announce new exhibitions and events. Developers can hire architects based on their work. Clients can show off a new building, and fans can share photos of projects they have visited. Every profile is featured on a global map, and advanced search tools let users locate and discover projects. Architizer will also feature an interactive job board, a competition page, design school profiles, and guest contributors to comment on the latest profiles.
The 2009 Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Global Awards for Excellence winners included: the new campus for the American University in Cairo, for which Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer & Associates designed the library; and the West Chelsea/High Line Rezoning Plan, including the High Line Park, designed by James Corner Field Operations with Diller Scofidio + Renfro… The Urban Land Institute’s 2009 Jack Kemp Workforce Housing Models Of Excellence Award winners include the Kalahari Condominium Project, by Fred Schwartz Architects with GF55 as executive architect and Jack Travis, FAIA, as cultural design consultant…
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) named Steven Holl Architects’ recently completed Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing the “CTBUH 2009 Best Tall Building Overall”… Winners of the BusinessWeek/ Architectural Record Awards 2009 include the Barbie Shangai Store by Slade Architecture, and a Citation for East Harlem School by Peter L. Gluck and Partners…
The Waterfront Center’s 23rd annual Excellence on the Waterfront Awards include, in the category of Mixed Use/Commercial, The Port Authority Ferry Terminal at the World Financial Center by Donald Fram, AIA, and W Architecture & Landscape Architecture; and Honor Awards for Comprehensive Waterfront Plans include the Waterfront Zoning Text Amendment, NYC Department of City Planning, and the Brooklyn Bridge Park 2005 Master Plan: A Framework for Design by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates…
Urban A&O and Thinc Design have received the 2009 China’s Most Successful Design Award for the Johnson & Johnson Olympic Pavilion at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing… Greensburg, KS, Chain of Eco-Homes Competition winner is Meadowlark House by Steven Learner Studio… The Australian Institute of Architects’ Jorn Utzon Award for International Architecture was presented to the TKTS Booth and Environs in Times Square by Sydney-based Choi Ropiha with Perkins Eastman and PKSB Architects…
The Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Design Trust for Public Space named Dongsei Kim and Jamieson Fajardo, students at Columbia University, winners of Intersections: The Grand Concourse Beyond 100, an international ideas competition for the future of the Grand Concourse…
Starting in January, Peter Eisenman, FAIA, will be the first Charles Gwathmey Professor of Architecture at Yale University; Ralph Lauren endowed a permanent professorship in honor of the late architect… The National Trust for Historic Preservation has presented the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award, its highest accolade, to Yale professor Vincent J. Scully…
Richard Moe, Hon. AIA, announced that he will retire next year as president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation… The Municipal Art Society is moving to the Steinway Hall Building…
In the Spring 2010 semester, the City College of New York (CCNY) will offer a new, interdisciplinary graduate program, Sustainability in the Urban Environment, which will incorporate architecture, engineering and science, awarding graduates a Master of Science degree in Sustainability…
Westlake Reed Leskosky is opening a NYC studio and appointing Thomas Gallagher, AIA, as principal and director… Granary Associates, a Philadelphia- and NY-based firm specializing in project management, planning, architecture, and interior design for healthcare facilities, is expected to join with Stantec…
The USS New York (LPD-21) arrived in New York Harbor 11.02.09. At a commissioning ceremony on 11.07, it officially became part of the U.S. Navy. Go to the website for more information about the ship.
The ship will be berthed at Pier 88, at 12th Avenue at 48th Street, until 11.11, and it is open to the general public.
Frank Ritter, RITTERPHOTO.COM
The bow stem includes 7.5 tons of steel recovered from the World Trade Center.
Frank Ritter, RITTERPHOTO.COM
The ship’s motto is “Strength forged through sacrifice. Never forget.”
Frank Ritter, RITTERPHOTO.COM
The ship’s crest includes: seven rays of sunlight signifying the Statue of Liberty’s crown and the seven seas; the Twin Towers are in the center; a phoenix bears a breastplate with the colors of first responders from the NY Police Department, NY Fire Department, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; blood drops represent those who perished; and three stars represent those earned by the previous battleship USS New York (BB34) in World War II at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and North Africa.
Frank Ritter, RITTERPHOTO.COM
10.27.09 Actor and lifelong conservationist Edward Norton, who led a team of 30 runners, including his celebrity friends, business leaders, and Maasai tribe members, in the NY Marathon, stopped by the NY offices of RMJM to review plans for a sustainable healthcare facility it is designing for the Maasai people in Kenya.
Top row from left: Luca Belpietro, founder of Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust; Samson Parashina, President of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust; Edward Norton; Roger Goodhill; and Effie Yang of RMJM. Bottom row from left: John Plappert, AIA; Amy Mays; and Winston Yee, all of RMJM.
RMJM
Center for Architecture Gallery Hours and Location
Monday-Friday: 9:00am-8:00pm, Saturday: 11:00am-5:00pm, Sunday: CLOSED
536 LaGuardia Place, Between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets in Greenwich Village, NYC, 212-683-0023
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
New York Now
On view October 1– November 30, 2009.
Extended one month!
Through 11.20.09
Les Lalanne on Park Avenue
Claude Lalanne, Pomme de New York, 2007 (bronze)
Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery
More than eight monumental works and a single work comprised of 12 sculptures will span multiple sites on Park Avenue between 52nd and 57th Streets. Featured works include “Pomme de New York,” by Claude Lalanne (b.1924), a large-scale bronze sculpture of an apple, epitomizing the monumentality of the city’s iconic image, and François-Xavier Lalanne’s (1927–2008) last sculpture, “Singe Avisé (Très Grand),” a cross-legged monkey with a pensive expression.
Paul Kasmin Gallery
293 10th Avenue, NYC
Through 11.29.09
The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs
Pepsi Cola Sign, Queens West Development, Long Island City, Queens
© 2005 Len Jenshel
42 photographs spotlight the transformation of the NYC waterfront throughout the 20th century, from an industrial and commercial hub to a vestigial space reclaimed for recreation and public use.
Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue, NYC
Through 12.08.09
Carole Eisner on Broadway
76th: Torque
Carole Eisner
Nine sculptures by Carole Eisner span Broadway. Starting with “Walter” at Dante Park, located within the Lincoln Square Business Improvement District, the exhibition continues north to “Swizzle” at 166th Street.
Susan Eley Fine Art
46 West 90th Street, Floor 2, NYC
eCalendar includes an interactive listing of architectural events around NYC. Click the link to go to to eCalendar on the Web.
The Public Information Exchange (PIE) is an AIANY initiative designed to create an archive of NYC projects, proposals, programs, and exhibitions presented or discussed at the Center for Architecture. It is a forum for public discussion, both general and professional, that includes continuous commentary from users and participants. Click the link to take part.
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MTA-New York City Transit
Invitation for Bids
Fulton Street Transit Center/ Restoration of the Historical Corbin Building.
CONTRACT: A-36126.
DUE DATE: 12/3/09.
DESCRIPTION: Work includes restoration & repair of the exterior brick & terra cotta facade, cleaning /repointing masonry, repair of facade cracks, new brown sandstone masonry work; removal, repair & select replacement/reinstall cast iron façade elements; replace wood windows & repair existing windows; replace roof & reconstruct 2 pyramidal roof towers; install new storefronts; install new interior, modifications to the floor slab & new flooring; conservation/cleaning of the existing open stair case, complete new MEP systems & fixtures, replace 2 existing elevators & install 2 escalators.
PRE-PRO CONF: 11/12/09, 1PM, 2 Broadway, Room C19.01, Manhattan.
SITE TOUR: 11/12/09, 10AM, front entrance to the Corbin Building
PRICE: $350
EST. $ RANGE: Over $10M.
AVAILABILITY: 10/19/09.
FUNDING: 100% FTA Funding for the award of this contract is contingent upon identification of an approved Federal funding source.
Additional information available at: http://www.mta.info/nyct/procure/conrfp.htm
FULL-TIME FACULTY POSITION IN ARCHITECTURE, URBAN PLANNING AND SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University invites architects, designers, practitioners, or scholars for a full-time, non-tenure track teaching position to commence on September 1, 2010, at the rank of Clinical Assistant or Associate Professor. Qualifications: PhD, terminal or professional degree (MA, MS in Architecture or other comparable professional degree) and a strong record of leadership, research, professional work and/or writing in Architecture, Sustainable Design, and Urban Planning.
Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, a writing sample (of up to 30 pages), three letters of recommendation, a statement of your teaching philosophy, and a brief description of three dream courses to: Liz Greene, Director of Human Resources, the Gallatin School, New York University, 715 Broadway, 8th floor, New York, NY 10003 or email to hr.gallatin@nyu.edu. Review of applications will begin Tuesday, December 1, 2009, and will continue until the position is filled. EO/AAE.
We are currently conducting a major search for a New York based, highly published, international client, who is seeking a Project Manager and a Project Architect for the management, design, detailing and construction documentation phases of large and very complex projects These positions require a high level of technical expertise, experience in interacting with Structural Engineers, plus proficiency in Autocad; 3D modeling knowledge helpful, as is knowing a foreign language.
Ruth Hirsch Associates
info@ruthhirschassociates.com
212-396-0200
Now Available! Brand new penthouse with office desks for rent in Manhattan- Flatiron/ Gramercy area. Open, day-lit spaces with amazing west/ north skyline views. Private exterior decks, conference room, pantry, and restrooms. Call for more information 212.674.4488 or visit www.cooleymonato.com.
 Lighting By Gregory is proud to announce a gala event to the greater designer lighting community of New York City. This coming November the 19th, Lighting By Gregory will unveil its newly redesigned flagship showroom in the heart of Manhattan’s famed Lighting District. Much of the evening will be centered around a refreshing look at what is new in Energy Efficient Lighting with a special spotlight on LED lighting, the unrivaled hottest trend in modern lighting design today.
http://lightingbygregory.com/lighting/category/lbg-led-event.html?utm_source=AIANY&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=LED%2BNight
(Continued from above)
Lighting Design and the Energy Code
Lighting is one of the ways architects will be most affected by the latest energy codes. However, rather than be limited by the code, architects can use it to design better lighting, claimed Hayden McKay, AIA, FIALD, FIESNA, LEED AP, principal at Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design. Quality, not quantity, makes a well-lit space, she said. Daylighting, room finishes, natural colors, control of glare and contrast, and light fixtures all help maintain comfortable levels of illumination. Because people spend 85-90% of their lives indoors, McKay also believes a variety of light sources and incorporating daylight can help aid health and preserve circadian rhythms that humans need to stay productive at work. Each space is different and should be lit accordingly, and commissioning controls is key to saving energy.
Mechanical Systems and the Energy Code
While architects may depend on mechanical engineers, it is important they understand mechanical systems, since the majority of the developments in the energy code relate to them, according to John Rundell, LEED AP, of Buro Happold. By understanding how mechanical systems work, architects can develop a dialogue with the engineers from the start of a project. By incorporating more efficiency into their designs, mechanical systems will not have to work overtime to compensate for unnecessary heat exchange.
Building Enclosures and the Energy Code
One way to limit unnecessary heat exchange is with a well-designed envelope. The code relies on thermal resistance of materials (R-value), thermal transmittance of assemblies (U-factor), and solar heat gain (dependent on the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient, or SHGC). Creating air barriers, reducing thermal bridging, using daylighting and natural ventilation, and integrating with the mechanical systems are all strategies for energy-efficient envelope design.
Michael Waite, PE, LEED AP, of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, suggested using the code as a guideline and reference as early as possible in design. He predicts that in the future the code will require: increased R-values; decreased U-factors and SHGC’s; more air barrier requirements; more restrictions on glazing area; provisions directly related to daylighting; and fleshed-out regulations for variable property materials such as dynamic glazing systems.
Energy Modeling and the Energy Code
While energy modeling may be the most complicated path to take when calculating a building’s performance, it is arguably the most precise way to measure if a building is code compliant, stated Adrian Tuluca, RA, LEED AP, principal at Viridian Energy and Environment. It is also required for buildings with fenestration covering more than 50% of the envelope, or any building that is having difficulty complying with COMcheck or REScheck. If an architect wants to use tradeoffs — a strategy used to offset non-compliant systems with the excess created by high performance systems — then modeling is the best method to use.
Conclusion
Ultimately, energy codes are changing to reflect global climate change and the need to reduce energy consumption. Complying with the latest energy codes will require major adjustments to the way architects currently put together drawings. The energy analysis is just one piece of the puzzle. Support documentation and more elaborate construction documents will become increasingly important as auditing is inevitable. Sustainability is not just important it is becoming a mandate, and the code is just one aspect guiding the way.
Give us feedback on the Energy Code Trainings
AIANY, Urban Green Council, and ASHRAE are gearing up for the second iteration of “Energy Code Changes: What the Design Team Needs to Know.” As the 12.02.09 workshop date approaches (register here), we’d like to hear from attendees to the October/November sessions so we can make the next session even better. Please post your comments to our blog.
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