At our June monthly committee meeting, we continued the Design Presentation Series, during which Hanxiao Yang, AIA, LEED GA, and Marina Marquez Costas, both of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, talked about the Penn Station 33rd Street Entrance Canopy and Manhattan West. Both projects are a part of The Midtown Mile Development, a series of SOM projects that focus on the creation of new and repurposed public spaces above and along the underground train tracks in Midtown West, Manhattan.

The presentation included remarkable digital visualizations and details of the anticlastic cable glass canopy design for the Penn Station 33rd Street Entrance, numerous specifications, and meticulous material details of the Manhattan West Lobby.

The presentations were preceded by highlighting events and sharing several resources addressing equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as topics on women’s leadership and COVID-19. They include the Urban Land Institute’s  Women’s Leadership Initiative Summer Speaker Series, “400 Forward“,  an initiative of the Urban Arts Collective, which introduces young girls to architecture, provides scholarships and wrap around services to college students, and pays for study material and licensing exams for African American women in architecture, AIA Austin WIA’s Force Majeure Design Competition, Design Voice Podcast COVID Diaries, and many more.

You can view the full meeting agenda, and access links to resources and good reads here.