Month: July 2010

Event: Our Cities Ourselves: Visions for 2030
Location: Center for Architecture, 07.01.10
Speakers: Wang Hui — Partner; Aidi Su — Senior Architect, Urbanus Architecture & Design, Guangzhou, China; Michael Sorkin — Distinguished Professor of Architecture & Director, Graduate Program in Urban Design, City College of New York & Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio; Johan Fourie — Osmond Lange Architects, Johannesburg, South Africa
Respondent: Enrique Peñalosa — President, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
Moderator: Luc Nadal — Technical Director, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy
Organizers: Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in collaboration with AIANY

2030 vision for NYC by Michael Sorkin Studio.

Michael Sorkin Studio, courtesy AIANY

The architects behind plans for three of the 10 featured cities in the “Our Cities Ourselves” exhibition — Guangzhou, Johannesburg, and New York — outlined their ideas to address traffic congestion and create improved urban development for walking, cycling, and public transportation. Experts in sustainability and urban design, with intimate knowledge of their individual cities, each design team studied how people move through urban areas to deal with the burgeoning population growth over the next 20 years.

In Guangzhou, China, Wang Hui and Aidi Su of Urbanus Architecture and Design identified the urban realities — growing development, infrastructure, and vehicular traffic — of the historic Liwan district. The noise and congestion, along with physical infrastructure barriers and underutilized space, provide a formidable challenge. Seeking to re-energize the city and create urban linkage, Urbanus proposed a skywalk, an elevated bicycle and pedestrian promenade, and a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor. While they retained the historic integrity of existing structures along the street, they added a residential program above to respond to the growing population.

As South Africa’s largest and densest city, Johannesburg has begun to integrate BRT lines as well. However, the area has been separated into three horizontal bands that lack civic identity and scale due to main thoroughfares, detached residential zones, an under-developed river zone, and a disjointed mass transit system. Osmond Lange Architects and Ikemeleng Architects’ proposal integrates these bands into a cohesive environment by creating landmarks as focal points, establishing vertical integration, visual thoroughfares, courtyard blocks with medium- to high-density housing, and parkland below the 100-year flood line.

While many of the cities included in the exhibition are in developing countries, NYC has a tabula that is a little less rasa. To address this, Michael Sorkin Studio, studied ways to reprogram the waterfront and repurpose Lower Manhattan as an eco-friendly zone. As Sorkin said, “Movement has a basis in negotiation,” meaning that in a multi-modal transit system where pedestrians, bicycles, cars, and sometimes animals inhabit the same space, it can only work when we all cooperate. The proposal for NYC hinges on repurposing the FDR Drive south of the Brooklyn Bridge to develop a district of parks and shops. Cyclists would inhabit the lower level of the bridge while pedestrians would populate the elevated walkway.

Jacqueline Pezzillo, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.

Event: 2010 Design Awards Symposium: Architecture and Interiors
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.19.10
Speakers: Stacie Wong — Project Architect, Peter Gluck and Partners and ARCS Construction Services; Adam Marcus — Project Architect, Marble Fairbanks; David Burns — Principal, STUDIOS Architecture; Philip Wu, AIA — Partner, io Architects; Lyn Rice, AIA — Principal, Lyn Rice Architects; Astrid Lipka — Associate Principal, Lyn Rice Architects; Mark Maljanian, AIA — Design Director, Butler Rogers Baskett; Tom Krizmanic, AIA, LEED AP — Principal, STUDIOS Architecture; Andrew Mazor — Project Architect, Thomas Phifer and Partners; Sonya Lee, AIA — Project Architect, Toshiko Mori Architect; Stan Allen, AIA — Principal, Stan Allen Architect; James Garrison — Principal, Garrison Architects; David Rolland, AIA, JIA, LEED AP — Project Director, Rafael Viñoly Architects
Organizer: AIANY
Moderators: Kelsey Keith – Editor-in-Chief, Architizer.com; Cliff Pearson — Deputy Editor, Architectural Record
Sponsors: Chair’s Circle: Foster + Partners New York; Benefactor: STUDIOS Architecture; Patrons: Mancini Duffy; Peter Marino Architect, PLLC; Studio Daniel Libeskind; Trespa; Lead Sponsors: A. E. Greyson + Company; Dagher Engineering; F.J. Sciame Construction Co., Inc.; Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson; FXFOWLE Architects; Gensler; Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti; Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates; MechoShade Systems, Inc.; New York University; Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Rudin Management Company, Inc.; Structure Tone, Inc.; Syska Hennessy Group; Toshiko Mori Architect PLLC; VJ Associates

East Harlem School, NY, NY, by Peter Gluck and Partners.

©Erik Freeland / http://www.freelandarch.com

The 2010 AIANY Design Awards have provided plenty of proof that stellar architectural design is alive and well, despite the recession. At the Design Awards symposium for Architecture and Interiors, Stacie Wong of Peter Gluck and Partners and ARCS Construction Services discussed how her firm’s tightly integrated design-build process allowed it to keep costs down for a new building for the East Harlem School — built for $340 per square foot. The Architecture Honor Award-winning building features inviting, light-filled interiors and an eye-catching façade design. The school engages actively with the community, but shields its students from the distractions of the outside world, Wong explained. To express that duality, the Trespa-panel façade looks like a “screen or a fabric weave that both masks as well as reveals the activities that happen behind it,” she said.

For Garrison Architects, a project to create Koby Cottage in Albion, MI, offered the chance to explore an ongoing fascination with modular design. “The idea behind modular buildings is to prepare the site while the building’s being constructed in the factory, and that means the time taken to build it is basically cut in half,” Principal James Garrison said. “It also means there’s much less disruption of the environment, whether it’s urban or whether it’s rural.” The Architecture Merit Award-winning cottage has many finely handcrafted details, he added, contrary to what one might imagine of something produced in a factory. His firm also received an Interiors Merit award for the renovation of Slocum Hall, home of Syracuse University’s School of Architecture.

A couple of Interiors Merit Award winners in NYC showed a flair for integrating high-tech information displays: STUDIOS Architecture’s Dow Jones office space and Lyn Rice Architects’ The New School Welcome Center. The trick is to integrate such digital displays into the design from the beginning, said Tom Krizmanic, AIA, LEED AP, of STUDIOS Architecture. If they’re not “in the DNA” of the project, beware — the space might end up looking like a P.C. Richard showroom, he joked.

Many other award winners showed a fascination with the transparency of glass, balanced with the need for energy efficiency. Thomas Phifer and Partners’ Fishers Island House served as one of the most extreme examples, with an airy transparency that makes the house and surrounding gardens seem to meld into one. The glass is insulated and blocks UV rays to provide a climate-controlled, safe environment for the owner’s art collection, explained project architect Andrew Mazor.

Once, Modernists held a “fascination with pure transparency,” remarked Stan Allen, AIA, principal of Stan Allen Architect, which won an Architecture Merit Award for Salim Publishing House in Paju Book City, Korea. Nowadays, “I think we’ve returned to an interest in transparency, but it’s modified by that sense that the façade, the elevation, can do something more.”

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

Event: NORCs — Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.22.10
Speakers: Nat Yalowitz, MSW — LCSW President, NORC Program at Penn South Housing Co-op & President, National NORC Center, NYC; Georgeen Theodore, AIA — Principal, Interboro Partners & Assistant Professor, Infrastructure Planning, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Organizer: AIANY Design for Aging Committee

Greenbelt, MD, recently made into a NORC.

Andrew Bossi

The term NORC (Naturally Occurring Retirement Community) is a demographic descriptor, referring to a building or group of buildings in which numerous residents have lived for many years and a significant number of them have become senior citizens. The term was coined in the 1980s, and legislation now exists in many states, including NY, that enables qualifying buildings to apply for official designation, making them eligible for public funding for supportive services programs (SSPs) for seniors. NORCs aim to provide a comprehensive array of these services to meet the specific needs of seniors in close proximity to their residences. This aging-in-place approach is considered to be the most desirable and most affordable solution for seniors living in urban environments.

There are now 43 official NORC programs in NYC, located in four boroughs (none in Staten Island). Their physical characteristics, SSPs, and residents’ activities are described in a book, A Guide to NORCs in NY, researched by Interboro Partners. A surprising number of them are towers-in-the-park complexes. Many of the older building groups (1920s-30s) began as limited equity housing co-ops (LEHCs) sponsored by labor unions, and the original residents were mostly union workers. In the 1960s and 70s many federal, state, and municipal subsidy programs were used to build similar “affordable” housing complexes. These buildings tended to retain their residents for long periods of time, enabling them to become NORCs. With different approaches to the design of affordable housing communities nowadays, the physical characteristics of future NORCs are likely to be more horizontally organized. Interestingly, the entire town of Greenbelt, MD, a garden city with about 2,500 single-family homes built in the 1920s, has recently become a NORC — a significant example of horizontal organization.

NORCs tend to provide generational diversity in urban neighborhoods, since many residents use amenities outside the NORC itself. And there is some evidence that living in a NORC extends residents’ life spans.

Coincidentally, on 06.28.10, Mayor Bloomberg issued a statement indicating that NYC has become the first member of the World Health Organization’s Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities. The Mayor commented, “New Yorkers are living longer than ever before, and it’s important that we engage our senior residents so they, too, can benefit from everything our communities have to offer… We will continue to work with our age-friendly network partners to transform our city into a place that maximizes the health and active participation of New Yorkers of every age.” The development of NORCs contributed to this effort, and the AIANY Design for Aging Committee aims to raise awareness so the city can become ever more age-friendly.

Jerry Maltz, AIA, is the co-chair of the AIANY Design for Aging Committee.

Event: Colombian Architecture for Education, Bogotá and Medellin: A Tale of Two Cities
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.08.10
Speakers: Fernando Villa, AIA, LEED AP — Senior Associate, Magnusson Architecture & Planning (NY); Winka Dubbeldam — Principal, Archi-Tectonics (NY); Carlos Pardo — Principal, obranegra ARQUITECTOS (Medellin); Juan Manuel Pelaez — Architect (Medellin); Eduardo Samper Martinez — Architect & Director of Architecture, National University in Bogotá; Beth Broome — Managing Editor, Architectural Record
Organizers: AIANY Committee on Architecture for Education

Giancarlo Mazzanti’ Biblioteca España on top of the hill in Medellin (left); Santo Domingo Savio Derka School by Carlos Pardo.

Photo by Sergio Gomez (left); photo by Jab Visual JoséAlfredo Betancur

“Colombia’s ability to shift its image from a country riddled with violence and crime to one of innovation and optimism is remarkable,” stated Beth Broome, managing editor of Architectural Record. “It is a clear demonstration of the power of urban design and architecture… to drive social transformation.”

Medellin is a poignant example of how educational buildings can be a catalyst for building communities with its public structures. Built in the midst of socially fragile neighborhoods, the city identifies with and gains social cohesion from facilities that provide education and use for the young and adults alike. For example, the public library, Biblioteca España, designed by Giancarlo Mazzanti, is accessed by a network of cable cars (free of charge) that transport inhabitants through the valley, up the hills, and to the city’s poor shanty neighborhoods where the library resides. It is the pride and meeting place of its poor residents, stated Fernando Villa, AIA, LEED AP, of Magnusson Architecture & Planning.

The library and schools are part of a plan embarked upon in 2004 by then Mayor Sergio Fajardo. He called the plan “Medellin, the best educated.” The idea to combat social inequality and violence through a master plan of infrastructure and various programs connected with quality education and social urban planning aims to bring stability and hope to Medellin’s poor neighborhoods. It also engages the new generation of architects, as a new law requires public projects to be determined through design competitions.

Two schools that have helped integrate education with urban life in Medellin are Carlos Pardo’s Santo Domingo Savio Derka School and Juan Manuel Pelaez’s Colegio Las Mercedes. Pardo’s school is built on a steep hillside, so the school’s roof is used as a public park. This “inhabitable geography” relates to the landscape in a similar way to the terraces of the neighborhood houses. Pelaez used much of the site of his school, including some of the roofs, for public access, as well, creating a civic center.

The AIANY Committee on Architecture for Education (AIANY/CAE) staged this event in its tradition of showcasing local and international educational facilities and programs that identify schools as community centers.

Umberto Dindo, AIA, is the principal of Dindo Architect, the co-chair of the AIANY Education Committee, and AIANY Secretary.

In this issue:
· New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
· Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
· Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA

New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
After the success of “New York Now” in fall 2009, the AIA New York Chapter will be taking over the West 4th Street subway station again this October with a new member-generated show, “The American Institute of Architects New York Presents: MADE IN NEW YORK.” The show will open on 10.06.10, during Architecture Week (10.02-10.10) and remain on view for a month.

While “New York Now” featured member projects in the five boroughs, this year the Chapter will be asking for new projects by AIANY members sited anywhere around the globe. While collecting submissions for “MADE IN NEW YORK,” the Chapter will also be accepting projects for “MADE IN THE USA” — a related digital exhibition and database of AIA member work. The AIA has big intentions for “MADE IN THE USA,” including plans to generate future exhibitions from submissions, so both “MADE IN NEW YORK” and “MADE IN THE USA” are great opportunities for local firms to promote their work, nearby and around the world.

Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
With dozens of committee programs each month, AIANY has launched its Webinar feature, which presents some of the most popular, content-rich programs “on demand.” The platform records live presentations and streams them with the PowerPoint presentation and program handouts. For a small fee, all material will be available online and can be viewed at your convenience. At the end of each Webinar, members can take a quiz to get continuing education credits. Now available are the first two installments of the Committee for the Environment’s Green Integration Series, and the Professional Practice Committee’s May program on Dispute Resolution. See all the available programs here: http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/aiany/.

As this is a new feature, please send comments and questions to enemens@aiany.org.

Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA
David I. Smotrich, FAIA, 76, of Chappaqua, NY, died suddenly on 06.20.10, at his home. Smotrich graduated from Harvard College in 1955, and Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1960. He began his architectural career in Israel as part of the design team for the new city of Arad, Negev Desert. After working for I.M. Pei, FAIA, he established his own firm in NYC in 1965. He continued as principal of David Smotrich & Partners until his death. His work, which was nationally recognized, ranged broadly, from educational facilities and commercial projects to low-income and elderly housing. Smotrich is survived by his wife of 54 years, Bernice D. Smotrich, his children: Ross (Talma Nir), Maura and Hannah (Michael Barr), and nine grandchildren: Matthew, Amit, Alex, Shani, Ben, Avital, Dani, Joshua, and Etai.