Month: July 2014

The Center for Architecture hosted an event that tackled an un-sexy but pressing issue in NYC: garbage. As the host Antonio Reynoso, a NYC council member, said, dealing with garbage is “not too glamorous and you’re not going to cut the ribbon.” The councilman made light of an issue that’s often forced into the dark, joking with the audience that he was “gonna talk trash with you – because that’s what we do in Brooklyn.” Over-concentration of garbage and a high rate of asthma and traffic in his district spurred him to take the position of chair of the NYC Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. “Sanitation,” he said, “is our first line of defense in making sure our environment is more sustainable.” Continue reading “Getting Wasted: AIANY Talks Trash”

On 06.24.14, Beatrice Galilee, the newly-appointed associate curator of architecture and design in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, moderated a discussion about the relationship between the production of architecture and art. The three invited speakers included two architects and one graphic designer; these three are also two painters and one sculptor. Continue reading “Culture Mapping: Space and Practice”

On 6.11.14 the AIANY Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee (DfRR) hosted Daniel Zarrilli, PE, to update the design community on New York’s progress in becoming a more resilient city. Zarrilli, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency and acting director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, leads the city’s efforts to confront the realities of extreme weather events intensified by climate change. Through strategies such as strengthening coastal protections, upgrading buildings, improving infrastructure, and encouraging the design of safer and more vibrant neighborhoods, Zarrilli and his departments have helped shape a New York increasingly capable of addressing future environmental events. Zarrilli, who has served under both the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations, plays a key role in crafting innovative strategies for some of New York’s most challenging issues. His twin responsibilities place him at the center of New York’s sustainability and resiliency agendas, blending the two into a single approach to combat future extreme weather events. Two key themes emerged: the costs of inactivity provide a direct economic impetus for acting against the impacts of extreme weather, and a blended approach of design strategies that combines multiple layers of defense is required to ensure New York’s future success. Continue reading “Extreme Weather, Recovery and New York’s Future”