Camila Schaulsohn – Editor – Page 32 – News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

Sighted

09.18.14: NYC Department of Design + Construction (DDC) Commissioner Feniosky Peña-Mora discussed the scope and breadth of DDC’s portfolio of public buildings and infrastructure in a talk organized by the AIANY Public Architecture Committee. Continue reading “Sighted”

March for Climate Change Awareness with AIANY

Join AIANY members and staff for the largest rally in history demanding action on climate change. The People’s Climate March on Sunday, 09.21.14 will take place just before a landmark UN Climate Summit on 09.23.14, where world leaders, including President Obama, will be discussing the climate crisis. At the Summit, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will urge governments to support ambitious proposals and actions to reduce emissions, strengthen climate resilience, and mobilize political will for a meaningful legal agreement in 2015. The AIANY and thousands of other organizations will take to the streets at this critical moment to voice our support of a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world that works for both our people and our planet.

The AIANY will march as part of a green building contingent: New York Passive House, GreenHomeNYC, Regional Plan Association, Solar One, Urban Green Council, and AIANY. We will be part of the “We Have Solutions” group, which can approach the lineup on Central Park West from 72nd Street. Please meet our group in front of the Starbucks at 267-275 Columbus Ave (at the corner of Columbus Ave. and W. 73rd Street) at 10:00 AM.

March route: (March officially begins at 11:30 AM)
–       leave Columbus Circle and go east on 59th Street
–       turn onto 6th Ave. and go south to 42nd Street
–       turn right onto 42nd Street and go west to 11th Ave.
–       turn left on 11th Ave. and go south to 34th Street
–       End location: 11th Ave. in the streets between 34th and 38th Streets

To march with AIANY, email Emma Pattiz, AIANY Policy Coordinator, at epattiz@aiany.org.

In related matters, don’t forget to submit your firm’s projects to the AIANY COTE Awards 2014: Proof + Beauty. The AIANY Committee on the Environment’s first annual awards show will further sustainable design that meets the standards of both beauty and performance. Submissions are due 11.10.14.

Be sure to check out New Deadlines! We’ve posted the 2015 Editorial Calendar for Oculus magazine, including deadlines to submit story ideas and projects for each. Don’t be shy!

What Does the Forest Say?

On 09.05.14, attendees of all ages joined the Center for Architecture, Friends of LaGuardia Place, Manhattan Community Board 2, and the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) to celebrate the theme of AIANY 2014 President Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, “Civic Spirit: Civic Vision” with Christopher Janney’s public art installation “Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations.” On view at LaGuardia Park only through 09.11.14, it functioned as an “urban musical instrument.” Park-goers could trigger photo-electric sensors in one of 16 electronic “trees,” producing a score of melodic tones and environmental sounds.

The sounds of the “forest” always changed, depending on the number of participants interacting with the trees. The score was also altered according to the time of day: croaking frogs and crickets in the morning, and marimbas, percussion, and swarms of fireflies at night, when the installation sparkeld with twinkling LED lights. “Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations” never played the exact same composition twice.

Continue reading “What Does the Forest Say?”

Names in the News

The National Building Museum will present the 2014 Vincent Scully Prize to Charlie Rose, anchor and executive editor of Charlie Rose on PBS, and co-anchor of CBS This Morning. Frank Gehry, FAIA, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger, and former Director of the NYC Department of Planning Amanda Burden will give remarks at the 11.18.14 ceremony…The NYC Historic Districts Council will honor architectural historian and preservationist Andrew Scott Dolkart, the James Marston Fitch Professor of Historic Preservation and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), at the 26th Landmarks Lion Award Benefit… Continue reading “Names in the News”

New Deadlines

2015 Oculus Editorial Calendar
The Oculus 2015 Editorial Calendar has been set. If you are an architect in practice or by training, or see yourself as an astute observer of New York’s architectural and planning scene, Oculus wants to hear from you! You may submit projects/topics from anywhere, but architects must be New York-based. Please submit story ideas/projects by the deadlines indicated below to Kristen Richards, Hon. AIA, Hon. ASLA: kristen@ArchNewsNow.com.

Spring 2015: President’s Theme: “Dialogues from the Edge of Practice” A look at how innovative practices are boldly enlarging the purview of the architect, expanding beyond the traditional scope of practice with new services and revenue models, new modes of collaboration with other disciplines, designing new computational tools to better create design, etc.
Deadline for story ideas, projects: 11.07.14

Summer 2015: AIANY 2015 Design Awards
Submission deadline: 02.06.14

Fall 2015: “Home” (In conjunction with the Housing Exhibition + Archtober)
Housing progress report/report card: whether market rate or affordable, is it living up to our expectations for design, community integration, environmental responsiveness? For affordable and low-income housing, is innovation helping us hit the number of units New York City needs? Continuing controversy about “inclusionary” housing (80/20 and such). Off-site/modular construction. BSA Housing Awards. (To include input from social scientists, urban anthropologists, psychologists, etc.)
Deadline for story ideas, projects: 05.22.15

Winter 2015: “Makers in a Digital World” or “Architecture & the Digital World”
How we present and build what we do: 21st-century visual representation, mapping, big data. Life-cycle of a building: an idea, draw it, digitize for CNC milling machines, construct, share via Instagram, etc. Cooper-Hewitt tech “pencils”; etc.
Deadline for story ideas, projects: 08.14.15 Continue reading “New Deadlines”

Sighted

In this issue of “Sighted” Continue reading “Sighted”

“Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations”

If you have yet to see our summer exhibition, “Open to the Public: Civic Space Now,” the culmination of this year’s presidential theme “Civic Spirit: Civic Vision,” established by AIANY 2014 President Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, you should stop by the Center for Architecture soon! The exhibition will close on 09.08.14. Before this happens, however, we will be celebrating the opening of Christopher Janney’s public art installation, “Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations” on 09.05.14 at 5:00 PM. As the name suggests, this program is an important initiative of President Brown’s theme.

“Sonic Forest: Civic Celebrations” is an “urban musical instrument that will further activate the Center for Architecture’s neighboring public space, LaGuardia Park. A site-specific pattern of 16 eight-foot-tall “trees” will join the statue of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia by Neil Estern. Each “tree” houses interactive photo-electric sensors, computer-controlled LED lights, and an audio speaker. Visitors will trigger the sensors by touch or movement, producing an ever-changing score of melodic tunes and environmental sounds enhanced by light effects.

The opening reception will precede the final program for “Open to the Public: Civic Space Now,” a panel discussion titled “The Future of Public Space.” Suzanne Fraiser, AIA, associate professor at Morgan State University School of Architecture and Planning, Guido Hartray, AIA, founding partner at Marvel Architects, and Susan Silberberg, AIA, founder of CivicMoxie and lecturer in urban design and planning at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, will discuss the critical role played by our shared urban realm in the face of increasing population density in a conversation moderated by Richard Sennett, founder of Theatrum Mundi and professor of Sociology at NYU and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

After the panel discussion, the celebration will continue at Favela Cubana (543 LaGuardia Place) across the street from the Center for Architecture!

Architects Worldwide to Phase Out Carbon by 2050

At the International Union of Architects (UIA) World Congress in Durban, South Africa, last month, member organizations representing more than 1.3 million architects in 124 countries unanimously supported the 2050 Imperative to eliminate CO2 emissions in the built environment by the year 2050. This is the first time in the UIA’s 65-year history that all the regional Architect Councils of Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa signed onto the declaration.

The 2050 Imperative was drafted by Architecture 2030, a non-profit research organization founded by Ed Mazria, AIA, dedicated to the reduction of carbon emissions of the built environment by changing the ways that cities, communities, infrastructure, and buildings are planned, designed, and constructed. The declaration was delivered to the UIA World Congress.

By adopting the Imperative, UIA member organizations are charged with promoting the planning and design of carbon-neutral cities, towns, and buildings. Its action items are partly based on the recent “Roadmap to Zero Emissions” that Architecture 2030 presented at the UN Climate Change meeting in Bonn, Germany, on 07.10.14.

To learn more about Architecture 2030 join us for a breakfast and call to action with Mazria on 09.24.14 at the Center for Architecture. At “DESIGN! Life Depends on Us,” he will lay out the blueprint for a just and carbon-free built environment, and review the progress made in the building sector since issuing the 2030 Challenge in 2006.

Names in the News

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Victor Calise of the of the NYC Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) honored JetBlue, Theater Breaking Through Barriers, Handi-Lift, New York Relay, and Christina Curry at the 2014 Sapolin Awards, which recognize individuals and organizations that make significant contributions to increasing accessibility for people with disabilities…The winners of Architectural Lighting magazine’s 2014 AL Light & Architecture Design Awards are Studio V Architecture/Tillotson Design Associates, Horton Lees Brodgen Lighting Design/AECOM, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, John Pawson/Mindseye Lighting, and Renfro Design Group… Continue reading “Names in the News”