Carl Yost – Page 2 – News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

“Sunny Memories” Illuminates the Future of Solar Energy

Event: The Future of Solar Energy in Design panel discussion; “Sunny Memories” exhibition opening
Location: Center for Architecture, 05.16.10
Speakers: Nicolas Henchoz — Director, EPFL+ECAL Lab; Paul Thompson — Rector, the Royal College of Art; Yves Béhar — fuseproject; Anna Dyson — Director, MATERIALAB at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Moderator: Laetitia Wolff — Founding Director, futureflair
Panel Organizers: futureflair; Center for Architecture
Exhibition Organizers: EPFL+ECAL Lab; Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Lombard Odier; swissnex San Francisco; Swiss Arts Council; Pro Helvetia; Consulate General of Switzerland in New York; Y-Water

Floating Chair, Diana Chang — CCA.

Can you imagine a hat that generates electricity? How about a power-producing towel or fruit bowl? Design students in Europe and the U.S. have conceived these items, using a new dye-based solar cell that has the potential to significantly diversify the possibilities of solar power. Prototypes of these projects, along with 26 others, are currently on display in “Sunny Memories,” an exhibition at the Center for Architecture until 06.05.10.

Professor Michael Grätzel of the Swiss engineering school Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) conceived the solar cells. Inspired by photosynthesis, he began to experiment with molecules of colorant that react with sunlight. It has taken 15 years to develop the pigmentation and achieve a stable electrical current. Though the technology still needs perfecting, the first cells are now appearing on the market. While they produce less power than traditional photovoltaics, these “dye-sensitive” cells are translucent, lightweight, and more effective in low light, making them useful for a wider range of potential applications.

Which is where the students come in. EPFL+ECAL Lab, a joint initiative of EPFL and the art and design university Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL), asked students at four universities — the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, ECAL in Switzerland, and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle (ENSCI) in Paris — to design useful applications for the solar panels. They responded with projects that fall under three categories of market-readiness — ready for production in one year, three years, or 10 — in a balance of practical with “blue-sky” thinking.

In addition to the hat-and-towel set and “fruit bowl” (actually a recharging station for electrical devices), the exhibition also displays models of more futuristic proposals, such as a translucent park bench that collects sunlight during the day and becomes a glowing beacon at night. Grouped by school of origin, the prototypes also suggest something of their respective cultures: projects from London’s RCA, including a solar-powered light that attracts bugs to a Venus Flytrap plant, suggest a “macabre, black sense of English humor,” said Paul Thompson, a rector at RCA, half-jokingly. Solarwall, an American design, and one of the most immediately useful, doubles as a partition wall and solar-power generator that works even within deep office floor plates.

A panel discussion after the exhibition opening focused on the value of interdisciplinary design for solving problems and bringing new technologies and concepts to market — though Yves Béhar asked his CCA students not to think of marketability, but to conceive of the lifestyle they want to live, and to let that inspire their design. Anna Dyson, the director of MATERIALAB at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, described the ideal of “autonomous objects” that function in a closed loop separate from the energy grid.

Both “Sunny Memories” and EPFL+ECAL Lab, said director Nicolas Henchoz, try to reconcile the very different mindsets of engineering and design: where the former emphasizes performance, the latter focuses on usability. For innovations to gain wide acceptance, he said, it is important that designers think like a hypothetical consumer: “I don’t want to buy technical performance; I want to buy a new user experience.”

Carl Yost is the marketing and publicity coordinator for Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He has written for Forbes.com, Architectural Record, and The Architect’s Newspaper, among other publications.

Architects Build Careers with Unbuilt Work: 2010 Design Awards

Event: 2010 AIANY Design Awards Panel: Unbuilt Work
Location: Center for Architecture, 05.10.10
Speakers: Garrick Jones — Associate, Della Valle Bernheimer; Megumi Tamanaha — Associate, Architecture Research Office; Jeeyong An, AIA — Principal, Ginseng Chicken Architecture; Pablo Castro, AIA — Principal, OBRA Architects; Victor Agran, RA — Senior Associate, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects; Rona Easton, AIA, LEED AP — EASTON+COMBS; Hangman Zo, KIRA — Principal, H Associates; Craig Konyk, AIA — Principal, konyk; Audrey Choi — Associate Principal, Kohn Pedersen Fox
Moderator: Susanna Sirefman — President, Dovetail Design Strategists
Organizers: AIANY
Sponsors: Chair’s Circle: F+P Architects New York Inc.; Benefactor: STUDIOS Architecture; Patrons: Mancini Duffy; Peter Marino Architect; 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; VJ Associates

Clockwise: Open Paradox by Ginseng Chicken Architecture; Chung-Nam Government Complex by H Associates and Haeahn Architecture; Lux Nova by EASTON+COMBS; R-House by Della Valle Bernheimer and Architectural Research Office.

Courtesy AIANY

“To win a competition is the wrong reason to do a competition,” said Craig Konyk, AIA, principal at konyk; rather, he said, competitions and unbuilt commissions should be seen as a chance to test new ideas. The Unbuilt category of the AIANY Design Awards specifically honored those ideas, and ultimately the jury bestowed 11 Merit Awards.

As one might expect, many of the winners incorporated sustainable features, but two sought to re-conceptualize sustainability by investigating new material properties. “Lux Nova,” EASTON+COMBS’ submission to P.S.1’s annual Young Architects Program, is a colorful canopied environment using lightweight polycarbonate fins; plastic doesn’t usually come to mind when people think of sustainability, stated Rona Easton, AIA, a principal at the firm, but the installation is fully recyclable. In a competition to redevelop a Dallas city block, konyk designed “Urban Aeration,” an architectural landscape inspired by “microporosity at a molecular level,” which maximizes surface area for air filtration and water absorption.

Other award winners had more social goals. The R-House, designed by Della Valle Bernheimer and Architectural Research Office, introduced affordable, energy-efficient, contemporary housing to an economically disadvantaged neighborhood in Syracuse, NY. Ginseng Chicken Architecture reorganized the typical research program in “Open Paradox,” a new facility for the South Korean technical university KAIST, by adjoining diverse disciplines to encourage interdepartmental collaboration. And the Chung-Nam Government Complex, designed by H Associates and Haeahn Architecture, splits a large government center into three separate buildings, interwoven with open plazas that privilege public access and use.

OBRA Architects took home two Unbuilt awards for the Korean Cultural Center in NYC and the Great Hall at Grace Farms in New Canaan, CT. The former solves the problem of a dark, narrow site in Midtown with a reflecting pool to bounce sunlight through an overhanging, faceted rear curtain wall. The latter answers the client’s brief for a building that would “almost disappear” with a dome-shaped structure, covered by a green roof that resembles a hill in the landscape.

Finally, AIANY recognized two in-progress urban-scale projects. Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco will provide a massive multimodal transportation hub, with a five-block-long public park on the roof when it opens in 2017. In China, Tianjin Hang Lung Plaza unifies 1.6 million square feet of retail within a sleek “carapace;” here, Kohn Pedersen Fox located the main pedestrian corridor at the top level, so shoppers filter down through the complex, rather than up.

(Two additional Design Award winners were not presented: the Medeu Sports Center, designed by Audrey Matlock Architect; and “On the Water: Palisade Bay,” from the team of Guy Nordenson and Associates with Catherine Seavitt Studio and Architecture Research Office.)

In the panel discussion that followed, the presenters debated the value of their unbuilt projects. Though many acknowledged the great effort and expense that goes into a competition submission, all for uncertain reward, most agreed it’s an excellent opportunity for research and development, and that the lessons learned influence later designs. And, as Garrick Jones of Della Valle Bernheimer encouraged, if you don’t see any competitions or speculative work that fits your firm’s interests, “make up your own. What did you do for your thesis? What is the next project? What are people not thinking about?”

Carl Yost is the marketing and publicity coordinator for Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He has written for Forbes.com, Architectural Record, and The Architect’s Newspaper, among other publications.

Airport Design Faces the Pressures of a Changing Industry

Event: Airports of the Future: Emerging Issues in Airport Planning, Design & Construction
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.09.10
Speakers: William A. Fife, PE — Principal, The Fife Group
Organizers: AIANY Transportation and Infrastructure Committee

Saarinen’s TWA Terminal has suffered the pressures of a changing airline industry.

Jessica Sheridan

Attendees expecting tips on how to design airport terminals at the “Airports of the Future” presentation by airport planning expert William Fife, PE, may have been surprised to learn instead about the larger trends shaping the aviation industry. Fife made it clear, in fact, that to build an effective airport, architects and engineers must first understand the industry and all its complexities.

Thanks to 9/11, said Fife, “there is a new normal, and that new normal is always changing.” The terrorist attacks affected passenger volume, airlines’ finances, and airport security requirements — but that’s only for starters.

He stated the number of passengers is expected to double by 2025, from 750 million to 1.5 billion (despite the delays and other hassles of air travel). And the new planes built to accommodate these people will force changes in airport planning. For instance, when Boeing’s next-generation Dreamliner becomes available, it will carry half as many passengers as today’s long-range aircraft, necessitating twice as many terminal gates for the same number of passengers.

Also increasing in importance are environmental factors: planning for alternative-fuel support vehicles; constructing energy-efficient facilities to save on operating costs; building enough lead time in construction schedules to secure environmental permits (“It takes twice as long as you’d expect,” Fife cautioned); and accommodating the concerns of nearby residents who worry about noise issues.

But security needs are paramount, and the devices and screening procedures are always changing. Fife recalled the lessons learned from a peer review conducted with the Charles de Gaulle airport authority in Paris: “What we’re having in the future is a large ‘baggage box’ with security stuff in it, surrounded by retail. On the outside you have some places for planes to park, and on the other side places for cars to park. So you have to make it big, and flexible…. Baggage handling and security and safety have become the determinant sizing factors in terminal design.”

Learning from Paul Rudolph: Successes, Failures, & Strategies

Event: At Risk! The John W. Chorley Elementary School, Middletown, NY
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.11.10
Speakers: Carl Abbott, FAIA — Carl Abbott FAIA Architects/Planners; Steven Forman, AIA — Senior Associate, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects
Introduction: Sean Khorsandi — Co-Chair, Paul Rudolph Foundation
Moderator: Fred Bernstein — Architecture Critic
Organizers: Center for Architecture in partnership with the Paul Rudolph Foundation; Preservation League of New York; World Monuments Fund
Sponsors: Modernism at Risk is sponsored by Knoll, Inc.

John W. Chorley Elementary School.

©Andrei Halwell

“While there were several architects in the 1970s known as paper architects, Paul [Rudolph] is becoming one by default as his buildings are being removed,” warned Sean Khorsandi, co-chair of the Paul Rudolph Foundation. Calling attention to one of 13 threatened (or recently demolished) Rudolph projects, the John W. Chorley Elementary School in Middletown, NY, could be razed next year to make way for a parking lot and new school building. To identify preservation strategies, panelists drew on lessons learned from attempts to save other Rudolph buildings, most notably Riverview High School in Sarasota, FL (demolished 2009), and the Yale University Art and Architecture Building (restored in 2009 by Gwathmey Siegel to wide acclaim).

Khorsandi began by describing the architecture of the school: four open-plan classroom zones around a central circulation spine; gently terraced floor levels hug the landscape; and roof trusses and clerestory windows flood the interior with daylight. The open plan makes the school adaptable to almost any use, Khorsandi noted, and needlessly destroying the building would not only erase part of Middletown’s cultural heritage, but entail environmental costs as well.

Carl Abbott, FAIA, of Carl Abbott FAIA + Associate Architect/Planners, who helped lead the attempt to save Riverview High School in Sarasota, FL, showed photographs of Riverview’s deterioration and the alterations that ruined the original architectural concept. These misguided changes — Abbott called them “abortions” — prevented Sarasotans from understanding Riverview’s value, he said: “A big chunk of this is awareness of people realizing the masterpiece that they have in their community.” Though his team solicited support from famous architects, he said this strategy backfired: “The school board people were not looking at name recognition for the building — they wanted us to show them why it was a good building.”

On the positive side, Steven Forman, AIA, a senior associate at Gwathmey Siegel, described his experience as a senior architect restoring the Art and Architecture Building at Yale. Despite abundant technical challenges, the project was a success, he said, “because the money was there, the will was there, the client was there, the construction manager was there. They ‘bought in’ as partners in the whole construction process. In 30 years of building, I’ve never had that experience.”

Abbott simplified the checklist for successful preservation even further: “It’s awareness, it’s time, and it’s money.”

During the Q&A, an audience member pointedly asked whether people even like the Chorley school. Abbott acknowledged that Rudolph could make “demanding” and “intense” architecture, but the question was ultimately put to rest by Fred Isseks, a Middletown high school teacher in attendance: he estimated that 90% of his students love the building. Some of those students were in the audience, and one spoke passionately about her appreciation for the Chorley School.

Positive testimonies such as these, coming from members of the local community, are crucial, said moderator Fred Bernstein. “Buildings will be saved because people come to like them, not because architects say they’re important.”

Carl Yost is the marketing and publicity coordinator for Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He has written for Forbes.com and The Architect’s Newspaper, among other publications.

Two Exhibitions Advocate for Preservation of Modern Landmarks

Event: Modernism at Risk: Modern Solutions for Saving our Modern Landmarks and Back on the Map: Revisiting the New York State Pavilion at the 1964/65 World’s Fair exhibition openings
Location: Center for Architecture, 02.17.10
Speakers: Anthony Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA — 2010 AIANY President; Bonnie Burnham — President and CEO, World Monuments Fund; Frank Matero — Professor of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania; Rick Bell, FAIA — AIANY Executive Director
Organizers: World Monuments Fund; Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Knoll, Inc.; Oldcastle Glass

Kent Memorial Library (1972) in Suffield, Connecticut. Architect: Warren Platner (1919-2006).

Photo by Andrew Moore

“It’s the next great idea, the next big problem for preservation,” according to Frank Matero, former chair of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. “It” is a rapidly aging collection of Modernist landmarks. When major repairs become necessary, many historic buildings are destroyed due to technical challenges of their restoration, their perceived obsolescence, or simple public apathy. “While modern buildings face the same physical threats as ancient structures, they are too often overlooked as insignificant, not important enough to preserve. We launched our Modernism at Risk initiative to advocate for these often ignored buildings and to address their special needs,” stated Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, the organization that organized the traveling exhibition, Modernism at Risk, currently on view at the Center for Architecture.

To counter these forces, the “Modernism at Risk” exhibition makes the case for design advocacy, encouraging architects to speak up for the importance of preserving our built heritage. Wall text celebrates how advocacy swayed public opinion to preserve Edward Durell Stone’s Conger Goodyear House; Marcel Breuer’s Grosse Point Public Library; Warren Platner’s Kent Memorial Library; and the ADGB Trade Union School in Germany, by Bauhaus architects Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer.

Other projects fared less fortunately: a scale model and several large photographs of Paul Rudolph’s Riverside High School make poignantly clear what was lost when the school was demolished last year. For added urgency, an “At Risk Now!” section calls attention to threatened works by Breuer, Rudolph, Walter Gropius, Eero Saarinen, and Carlos Raúl Villanueva; visitors are encouraged to send one of several free postcards to the organizations that are petitioning to save the buildings.

Back on the Map, on display simultaneously in the Helfand Gallery, presents Philip Johnson’s New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, built for the 1964-65 World’s Fair. The structure is itself an example of design advocacy. Photographs, articles, postcards, drawings, and a wall-length map and timeline bring to life the excitement that initially surrounded Johnson’s design, as well as the ongoing, still tenuous, efforts to conserve the pavilion and restore it to active use.

“These buildings are documents of a period that is no longer our ethos,” stated Matero. Their preservation is vital, but, he cautions, “the public is not behind it yet.” However, according to 2010 AIANY President Anthony Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA, “Preserving Modernist landmarks should be a goal not only for the design community, but for all communities that want to celebrate the diversity and richness of modern architecture in their midst. I hope these exhibitions will begin a dialogue amongst New Yorkers.”

Carl Yost is the marketing and publicity coordinator for Gabellini Sheppard Associates. He has written for Forbes.com and The Architect’s Newspaper, among other publications.