Author: Daniel Fox

Archiculture documents architecture students’ lives during their final semester.

Courtesy Archiculture

While in architecture school, we realized how unique the design process is and what a great story it would make. We struggled to convey to non-architect friends why we dedicated so much time and energy in the studio. Once we began working in the field, the idea led us to quit our jobs and pursue the film full-time. Today our team has expanded to include architects and filmmakers with a mission to educate the public about contemporary issues in the architecture profession through the lens of thesis students. On Friday, March 14, the team behind Archiculture will host a Trailer Kickoff party at the Center for Architecture, which will feature the premiere screening of the film’s trailer, guest speakers, and a Q&A with the film’s creators. For more information on the event, information about the project, student blog, directors’ blog, webcam, and photos, go to the film’s website.

When we decided to embark on producing a film documenting architectural education two years ago, we were designers a few years out of school with no formal training in filmmaking. All we had to draw upon was our love for photography, our design degrees in architecture and landscape architecture, and our passion for documentaries. Now, two months into production of the feature length Archiculture, we are beginning to share our experiences with the design community and beyond.

The story is told through the eyes and lives of architecture students at Pratt Institute as they undergo their final thesis projects. Since the semester is currently underway, the outcome is still to be determined, but as one can see from the website, the trials and triumphs are coming to light. Tyler discusses his “breaking point.” Giancarlo debates the value of pulling all-nighters. Asta weighs the pros and cons of doing a group thesis project. Stan wonders what life will be like after school (“Is it time to put on my black pants and shirt, carry my little laptop in my black bag and seem to forget what color looks like?”). And Mollie voices her dissatisfaction with the perception of what a thesis is and her advisor’s role in the process. “Is anyone else as frustrated as I am?” she calls out.

David Krantz and Ian Harris are co-directors and producers of Archiculture.

Image showing the storm surge of a Category 3 hurricane on NYC.

Courtesy What If NYC…

On February 6, Mayor Bloomberg announced the results of the international competition entitled What If NYC…. Initiated by the NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM), the competition challenged entrants to design post-disaster provisional housing for a typical coastal neighborhood in New York.

NYC ranks in the top tier of U.S. cities susceptible to major flooding from storm surges. Different from the issues associated with long-term sea level rise from climate change and global warming, this competition focused on the near-term possibilities of flooding and inundation similar to the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster of 2003 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

While the OEM has plans for early warning, evacuation, and short-term sheltering (up to two weeks) for those affected by a major storm, it wants the capacity to accommodate residents for up to two years, the time required for reconstruction. Of the 11 program criteria for judging and 117 competition submissions for stage one of this two-stage process, the jury focused on density, delivery, and deployment. Equally important in the deliberations were the often-conflicting aspects of poetry and pragmatics.

To preserve a sense of community in NYC, it is necessary to house more people than in the lower density environment of New Orleans. Hence, the jury focused on multi-story solutions over one-story proposals. The question of readiness and deployment was also a significant issue. Is it economically and technically feasible to have a reserve of accommodations, stored nationally or regionally, ready for expeditious transport to the post-disaster site? If so, what type and where? And when the units and “hardware” arrive, would it be more advisable to place them adjacent to reconstruction sites or on separate sites altogether, leaving the rights-of-way open for communication and transport? Would offshore locations be better?

The seven-member jury, chaired by NYC Department of Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney, FAIA, and comprised of highly regarded experts — Joseph F. Bruno, Paul Freitag, Mary Miss, Guy Nordenson, Enrique Norten, Hon. FAIA, and Richard Plunz — took their charge seriously, deliberated in depth, and chose 10 compelling winners and 10 honorable mentions. The winning teams will now use their $10,000 stipends to further develop their proposals. OEM Commissioner (and juror) Bruno, anticipates an exhibition of the stage two entries and the possible production of a full-scale prototype.

For further information about the competition, jurors, deliberations, and images of the entries, go to the OEM website. The list of the 10 winning entries is in the Names in the News section of this issue.

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, was a consultant and jury facilitator for the What If NYC… competition.

Event: New York Modern Lecture Series: “New Stones for Old”
Location: The Skyscraper Museum, 02.12.08
Speaker: Carol Willis — Founder, Director, Curator, The Skyscraper Museum
Organizer: The Skyscraper Museum

Traffic study prepared by Corbett for Regional Plan Association. Hugh Ferris, Deliniator.

Courtesy skyscraper.org

In the 1920s, architect Harvey Wiley Corbett sought to solve the city’s growing congestion problem and population explosion while establishing it as the pillar by which all modern architecture would be judged. No longer satisfied with American architecture’s conventional approach, Corbett endeavored to free the city from its reliance on classical traditions and European pedagogy.

An open-minded thinker, Corbett was attuned to the life of the city, which he saw as the broadest canvas for expression. It was, as Skyscraper Museum director Carol Willis asserted, a Modernism that “forged a new direction in the 1920s.” When Corbett could have railed against the 1916 zoning laws, he instead embraced them, viewing the new standards as an opportunity to produce a distinctive American architecture expressing itself through mass rather than historical necessity.

He saw the massive setbacks as a mix of looming terraced mega-structures penetrated by classical arcades, built above the teeming streets. The inhabitable monoliths created an urbane, civilized, zoning-produced metropolis that responded to the chaos of the street and facilitated interaction among inhabitants. Buildings were removed from congestion, and street life was separated from the urban bedlam below. The city functioned as both the engine of modernity and the promise of unity.

Clay Matlin teaches art history and writing at the School of Visual Arts, and is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.

Event: 2007-8 Franzen Lecture on Architecture and the Environment
Location: The Cooper Union, 01.22.08
Speaker: Shigeru Ban, Hon. FAIA — Principal, Shigeru Ban Architects
Organizer: The Architectural League of New York; The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union

Shigeru Ban Architect’s Centre Pompidou Metz.

Courtesy archleage.org

In his Architectural League talk in Cooper Union’s Great Hall, Shigeru Ban, Hon. FAIA, scarcely allowed time for in-depth reflection and, for those familiar with his designs, offered little in the way of new insights. However, the existing work reinforces his architectural ingenuity with new technologies, material creativity, an aesthetic emphasis, and most notably, a profound environmental conscience. Whether through single-family houses for high-end clients or emergency shelters for earthquake victims in Rwanda, Ban’s “reduce, reuse, and recycle” philosophy has guided all his work.

Ban’s version of sustainable architecture kicks in at the onset of the design process, as in his concept for the Nomadic Museum. As a museum intended to travel the world, Ban found inspiration in the industrial cargo containers used for its transport. On site, the shipping containers are stacked to form the building’s walls, while on the road they carry the structural elements, such as paper tube columns. This building-block solution allows the structure to respond to unique site conditions and minimizes waste once the show has run its course.

Though Ban is always concerned with the afterlife of his structures, his design for the Japanese Pavilion at the Hanover Expo 2000 is a particular triumph. He knew its life there was short, so he developed a grid shell structure using his signature paper tubes, then arranged for the tubes to be returned to the manufacturer and made into pulp when the event finished. Likewise, the foundation was made of wooden boxes filled with sand and ready for re-use, rather than a more permanent and non-recyclable concrete.

Lest his innovations appear too effortless, Ban is quick to discuss the bureaucratic difficulties when seeking to prove the integrity of both his material and structural choices. Though it may require extra effort, the outcome can lead to substantial change in construction processes, which is crucial to the future of sustainable design. As Ban puts it: “Ultimately out of crisis comes architectural opportunity.”

Rachel Schauer is concentrating her studies on architecture and sociology at New York University Gallatin School. She also is e-OCULUS’ graphic designer.

Event: DEWAR’S MASTER-DISASTER ARCH DL IV
Location: Music Hall, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 01.29.08
Competitors: Representing KOnyk: Sean Bailey, David Ideri; Representing FXFowle Architects: James Adams, Paul Kim
Organizers: LVHRD

Team KOnyk sketched (left) then created a model (right) of its vision for a wildlife and research center in Alaska at the fourth annual architects duel.

B.A. Cook (left); Jessica Sheridan (right)

This year’s LVHRD Architects Duel was set in 2029, when oil is no longer used, and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline will be dismantled. The structure’s steel will be used for a wildlife and research center as a “monument to mankind’s commitment to preserving earth’s natural resources,” stated the Lumberjack hosting the event. In “Iron Chef”-like style, each team had 30 minutes to sketch followed by an hour to create their monument out of plastic drinking straws. James Adams and Paul Kim of Team FXFowle Architects created a low-profile space-frame structure formally resembling a smiley face. Sean Bailey and David Iseri of Team KOnyk constructed a Tatlinesque tower of straws. Both proposals integrated sustainability to some extent, but the overall light-hearted nature of the event kept proposals upbeat and fun. By the end of the night the crowd had to decide the winner. It came down to squat versus phallic, and in skyscraper-obsessed NYC, the tower from Team KOnyk won.

Event: New York in the Twenties: City of the Future, part of the New York Modern lecture series
Location: The Skyscraper Museum, 01.15.08
Speaker: Carol Willis — Founder, Director, Curator, The Skyscraper Museum
Organizer: The Skyscraper Museum

“Apartments on Bridges,”1924, by Hugh Ferriss.

©The Metropolis of Tomorrow, 1929, courtesy The Skyscraper Museum

By 1925, NYC had surpassed London as the most populous city in the world, reaching almost 6 million inhabitants in the Manhattan and nearly 10 million in the metropolitan area. Faced with the restrictions of the 1916 zoning law and a growing concern over the ever-increasing crush of people, architects and visionaries such as Hugh Ferriss, Harvey Wiley Corbett, and Raymond Hood sought to re-imagine the city of the future, said Carol Willis, the Skyscraper Museum’s founder, director, and curator. These men abandoned the norms of classical city layouts, choosing instead to concentrate on solving the problems they felt were most pressing: increased congestion and the danger that comes from a growing population and vehicular traffic. Fueled by an obsessive interest in the future, they imagined a city where height replaced density to ease overcrowding.

Towers, elevated highways winding through mega-structures, bridges connecting buildings, and landing pads for airplanes and blimps reformed the city. Visionaries wanted to rationalize the city by separating trains, pedestrians, and vehicles. The skyscraper became the medium by which American architecture moved into a distinctly modern style, moving away from what had become “staid gothic conventions.” It was “an architecture of simple, sculptural forms,” that, by looking into the future, defined the American vision of Modernism, according to Willis. Problems in the city served as the impetus for imagining what the city might be, and what promises its specific architectural needs might hold.

Clay Matlin teaches art history and writing at the School of Visual Arts and is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.

Event: Does Design Really Matter?
Location: Rockwell Group, 12.04.07
Speakers: David Rockwell, AIA — Founder, Rockwell Group; Paula Scher — Principal, Pentagram
Moderator: Linda Tischler — Senior Writer, Fast Company
Organizers: New York Glasshouse

Courtesy Glasshouse New York

Some observers feel that businesses are just using ‘design’ as a watchword, not really investing beyond a vague box they’re sure customers want checked. Design is more popular than ever in the business world, but originality is still rare.

The way for businesses to stand out, according to David Rockwell, AIA, founder of the Rockwell Group, is through artistry. “Craft cuts through the tendency for homogenization of design,” he said. Paula Scher, principal at Pentagram, held that clients are much more aware of the importance of design now than in the past; yet, she still has had to work hard to convince some clients of her vision. Linda Tischler, senior writer at Fast Company, recalled talking with a business figure who wished he could dispose of all the design related to his business, and the ensuing costs, if he could get away with it. But all-in-all, the panel felt that companies were moving in the right direction in recognizing the business importance of design businesses.

The Target store, one of the evening’s sponsors, was a popular example, for better or worse. Scher appreciates that Target has done so much to embrace design in individual products, but the look of their stores in general could do more as models of good design.

Glasshouse, a London based salon for entrepreneurs, which this author helped to launch in NY, tackles a different topic each season. These “conversations,” in Glasshouse-speak, track the zeitgeist among entrepreneurial types. Speakers and moderators are culled from the up-and-coming superstars in their fields. At this session, design was on everyone’s lips.