Author: Daniel Fox

Event: Engineered Transparency: Glass in Architecture and Structural Engineering
Keynote Speaker: Kazuyo Sejima — Founding Partner, SANAA
Location: Columbia University, 09.26-28.07
Organizers: Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Columbia University Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics; with Technische Universität Dresden’s Institute of Building Construction

Offering new modes of visual pleasure and spatial experience, glass has benefited from major advances in engineering and structural innovations. The Engineered Transparency conference brought together international architects and engineers to discuss the present and future implications of glass in building design.

Considered one of the most advanced firms working in glass, founding partner of Tokyo-based SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima, kicked off the three-day conference with a keynote presentation of recent projects that push glass technologies to new limits. One of the best examples is the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, housing the museum’s extensive glass collection, with more than 5,000 works from ancient to contemporary times. Constructed of double-layered, floor-to-ceiling, curved glass panels, the undulating walls blur the boundaries between the exterior and interior spaces. The project pushes the definition of glass as a material as the curves alternate a viewer’s clarity and obscurity, reflection and distortion. In addition, the relationship between inside and outside is intensified. Visitors are constantly aware of their surroundings as the glass walls provide a dual experience of the outside environment overlapping the exhibition spaces.

The Glass Pavilion resurfaced throughout the conference as one of the best examples of cutting-edge glass design. The plan of the pavilion reveals challenges not just in aesthetics and experience, but also in structure, and heating and ventilation. Guy Nordenson, of NY-based Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers and structural engineer for the project, discussed the unique steel framing in the roof and concrete framing in the floor to enhance the thin panes of glass. Matthias Schuler, of Stuttgart-based Transsolar, talked about climate engineering challenges given the cellular structure of the galleries. The inner walls make up the galleries, and the exterior walls create cavities to insulate and provide heating and ventilation.

While glass might always have been a popular material, it is only recently that its technology has advanced structurally, aesthetically, and thermally. Engineered Transparency only scratched the surface of what is to come.

Annie Kurtin is a first-year student at Columbia University GSAPP.

10.16.07: Cooper-Hewitt’s 2007 National Design Awards Winners Panel
By Kristen Richards

Several hundred people gathered under the large, white “big-top” tent installed in Cooper-Hewitt’s garden to hear from some of this year’s National Design Award winners. The panel discussion covered a range of subjects, from collaboration, fame, tough projects, and green design, to challenges and rewards, and persuading clients. Panelists included: Marc Tsurumaki, AIA, and David J. Lewis, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL); Nader Tehrani, Office dA; Peter Walker, FASLA, PWP Landscape Architecture; fashion designer Rick Owens; with Cooper-Hewitt Curatorial Director Cara McCarty as moderator.

They offered some interesting — and amusing observations…

On collaboration:
Lewis/Tsurumaki: “We get along fine and we never argue [laughter]; the best idea wins.” “It’s based on redundancy. All three of us are involved, which allows us to play off of each other, not compete.”

On fame:
Tehrani: “We thought the MoMA project [Fabrications: The Tectonic Garden, 1998] would bring us fame and jobs — it didn’t.”

On challenges:
Walker: “The World Trade Center Memorial is the toughest project. I’m still not sure how it will work out.”…”Landscape urbanism — what is it? I don’t know what it is. We’re now more involved in spaces on top, spaces in-between.”

Lewis: “Too often sustainability is talked about as something applied rather than fundamental integration. For us, it’s a source of innovation rather than obligation.”

Tehrani: “To raise the bar of green design — overcome policies, rules, and regulations — how can we, as architects, raise the standards?”

On rewards:
Lewis: “We’re too busy to step back and figure out what’s rewarding.”

On persuading clients:
Tehrani: “It’s what we do all day. We have to get people to buy in. We design with the client — they own the process.”

On role models:
Tehrani: “Those guys.” [indicating LTL] “I wish they’d stop winning competitions and give some to us.”

Owen (who was the quietest, but had the biggest/loudest crowd of fans in the audience): “I changed my mind. Now I want to be an architect.”

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2007 National Design Awards After-Party
By Sara Moss

10.18.07: Award winners and guests enjoyed dancing, drinks, and even National Design Award cookies at the Cooper-Hewitt’s after party, hosted in the museum’s Target National Design Education Center. I had the pleasure of chatting with Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL), who won the National Design Award for Interior Design, and the honor of meeting Frank Ching, who received a Special Jury Commendation for his role in design education.

Other award winners were: Maharam (Design Patron Award); Denise Scott Brown, RIBA, and Robert Venturi, FAIA (Design Mind); Adobe Systems Incorporated (Corporate Achievement Award); Office dA (Architecture Design Award); Antoine Predock, FAIA (Lifetime Achievement); Chip Kidd (Communications Design Award); PWP Landscape Architecture (Landscape Design); Jonathan Ive, Apple (Product Design); and Rick Owens (Fashion Design). For more information on the program, including a list of this year’s finalists, and video of the awards gala, go to the National Design Awards website.

Event: Is New York Losing Its Soul?
Location: Donnell Library Center, 10.03.07
Speakers: Alison Tocci — President & Group Publisher, Time Out New York; Darren Walker — Vice President, Rockefeller Foundation; Tama Janowitz — novelist; Rocco Landesman — President, Jujamcyn Theaters
Moderator: Clyde Haberman — columnist, The New York Times
Organizers: The Municipal Art Society

NYC’s ever-increasing crop of chain stores and banks is changing more than just the landscape. The city’s “soul” surfaces in many ways: artists and independent retailers; immigration and ethnic diversity; “organic messiness” and “sexiness.” The underlying theme overall, however, is uniqueness.

With the “Disneyification” of Times Square and the Atlantic Yards project as hot-button topics, panelists wondered: What would Jane Jacobs do? Her advocacy of short, tree-lined blocks, population density, and retail variety could be the answer; or maybe her 1950s approach to urban planning is irrelevant now. Panelists emphasized the importance of maintaining vital immigrant and working-class communities, and noted that the city’s African-American and young residents are on the verge of being priced out.

The onus falls on the city government to create sufficient interventions where growing economic inequality threatens the city’s uniqueness, such as through rent control or tax-break programs. According to Darren Walker, vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation, NYC has had the most aggressive subsidized housing program in the U.S. since Mayor Koch, and it is still insufficient. With significantly more demand than supply, and a million new residents projected in the next 10 years, creative solutions are needed at the leadership level.

Founded by a Dutch trading company, NYC has been shaped by money as much as it has by its penchant for evolution and reinvention. The question is how it will reinvent itself in this era of the market-based economy, when developers and “big money” seem to hold the cards. More questions than answers were raised, and there may not be a definitive solution. Jane Jacobs would turn the question to the community, and seek action at the neighborhood level.

Kate Soto is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor.

Event: High Line Discovered
Location: Center for Architecture, 09.25.07
Speaker: Robert Hammond — Co-Founder, Friends of the High Line
Organizer: NY Chapter/American Society of Landscape Architects

More than a year after the first grass-covered plank was removed from the abandoned High Line, the elevated rail bed is being transformed, and the first section running from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street is projected to open in 2008. Robert Hammond, co-founder of the Friends of the High Line (FHL), described the design-selection process and recounted the two international competitions that led to the final concept.

The last train ran in 1980. Since then, nature reclaimed the rail bed and the High Line faced demolition plans for much of the past two decades. The design team, led by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with co-opted engineering, lighting, and horticulture experts, seeks to preserve and reinterpret the industrial-meets-natural condition of the structure.

Concrete planks will meander the promenade, morphing into furniture and acting as a smooth walkway. Hundreds of plant species, selected by Dutch horticulturalist Piet Oudolf, will sprout through the seams of the curbs and create a patchwork of local perennials, shrubs, grasses, and trees. Running through the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen, the “park-in-the-sky” will be open at night, with low lighting illuminating the path allowing visitors to experience the city lights.

Hammond used a map to show the development slated to take place near the High Line in the coming years — including the Whitney Museum of American Art’s satellite museum to be located on Gansevoort Street at the gateway to the promenade. While the future of the rail bed from 30th to 34th Streets is still up in the air, Hammond said that the momentum of the FHL’s partnership with NYC and other supporters leaves room for optimism.

Kathryn Carlson is studying journalism at NYU.

Event: Politics, Publics and Design
Location: Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, 09.10.07
Speakers: Dr. Rene Spitz — Chairman, International Design Forum (IFG), Ulm; Kenneth Frampton — Ware Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia University; Adi Shamir — Executive Director, Van Alen Institute
Organizers: Kadambari Baxi — Associate Professor, Undergraduate Architecture, Barnard College & Columbia College; Irene Cheng — Doctoral Candidate, GSAPP, Columbia University

In a time where globalization meets global warming, the boundaries between public and private are constantly shifting. The International Design Forum (IFG) Ulm and Van Alen Institute are two organizations examining the relationships among politics, the public realm, and design — the former with an annual design competition, and the latter with its New York Prize Fellowship.

The Designing Politics competition intends to “encourage projects to develop consequences which leave a lasting mark on our social and physical environment,” according to Dr. Rene Spitz, IFG Ulm chairman. What made the winning projects in 2006 stand apart from other submissions was the way they examined the relationship between design and politics.

The KwaThema Project: Designing Negotiations Between Planning and Violence, submitted by Hannah le Roux of Johannesburg, proposes to overcome the tension between violence and planning within derelict public spaces in a small township in South Africa by working with the local community. One aspect of the project, for example, is to transform an eroding former liquor store into a children’s playground with help and input from local school children. Uncounted Counts. Citizenship by Design and Design for Democracy is a research project investigating the relationship between the individual and the state, examining nationality within globalization. Created by Kadambari Baxi, associate professor at Barnard and Columbia Colleges, and Irene Cheng, doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, research will lead to prototypes of alternatives to the standard products, including passports, naturalization tests, ballot papers, and election booths.

The Van Alen Institute’s 2007 New York Prize Fellowship “provides international emerging practitioners and scholars an opportunity for in-depth research and a platform for interventions in the public realm,” according to the online overview. Living City, one of the prizes awarded to David Benjamin and Soo-In Yang, evaluates NYC’s air quality. For three months, Benjamin and Yang will develop a full-scale architectural membrane that “breathes” reacting to the surrounding air quality. Through a responsive, kinetic surface, movement is converted into public information.

In response to the panel discussion held at GSAPP on the two programs, Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at GSAPP, discussed the importance of contextualization, but voiced concern over the inherent latency some of the projects presented. Whether or not all of the projects will be implemented, the proposals are forward looking and a step in the right direction toward social responsibility.

Annie Kurtin is a first-year MArch student at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University.

Event: 2007 Solar Decathlon
Location: National Mall, Washington D.C., 10.12-20.07
Organizers: U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

“A majority of students participate in the Solar Decathlon because they truly want to make a difference in the world by reducing traditional energy consumption or to acquaint themselves with solar power and energy-efficient technologies,” says Daniel Rapka, an engineering graduate student and engineering team leader of the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) Solar Decathlon 2007 team. This fall, NYIT students will transport their solar home to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to compete against 19 international colleges and universities in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Decathlon 2007. NYIT is the only college selected from the NY metropolitan area to compete.

The international contest challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate the most energy-efficient solar-powered home. NYIT’s entry, OPEN House, features two main components: a 480-square-foot open space and a manifold (or core). The open floor plan creates flexible zones to accommodate multiple functions, allowing the occupant to customize their living space. The south-side glass wall visually connects inhabitants to the outside world and fills the living space with natural sunlight throughout the day. The core contains the kitchen, bathroom, and the electrical and mechanical systems.

Smart House technology will provide the dweller with additional flexibility, convenience, and comfort. The home’s automation and control system allows efficient control and the scheduling or maintenance of household functions, such as air temperature, lighting, and appliances. Since the team is unable to dig into the ground on the National Mall, a roof pond above the home’s core will serve as a model of what a geothermal source would be doing on a logistical level. The pond will be a hybrid feature of the solar house — it models a geothermal system by providing a source or sink for thermal energy and also acts as a passive collector or radiator depending on the season. If the home needs heating, energy can be pulled from the pond to heat the home and if the home needs cooling, the excess energy from the house will be stored in the pond.

NYIT’s interdisciplinary, multi-campus team is composed of more than 75 undergraduate and graduate students studying architecture, engineering, interior design, communication arts, marketing, and culinary arts. Faculty members from each department serve as project advisors. “Students participating in the Solar Decathlon have a unique opportunity to gain real-world experience through hands-on learning and interdisciplinary education,” says Matthew Vecchione, a fifth-year architecture student and student project manager of NYIT’s Solar Decathlon 2007 team.

Competition guidelines require that all homes be a maximum of 800 square feet. An overall winner is determined based on the teams’ scores in 10 categories: architecture; engineering; market viability; communications; comfort zone; appliances; hot water; lighting; energy balance; and getting around (track mileage of electric car). The DOE provides all 20 teams with an electric car to help transport the house, and $100,000 to support the project. To raise additional funds and encourage public support and sponsorship, the team has appeared at conventions and sustainable conferences, and has invited green-friendly businesses to attend team presentations.

Solar Decathlon 2007 will be on view to the public October 12-20. More information about NYIT’s Solar Decathlon entry can be found online. The entry is also included in the arch schools: r(each)ing out exhibition at the Center for Architecture through October 19 (See On View: At the Center for Architecture).