Author: Emily Nemens

In this issue:
· New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
· Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
· Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA

New York Now, 2010 Edition: AIANY presents “MADE IN NEW YORK”
After the success of “New York Now” in fall 2009, the AIA New York Chapter will be taking over the West 4th Street subway station again this October with a new member-generated show, “The American Institute of Architects New York Presents: MADE IN NEW YORK.” The show will open on 10.06.10, during Architecture Week (10.02-10.10) and remain on view for a month.

While “New York Now” featured member projects in the five boroughs, this year the Chapter will be asking for new projects by AIANY members sited anywhere around the globe. While collecting submissions for “MADE IN NEW YORK,” the Chapter will also be accepting projects for “MADE IN THE USA” — a related digital exhibition and database of AIA member work. The AIA has big intentions for “MADE IN THE USA,” including plans to generate future exhibitions from submissions, so both “MADE IN NEW YORK” and “MADE IN THE USA” are great opportunities for local firms to promote their work, nearby and around the world.

Committee Program Webinars Available Now!
With dozens of committee programs each month, AIANY has launched its Webinar feature, which presents some of the most popular, content-rich programs “on demand.” The platform records live presentations and streams them with the PowerPoint presentation and program handouts. For a small fee, all material will be available online and can be viewed at your convenience. At the end of each Webinar, members can take a quiz to get continuing education credits. Now available are the first two installments of the Committee for the Environment’s Green Integration Series, and the Professional Practice Committee’s May program on Dispute Resolution. See all the available programs here: http://eo2.commpartners.com/users/aiany/.

As this is a new feature, please send comments and questions to enemens@aiany.org.

Passing: David Smotrich, FAIA
David I. Smotrich, FAIA, 76, of Chappaqua, NY, died suddenly on 06.20.10, at his home. Smotrich graduated from Harvard College in 1955, and Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1960. He began his architectural career in Israel as part of the design team for the new city of Arad, Negev Desert. After working for I.M. Pei, FAIA, he established his own firm in NYC in 1965. He continued as principal of David Smotrich & Partners until his death. His work, which was nationally recognized, ranged broadly, from educational facilities and commercial projects to low-income and elderly housing. Smotrich is survived by his wife of 54 years, Bernice D. Smotrich, his children: Ross (Talma Nir), Maura and Hannah (Michael Barr), and nine grandchildren: Matthew, Amit, Alex, Shani, Ben, Avital, Dani, Joshua, and Etai.

Panelists Julie V. Iovine, Executive Editor, Architects Newspaper, Robert Ivy, Editor-in-Chief, Architectural Record, Michael Sorkin, Principal, Michael Sorkin Studio, writer/editor/design critic John Hill, A Daily Dose of Architecture, and moderator Kristen Richards, editor, Oculus and www.ArchNewsNow.com at the 04.26.10 event “The Changing State of the Design Press: Now what?”

Emily Nemens

Synopsis:
As a follow up to the 04.26.10 Design Press panel, Marketing and PR Committee Member Tami Hausman caught up with panelists. She interviews John Hill, the force behind “A Daily Dose of Architecture,” and Kristen Richards, Hon. ASLA, who edits www.ArchNewsNow.com and Oculus magazine.
Interview: John Hill
AIA podcast episode0014 by Center for Architecture

Interview: Kristen Richards
AIA podcast episode0015 by Center for Architecture

Related Link:
“Pressing Questions: What’s next for Design Media,” by Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, e-Oculus, 05.04.10.

In this issue:
· AIANY Announces Honorees at Annual Meeting
· Acronyms: NCARB, IDP, and the ARE
· ACE Mentoring Proves Its Worth
· Join the Conversation: Construction Contract Administration

AIANY Announces Honorees at Annual Meeting
At the 143rd Annual Meeting, AIANY bestowed its annual awards and special citations at the Center for Architecture, 06.16.10. By honoring architects, philanthropists, public sector employees, organizations, and individuals that are committed to improving the community through design excellence, these annual awards reinforce the AIA’s central principle: design matters. Following are the awards presented at the Annual Meeting.

Medal of Honor: David Childs, FAIA
Childs, Chairman Emeritus of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, has transformed our skylines from Time Warner Center to Tel Aviv. He is also committed to public sector service, and has served as Chairman of both the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts in Washington. He currently chairs the Municipal Art Society and serves on the boards of the American Academy in Rome and the National Housing Partnership Foundation.

Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund recognized with Award of Merit
While only a few years old, the organization has already left a significant, positive mark on New York, by making the city smarter, healthier, and more inclusive. Under the guidance of the dedicated community leader Laurie Tisch, the Fund has been responsible for public interventions such as the Lawn at Lincoln Center campus. It also supports health initiatives like the NYC Green Carts and City Meals on Wheels.

Two New AIANY Honorary members
Barry Bergdoll, Hon. AIANY, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, and the AIANY recently collaborated on programs for the Rising Currents exhibition, currently on view at MoMA. This is just the most recent example of Bergdoll’s commitment to promoting the public’s understanding and appreciation of architecture.

Richard T. Anderson, Hon. AIANY, a longtime champion of architecture in NYC, has dedicated his career to promoting the long term growth of the city. Recently, the NYBC supported the Chapter’s urbanSHED international design competition, and Anderson serves on the Center for Architecture’s advisory committee for the exhibition Innovate : Integrate.

George S Lewis Award: Susan Henshaw Jones
Susan Henshaw Jones, the Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), began her career in the Lindsay Administration, where she and two others formed Creative Time, an organization that commissions and presents public art projects. Her interest in preservation led her to become president of the newly formed New York Landmarks Conservancy, where she championed the reuse of the Customs House at Bowling Green, among other projects. In 2003 Jones re-built the MCNY into the vital institution that it is today.

Andrew J. Thomas Pioneer in Housing Award: GF55 Partnership
GF55 Partnership, with partners David E. Gross, AIA, Leonard Fusco, AIA, and Shay Alster, AIA, has designed superlative housing projects for public and private clients nationwide. In New York alone, GF55 has designed 49 multi-family residential buildings providing more than 3,700 dwelling units. For these achievements, the AIA New York Chapter honors GF55 for their work as housing pioneers.

Harry B. Rutkins for Service to the AIA New York Chapter: Bruce Fowle, FAIA, LEED AP
Bruce Fowle, FAIA, LEED AP, founder of FXFOWLE Architects, has dedicated his career to sustainability in all its dimensions and applications; innovations and excellence in design; mentoring and collaboration; engagement with the profession, colleagues, the community, and society are exemplified by his and service to the Chapter as founder and chair of the Planning and Urban Design Committee, a member of the AIANY Committee for NYC Rezoning, a member of the Board of Directors, and as Chair of the 2009 Design Awards Luncheon; by his service to the city with his participation in New York/New Visions Coalition for the redevelopment of downtown; and by his service to the Institute and the profession by participating in the NYC Green Codes Task Force, the selection committee for Edward Larabee Barnes Gold Medal Award, and numerous community and academic endeavors.

Public Architect: Peter Magnani, AIA
Peter Magnani, AIA, is an architect who has made an outstanding contribution in terms of both public policy and process. He served as architect, planner, and director of the NYC City Planning offices in the Bronx and Queens. In 1986 he was appointed Deputy Borough President of Queens. Serving until 2001, Magnani implemented many major capital projects, including Queens West, the new Queens Hospital Center, and the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Olympic swimming pool and ice rink. Magnani is currently the Director of the Capital and Facilities Management Office of the Queensborough Public Library.

Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award: Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
As editor of e-Oculus since 2006, Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, has shaped AIANY’s electronic publication to become the preeminent source of design news and insightful coverage of Chapter events — read by thousands each month. Sheridan’s thoughtful observations, which include sharp criticism more often than praise, provide valuable insight into issues the industry faces. The Chapter confers this award for her excellence in architectural journalism.

Special Citation: Active Design Guidelines
Created through a collaboration between the NYC Departments of Health & Mental Hygiene, Design + Construction, Transportation, and City Planning, with the Office of Management and Budget, noted academics, and the AIA New York Chapter, the Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design is an outgrowth of the Take Care New York 2012 health policy agenda of the Bloomberg Administration, and the five Fit City conferences held at the Center for Architecture. These pivotal, research-based guidelines encourage architects, landscape architects, and urban designers to introduce physical activity within the environments they design while simultaneously supporting objectives of sustainability.

Special Citation: V’Soske
V’Soske was founded in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1924 by Stanislav V’Soske, who revolutionized the technique of rug making through innovative alternatives to the traditional loop pile method, thus changing pile heights, densities, and materials. V’Soske is an integral part of the architectural and design community and enhances design through collaboration, new methods of fabrication, and an unmatched refinement.

VP Citation Design Excellence: Audrey Matlock, AIA; Lori Mazor, AIA
Audrey Matlock, AIA, and Lori Mazor, AIA, were awarded a VP Citation for their outstanding efforts and leadership in bringing together a group of distinguished practitioners who together infused new energy and vision in the New York Chapter’s signature Design Awards program. Their efforts have created a model that has broadened the reach of the program, expanded its vision, and celebrates a more distinctive range of project and type, to the credit of honorees, jurors, and Chapter alike.

VP Citation Professional Development: Jesse Lazar
Jesse A. Lazar was awarded a VP Citation for his outstanding efforts and support of the 24 Chapter committees. Lazar’s excellent organizational abilities and exemplary communication skills have enabled him to orchestrate well over 200 AIANY Committee events and programs per year. He has provided Chapter leaders with a clear roadmap for successful programming. The transformation of the Chapter’s Design Awards Program is Lazar’s greatest legacy.

VP Citation Public Outreach: ARE Bootcamp
The first session of ARE Boot Camp was held in the winter of 2009. Each of the exam sections was taught by volunteer Chapter members who included a mix of seasoned professionals and recently licensed architects in seven day-long weekend marathon sessions. To date there have been three complete cycles. So far 680 interns have taken the classes; 70 of them have become Associate AIA members. Under the direction of Venesa Alicea, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, Mark Behm, Assoc. AIA, and Megan Chusid, Assoc. AIA, and coordinated on behalf of the Chapter by Suzanne Mecs, the committee has worked tirelessly to organize and sustain this heroic effort.

Special Citation: Landmarks Preservation FoundationThe Landmarks Preservation Foundation, and the leadership of Christina Davis, fosters and promotes the mission of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). A private not-for-profit foundation that provides essential support, resources, and funding for a variety of initiatives at the LPC recognizes and preserves the city’s architectural landmarks and historic districts. Among the significant contributions the Foundation has made in the past year are the publishing of the fourth edition of the Guide to New York City Landmark and the funding provided for the exhibition “ContextContrast” at the Center for Architecture.

Special Citation: Tribeca Film FestivalThe Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 as a response to the events of 9/11 and the loss of vital activity to lower Manhattan. The Festival founders, Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro, and Craig Hatkoff state in their mission their intention “to enable the international film community and the general public to experience the power of film by redefining the film festival experience.” Through their contribution, the founders have created an international center of culture that also revitalized and galvanized NYC.

Understanding the Acronyms: NCARB, IDP, and the ARE
By Murrye Bernard, LEED AP

Event: Got License?
Location: Center for Architecture, 05.25.10
Speakers: NCARB Representative Martin Smith, AIA, NCARB, LEED GA — Representative, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards; Robert Lopez, RA — Executive Secretary, NYS Board for Architecture
Panelists: Brynnemarie Lanciotti, Assoc. AIA — Franke, Gottsegen, Cox Architects; Mark Behm, Assoc. AIA — Mancini Duffy & Co-chair, AIANY Professional Practice Committee; Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP — Gensler, Editor-in-Chief, e-Oculus, & Co-chair, AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA)
Moderator: Venesa Alicea, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP — Dattner Architects & Co-chair, AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee
Organizer: AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee

A surprising number of interns aren’t familiar with the steps required to become licensed architects. With so many acronyms involved it can be difficult to know which is the gatekeeper for what. The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), that sets national standards and administers the Intern Development Program (IDP) and the Architectural Registration Examination (ARE), are the main player along with state licensing boards.

Martin Smith, AIA, NCARB, LEED GA, an NCARB representative, suggested that interns visit their state’s licensing board website to learn about evolving requirements, involving, for example, education and experience for IDP credit. Though taking the tests may seem intimidating, Smith — who recently became licensed — recommended diving in. “You’re never ready,” he empathized, and added that NCARB offers plenty of study resources.

One major controversy surrounding the ARE is last year’s breach of exam security. Test takers now have three opportunities to accept the confidentiality agreement, but after the third decline, the test must be rescheduled (and paid for again). Robert Lopez, RA, Executive Secretary of the New York State Licensing Board lamented that four of the eight candidates busted for sharing exam questions were from New York. Despite this disparaging fact, more than 1,200 new architects became licensed last year in the state — the highest rate in 12 years.

A group of panelists discussed their experiences on the road to licensure. Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, admitted that she had trouble completing IDP when she worked at a small firm. Others have found that larger firms offer study material libraries, fee reimbursement, and bonuses upon completion.

Ultimately, each intern must tailor the study process to their own needs. “It’s pass or fail, no ‘A’s,” said Smith. “Don’t wait until life gets simpler. It won’t happen.”

Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, is a freelance architectural writer and a contributing editor to e-Oculus.

ACE Mentoring Proves Its Worth
Last week, the Architecture Construction and Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program released results of a study that proves it’s making a valuable impact on high school students. Since its founding in 1994, ACE Mentors have introduced high schoolers to opportunities in the design and construction industries. [See “First Crit: ACE High School Students Present Schemes for NYC,” by Murrye Bernard, e-Oculus, 05.18.10, for a report on this year’s young designers.] Listening to high school students talk about their ideas at end-of-the-year design reviews is a clear sign that this program makes a difference, but the new results offer more quantifiable indices to the program’s success.

Among the highlights are a 97% graduation rate for ACE participants (versus 73.4% national rate); 94% college attendance (versus 68% national average). Almost twice as many girls who participated in the ACE program enroll in engineering programs than the national average for women in engineering; and almost 10% of college freshman who picked architecture programs in 2009 were ACE alumni. There were also quantifiable results for engaging minority students in the ACE field. Read the results for the entire survey here.

Join the conversation: Construction Contract Administration
The Construction Contract Administration, an AIA national Knowledge Community, is seeking participants. It has completed a white paper on product substitutions, and specifically the architect’s role in the substitution review process for Design-Bid-Build (DBB) projects. The knowledge community is also planning a webinar on Shop Drawings. More details on both can be found on the CCA’s homepage:
http://communities.aia.org/sites/cca/default.aspx.

By Ben Gibberd
Freelance writer for the New York Times and other publications; author, New York Waters: Profiles From the Edge (Globe Pequot Press, 2007)

New York City and I could not have had a better matchmaker.

In 1979, 16 years old, a timid product of a British all-boys private school, I arrived with my family in New York for the first time. I had never flown before and the astonishing rush of the plane taking off from Heathrow was still with me as I sat in the taxi hurtling along with what seemed an almost equivalent speed bound for Manhattan.

Elliot Willensky, FAIA, architect, gadfly, cultural provocateur, and co-author of the AIA Guide to NYC, was our principle conductor for the week. My parents had first met Elliot in New York in the late 1950s, when, tired of the gloom of a post-war Britain still enduring rationing, they had fled to New York for two years, living in a cold-water, third-floor walk-up apartment on the Lower East Side. He and my father, also an architect, worked together in the same offices on Fifth Avenue and became firm friends.

The AIA Guide, with its combination of uninhibited opinion — the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in Manhattan was “the world’s most banal portal to joy (a public rest room en route to Mecca)” — and eclecticism — forays into the depths of the outer boroughs deemed unworthy by previous guides — had quickly become a classic after its publication in 1967. It was certainly considered a holy text in our family, and my father clutched his personally inscribed copy from Elliot of the second, 1978 edition tightly upon arrival.

Tall, with large dark-framed glasses and sideburns (this was the ’70s), Elliot emanated an extraordinary charisma when I met him in his Brooklyn Heights apartment. His face seemed constantly in motion — sly, gleeful, delighted — as he shared one marvel or absurdity after another about his beloved New York City. He had a collection of nine-volt batteries from around the world that he kept in a series of wooden frames on the mantelpiece, brightly colored little blocks which looked like buildings jumbled up next to each other, miniature streetscapes. I remember my astonishment, mixed with admiration, that his attention should have turned to something so apparently inconsequential.

This relish of the absurd and the overlooked was on particular display one memorable trip to the Ford Foundation Building on East 42nd Street, when he swept his English entourage imperiously up the stairs of an adjacent overpass then paused, shoulders heaving with laughter, in front of an NYPD poster taped to the wall.

“WARNING: THIS PREMISE IS REGULARLY PATROLLED BY POLICE OFFICERS” it read in large blue caps.

“This might be my favorite thing in New York,” he finally got out. “What I can’t figure out is whether they didn’t realize their mistake or thought, ‘Ah, screw it. They’ll never notice…'”

A few minutes later he swept us equally imperiously (New York was his, his footsteps sure) into the glorious plant-filled atrium of the Ford Foundation Building and I gaped in awe at this secret steel-framed oasis. Then it was on to lunch — Chinese — with Elliot making all the choices for us, and the mysteries of Chinatown.

Although I didn’t realize it then, New York was in what many considered its death throes. The city was still mired in debt and reeling from the sting of its infamous Presidential brush-off four years previously. The subway trains were covered in graffiti, whole neighborhoods (including where my parents had once lived) were drug-plagued, no-go areas and the homicide stats were rising like an arrow.

For Elliot, though, it seemed the city was as unchanged as the post-war Eden of his Brownsville childhood. Doubtless, aged 16, I was unaware of the subtleties of adult emotion, but still, there was something in his bravado that suggested no concessions to the pressing social ills of his surroundings. New York was a city to celebrate, not mourn.

Like Elliot, I also took things in my stride. On a car trip up to Times Square to see a movie, we drove past a body on the sidewalk covered in a sheet, surrounded by bored-looking cops; in the movie theater a vast cloud of marijuana smoke, sickly sweet, hung in the air above us, the product of a thousand glowing red tips. This was the natural state of things in New York, I understood, like seeing mountains in Switzerland or artists in Paris, part of the scenery.

My parents, on a visit by foot alone to their former home near Avenue B, encountered a similarly unnerving version of the city, though remembering the relatively benign one of their past, did not take it quite so much in their stride. The dark-clothed Polish men and women of their time had been replaced by hollow-eyed youths in leather jackets who eyed them menacingly from every corner. Outside their former building they plucked up the courage to ask if anyone remembered their old super, Mr. Bordow. An ancient man stared at them gravely. “Mr. Bordow moved to Florida,” he finally announced. “You folks should get out now.” My parents took his advice.

On our last day, Elliot took us on a trip to Roosevelt Island via the recently installed tramway, and we dangled together hundreds of feet over the East River on its gossamer-thin line. After that, and changing perspective nicely, we snaked out underground in the subway to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and stood on a hill surrounded by the handsome stone dwelling places of New York’s illustrious dead, while looking out into the distance at the sleek glass boxes of Manhattan’s illustrious living.

Elliot was good at making juxtapositions like that — the living and the dead, the underground and the overground, the minor comic note and the major beautiful one — and such a mixture still epitomizes for me the essence of this polyglot city that I have lived in now for almost 18 years.

For Elliot, if he didn’t plant the seed of my desire to live here, surely nurtured it, until, on a broiling hot day in July 1991, I finally moved here for good. I brought with me the new, 1988, third edition of the Guide, also inscribed by Elliot to my parents, and now swollen to over a thousand pages.

To our great shock, Elliot had died suddenly the year before, aged 56, from a heart attack. Like the assassination of JFK for a previous generation, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news and selfishly mourned the fact this marvelous man would not be around to help induct me into his world. But I soon found that while he was physically gone, his spirit remained. Almost daily, it seemed, I found myself, and still find myself, thinking happily: “What would Elliot make of this?”

And, of course, there remains the Guide. My father, on a visit a few years ago, quietly repossessed the third edition I had purloined. But shortly thereafter, in 2000, I consoled myself with the new fourth edition, a brick even thicker than its predecessor, edited by Norval White, Elliot’s friend and co-author of the series.

Now, with the appearance of the fifth edition — the manuscript completed just two weeks before the death of Norval White in December of last year with his new co-author, architect Fran Leadon — the Guide has clearly taken on a life of its own. While this fills me with pleasure, I am also saddened to think its original authors did not live to see it. In particular, I would love to know what Elliot would have made of the post-9/11, post-boom, post-gentrified version of his city. While I suspect he would not have approved, he would, I think, at least have been amused.