Author: Jessica Sheridan Assoc. AIA LEED AP

Last Friday, the “No Impact Man” movie opened at the Angelika Film Center. This documentary, in limited release, follows the life of Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, as he and his family embark on a year-long experiment trying to live off the grid self-sufficiently. Throughout 2007, I followed the blog religiously (See “No Impact Man Has Quite an Impact On Me,” my Soapbox in the 05.15.07 issue of e-Oculus). It made me reconsider my lifestyle, and since then I have made some life changes to live more sustainably. I go to farmers markets and eat locally more frequently, walk part of the way to work in mornings, and I have increased my awareness of the waste I produce on a daily basis, among other measures. Naturally, when I heard of the movie release, I gathered some co-workers and saw the film on opening day.

While the No Impact Man blog chronicles Beavan’s personal journey in detail, the film focuses more on his wife, Michelle Conlin, a self-proclaimed mass consumer and reality show addict. While she forcibly agrees to humor Beavan’s extreme project, she faces jeers at work, is subject to a family “vacation” on an upstate New York farm, and experiences massive withdrawal from Starbucks coffee. While Beavan elaborates on the necessity of making major life changes to save the world, Conlin shows the effects of adjusting to living without.

The family is constantly faced with criticism by environmentalists and anti-environmentalists alike (the best scene is when Mayor Vishner, local farmer at Laguardia Corner Gardens and ex-hippie, points out the irony in Beavan considering his effect on global environmentalism while he sits in his Fifth Avenue co-op). However, as Beavan says in the film, the experiment is to try to live without for a year in an effort to scale back in the long-run. The goal is to live a simpler, yet happier life. He may not have the answer to the world’s problems, but I think this movie is well worth seeing; the least it will do is make you reconsider your personal way of life and give you some ideas about how to live more sustainably.

New York Says Thank You Foundation sends volunteers from NYC each year on the 9/11 Anniversary to help rebuild communities around the country affected by disasters to commemorate the extraordinary love and generosity extended to New Yorkers by Americans in the days, weeks, and months following September 11th.

09.01.09
This issue is Dutch-centric in anticipation of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s sail into New York Harbor. Check out NY400 to find out about next week’s events and celebrations.

I’ve received a great response so far from those of you who are Twittering! Please let me know if your firm is Twittering. I’d like to find all the NY-based firms that take part in the latest in social media. E-mail me at eoculus@aiany.org. Also, be sure to follow Tweets from e-Oculus and the Center for Architecture.

– Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

Earlier this month, the NYC Buildings Department and AIANY launched urbanSHED, an international design competition to create a new standard sidewalk shed design. Other similar competitions have existed in the past: The Architectural League of New York’s Design in 5 committee held a charrette in 2007 to reconceptualize scaffolding (See “Designers Rethink Cityscape — One Scaffold at a Time,” by Bill Millard, e-Oculus, 08.07.07); the Downtown Alliance is currently hosting Re:Construction, a call to artists to use standard construction barriers as canvasses for public art. But never have three agencies — the Buildings Department, NYC Department of City Planning, and NYC Department of Transportation — come together to issue a call for designs that will change the face of the city, or at least the 189 miles of sheds that inhabit the NYC metro area.

“If you are a designer, why wouldn’t you enter this competition?” asked Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri, who presented the urbanSHED competition at a Not Business As Usual discussion at the Center for Architecture on 08.19.09. Sidewalk sheds are an inevitability in the urban landscape, and even though they are not permanent, they are constant. Every New Yorker is familiar with the current holding pattern in construction, and therefore come into contact with sidewalk sheds daily.

Besides addressing safety needs on construction sites, sidewalk sheds have other purposes. LiMandri listed the range of uses, from providing shelter from bad weather, to storage for bikes, to platforms for planters, and structures for exercise (i.e., chin-up bars). This competition wants entrants to take the design a step further, asking how these structures can affect the community and environment in addition to providing safety.

The best aspect of urbanSHED is that the winning entry will not only be constructed in Lower Manhattan (thanks to the Downtown Alliance), but it will become a standard accepted by the Buildings Department for construction sites citywide. After the finalists have been selected this October, they will receive $5,000 to develop their ideas further. A first, second, and third prize will be awarded, and the winning entry will be issued to the Buildings Department as a bulletin establishing it as an approved standard.

While I am very excited to see the results of this competition, and there is no doubt in my mind that the winning entry will go way beyond blue plywood, my question is why will there only be one finalist? I would like to see a few of the proposals built. Ultimately, I hope that this competition proves to be fruitful and inspires more such competitions in the future.

“The Street View: Sheds and Skins,”by Kristi Cameron, Metropolis P/O/V, 08.24.09, featured urbanSHED and recent NBAU discussion, where Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri discussed the competition, at the Center for Architecture. Click the link to read the article.

Partial installation of Franz Ackermann’s Coming Home (Meet me) At the waterfall (2009), which is being installed along several walls in the monumental staircase in the southwestern portion of the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

Image ©Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys football team recently announced the commission of 14 monumental, site-specific installations and four large-scale artworks by contemporary artists. Slated for the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX, designed by HKS Sports and Entertainment Group, the artworks will be installed in prominent locations throughout the stadium. According to the press release, some will be as large as four stories high and more than 100 feet long. A wide range of talents — from Olafur Eliasson to Doug Aitken — were asked to play off both the architecture and the patterns of foot traffic. The goal is to create a dialogue between art and sports, which will be accomplished with accompanying art education programs and tours.

Dallas isn’t the only sports arena with this concept. The Miami-Dade Art in Public Places just closed a call to artists for six large-scale installations at Miami Ballpark, designed by Populous (formerly HOK Sport), where the Florida Marlins will soon play. Highlighting the building, the criteria emphasized the architectural concept of “water merging with land,” that aims to create a seamless relationship with the city, turning the skyline into an “inimitable design feature.” Artworks will be incorporated into the entry, a children’s recreation area, and a street level curtain wall, among other places in and around the stadium. Selected artists will be announced this coming December, and the installations will be complete in March 2012.

Since NYC has been called a cultural nexus of the U.S., my question is: Why hasn’t the city done something similar with its sports arenas? With the new Yankees and Mets stadiums, both offering wider circulation paths and claiming to be instituting numerous public outreach programs, it seems to me that this type of cultural program would be a no-brainer. By commissioning artworks in atypical cultural venues — such as sports arenas — new audiences would gain access to and an appreciation for art.

“Football is full of the unexpected and the spontaneous — it can make two strangers into friends,” said Jerry Jones, owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys. “Art has the power to do that too, to get people talking, and looking, and interacting. It’s not just about what you see on the field or on the wall, it’s about creating exciting experiences.” Even though NYC may not be the first, I hope the city takes Jones’s comments to heart.

(L-R): Chalk drawings on the “Temple of Truth,” by Jennifer Upchurch, Chris Niederer, and Douglas Hart; “Agony of Man,” by Steel Neal made from scrap metal found at construction sites around the city; father and daughter wait for their golf ball at “(Hole) Zero,” by Betsy Alwin and Marget Long.

Jessica Sheridan

This year, Governors Island is thriving with creativity. In addition to an artist- and architect-designed 18-hole mini golf course, 16 large-scale interactive sculptures grace the field south of the McKim, Mead & White-designed Liggett Hall. Called City of Dreams, this small art park is the result of a call for designs and sculptures by the arts organization FIGMENT. While it may not be the Storm King Art Center, FIGMENT has tapped into this rare swath of open space in NYC, providing visitors with the chance to play with the product of some of the city’s emerging young talents.

The most successful aspect of the City of Dreams is its accessibility to the public, young and old. The mini golf course is everything but traditional, from a CNC-milled hole that resembles a guitar, to a replica of a rooftop, to a pigeon coop. Figuring out what the hole does is half the battle. Large-scale sculptures provide lounge space, a platform for a DJ, and large mirrors that one can manipulate to reflect the sun off of the adjacent building. One of the most poetic pieces called the “Temple of Truth,” by Jennifer Upchurch, Chris Niederer, and Douglas Hart, is a three-dimensional wooden eye. Made from prefabricated wood columns and chalkboard, the spiraling enclosure offers visitors a place to sit and scribble what’s on their minds. The structure becomes the backdrop for a communal art piece that washes away and is renewed with each rainfall.

The city is the stage for many events, but there are few outdoor arenas for emerging visual artists, and fewer still that provide space for artwork to remain installed for almost half the year. I hope FIGMENT continues to grow, expanding the program to take over more of the island’s open space. Governors Island could be a leading host to the latest in cutting-edge art, giving exposure to unknown artists and breathing new and refreshing life into public spaces.