Author: Jessica Sheridan Assoc. AIA LEED AP

Through 4.12.09
Growing and Greening New York: PlaNYC and the Future of the City

Growing and Greening New York.

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

Organized in terms of a typical day in the life of a New Yorker, the exhibition explores the six areas addressed by PlaNYC: water; transportation; energy; open space; land; and climate change. On View are architectural models, interactive displays, diagrams, renderings, photographs, hands-on examples of new materials, videos, and more including projects such as Via Verde by Phipps Rose Dattner Grimshaw.

Museum of the City of New York
1220 5th Avenue

12.09.08

12.09.08

Polls are still open to take the seven-question survey about e-Oculus. Please take a couple of minutes to tell us what you think about the publication and how we may improve it in the future. Click here.

Also, premiering in this issue is the 2009 OCULUS editorial calendar. Check out the Around the AIA + Center for Architecture section for details.

– Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

CLICK ON BLOG CENTRAL: AIANY BLOG: The AIANY Chapter has launched a new blog. Blog Central features opinion pieces on architectural issues relevant to NY-based designers, firms, and projects, along with spotlights on debates and discussions at the Center for Architecture and AIANY. It is an informal discussion board. Be sure to check it out regularly and contribute to the dialogue.

To become a regular contributor to Blog Central, please e-mail e-Oculus. Pen names are welcome.

How Traveling Transformed Kahn

Event: Albi Cathedral & the Architecture of Louis Kahn
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.25.08
Speakers: Nathaniel Kahn — Documentary Filmmaker; Carol Krinsky — Professor of Architectural History, NYU Department of Art History; Robert McCarter — Ruth & Norman Moore Professor of Architecture, Washington University & Author, Louis I. Kahn; Sue Ann Kahn — Musician & Flute Faculty, Mannes College the New School for Music; Alexandra Tyng — Artist & Author, Beginnings: Louis I. Kahn’s Philosophy of Architecture
Organizers: AIANY; La Maison Francaise
Sponsors: AIANY Architecture Dialogue Committee; Champion: Studio Daniel Libeskind; Supporters: Gensler; HumanScale; James McCullar & Associates; Friends: Benjamin Moore & Co.; Costas Kondylis & Partners; Forest City Ratner Companies; Frank Williams & Associates; Hugo S. Subotovsky Architects; Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti; Mancini Duffy; Magnusson Architecture and Planning; Rawlings Architects; Ricci Greene Associates; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Syska & Hennessy; Trespa North America; Universal Contracting

Albi Cathedral (left) inspired Louis Kahn’s design for the Mikveh Israel Synagogue (right).

Courtesy http://www.albivisit.com/eng/albi-cathedral.html (left); courtesy http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/kahn/likmikveh.html (right)

It wasn’t until he travelled to Rome and France that architecture clicked for Louis Kahn, stated his son Nathaniel Kahn. It was among the ruins that he discovered concrete. And it was a trip to Albi Cathedral in Carcassonne, France, that he began to see drawing as a way to get at architecture.

Built by an Albigensian bishop in the 13th century, Albi is fortress-like with narrow, sunken windows rising between smooth walls on a sloping base (designed to ward off projectiles and ramming). The straightforward plan is that of a large nave flanked by chapels of equal height, and the 78-meter-tall bell tower is one of the tallest in the world.

Contrary to Kahn’s drawings before this visit, his notebooks were filled with sketches that are emotive and immaterial, said Robert McCarter, author of Louis I. Kahn. They show massings, highlighting the space around the cylindrical towers (which he believes may have influenced Kahn’s ideas of served/servant space). The volume seems to float above the ground, featuring the quality of light rather than structure. Individual bricks and stones are not drawn. Instead, Kahn focuses on walls activated by lines of light and shadow.

After his trip, Kahn produced some of his most acclaimed work. The Salk Institute, Philips Exeter Academy Library, Kimbell Art Museum, and Yale Center for British Art were all designed once he returned. The influence of Europe can be seen most clearly in the never-completed Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, according to McCarter. Albi-inspired cylindrical volumes surround a large, open space. The volumes have mirrored arches carved out of them, seeming to have been eroded by light, emulating Roman ruins. It is uncertain whether Kahn would have understood architecture in the same way without Europe, but it is clear that in the drawings that were produced, Kahn’s revelations changed his perspective on architecture.

Commission Delivers Ravitching Report

In light of the MTA’s recent proposal to raise revenue by increasing mass transit fares by 23% while decreasing service by next June, the Ravitch Commission’s report seems to be gaining momentum. A group of transportation and finance experts, chaired by former MTA chairman Richard Ravitch and appointed by Governor Paterson, have met since this past June to come up with strategies to fund MTA projects and operations over the next 10 years. While I agree with most of the proposed strategies, the key to its success lies in the statement: “Our recommendations… are interdependent and only in combination do they chart a course that will both stabilize the MTA and begin to set the region on steady footing.”

The report is a comprehensive evaluation of the current state of the MTA. Included are recommendations to: fund operating and capital needs; mitigate the proposed 2009 fare increase and service reductions; improve mass transit region-wide; and foster changes in governance, transparency, and accountability. Along with expanding regional bus service and investing more in Bus Rapid Transit, the Commission suggests raising fares and tolls on a schedule-basis (and no more frequently than bi-annually). By increasing bridge tolls and adding tolls to East River bridge crossings, subway fares would only need to increase by 8%.

The Commission wants to return power to the MTA Chairman, an elected official, and eliminate the board-appointed Executive Director position to strengthen governance in the MTA. In an effort to improve transparency and accountability, the report calls for both the NYC Independent Budget Office and the NY State Office of the State Deputy Comptroller to routinely review and make public the MTA’s financial status. It recommends instituting a Mobility Tax, a deductible expense on employers, which will pay for new borrowing and direct expenses, as well as provide full costs for current expansion projects. This will lead to a separate operating budget from that for future projects.

“Straphangers and commuters must bear an equitable burden of the costs of operation of the transit system,” the report states. While there is plenty of opposition, especially from Brooklynites such as Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz who feel that their borough will bear the brunt of the costs, I feel that it is most important for the city to make it easier for people to commute via mass transit. Other recommendations not in the report — a gas tax on MTA-served counties, a scaled tax based on car size, Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal released earlier this year — should also be considered. Ultimately, I believe that by making mass transit the most accessible and affordable route to and from the city, NYC and the MTA may be able to sustain difficult economic times.

16th Annual Canstruction New York: Yes They Could — and Did
By Kristen Richards

For the 16th time, New York architecture and engineering firms answered the call from Canstruction’s founder and Executive Director Cheri Melillo, SDA/C, Hon. AIA, to prove that “one can make a difference” — or 162,000 can, to be precise. Forty firms entered the design-build competition with ingenious sculptures made entirely of canned foods and other non-perishable, edible items.

The jury, including Stephanie Gelb, AIA, Battery Park City Authority VP, Planning & Design; artist Richard Haas; Michael Horodniceanu, Ph.D., President, MTA Capital Construction Company; James Lunday, host, HGTV’s “Rip & Renew”; Gregg Pasquarelli, Partner, SHoP Architects; and yours truly, had a tough time selecting the six winners, pictured below (any one could have fit every category).

Also honored during the awards presentation on November 20 were Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Ted Moudis Associates, each receiving a Silver Plate Award for their past 10-year commitment to the program.

The New York City competition is co-presented by the Society for Design Administration New York Chapter, the AIA New York Chapter, and arts>World Financial Center.

Jurors’ Favorite: “One Can Dream,” by Fradkin & McAlpin Associates (monochromatic elegance; shades of Brancusi).

Kristen Richards

Structural Ingenuity: “The Seafarer,” by Platt Byard Dovell White Architects (one could feel the breezes).

Kristen Richards

Best Meal: “CANda Hunger End,” by Gensler (organic and low/no-fat foods, and oh-so loveable).

Kristen Richards

Best Use of Labels: “Swan Cantata,” by Cooper Carry (elegant; uses nothing but Swanson foods; 14,568 cans!).

Kristen Richards

Honorable Mention: “United at Last,” by Butler Rogers Baskett Architects (the message is clear).

Kristen Richards

Honorable Mention: “Torque for Hunger,” by Rand Engineering & Architecture (Serra does it, but how’d they do that?).

Kristen Richards

11.06.08: Landscape architect Ken Smith (left) and Rob Rogers, FAIA, Rogers Marvel Architects, are all smiles at the New York Chapter, American Society of Landscape Architects (NYASLA) annual President’s Award Dinner, honoring The Nature Conservancy.

Kristen Richards

11.12.08: David Gauld, AIA, at the preview of the new 1,700-square-foot Lion Brand Yarn Studio at 34 W. 15 St., which he designed to be very welcoming – and very green.

Kristen Richards

11.14.08: Triple Bridge Gateway lighting hosted by Leni Schwendinger Light Projects. (L-R): Donald Fram, chief architect for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Henry Stolzman, FAIA, principal at PKSB; and lighting designer and artist Leni Schwendinger.

Charles Cameron

11.20.08: The Animal Medical Center raised $1.1 million in the 2008 Top Dog Gala.

(L-R): Brooke Astor Award recipients Judy and Michael Steinhardt with Martha Stewart.

Courtesy Top Dog Gala

A Sandi Pei-designed “Bird Pavilion” was auctioned off at the event.

Courtesy Top Dog Gala

Center for Architecture Gallery Hours
Monday-Friday: 9:00am-8:00pm, Saturday: 11:00am-5:00pm, Sunday: CLOSED

Join an Architalker for a Hosted Tour of Center for Architecture
Exhibitions
Join us for free Architalker-hosted tours of the Center for Architecture exhibitions Fridays at 4:00pm. To join one of these tours, meet in the Public Resource Area on the ground floor of the Center for Architecture.

CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

October 18 — December 19, 2008

ARCH SCHOOLS 2008

ARCH SCHOOLS 2008 is the AIA New York Chapter’s fourth annual architecture schools exhibition, and will feature exemplary student work, including drawings and models, from 14 Tri-State area schools.

Participating Schools:

The City College of New York

Columbia University

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Cornell University

New Jersey Institute of Technology

New York Institute of Technology

Parsons The New School for Design

Pratt Institute

Princeton University

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Syracuse University

University at Buffalo (SUNY)

University of Pennsylvania

Yale University

Exhibition Designer: Martina Sencakova

Lead Sponsor: Bentley Systems

Sponsors:

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Kohn Pedersen Fox

RMJM Hillier

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

Supporters:
Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners

Friends
ABC Imaging
Butler Rogers Baskett
Davis Brody Bond Aedas

Tsao & McKown Architects

October 1 — January 19, 2009

+Housing
2008 AIA New York Designs for Living Exhibition

In the coming decades, New York will confront the challenge of housing another million people in a built-up city with limited area for new construction. Aging infrastructure and environmental concerns pose additional impediments to growth. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC addresses the need for housing, and targets eight other quality-of-life issues including open space, air and water quality, and contaminated sites. Public and private developers have also begun responding to, and even anticipating, these concerns with mixed-use, hybrid designs. +Housing focuses on eight current examples which illustrate this phenomenon: public uses combined with, and often financed by housing. The essential urban institutions – parks, schools, places of worship, museums, and hospitals – are being combined with residential developments, fusing diverse typologies and increasing density. This observation creates the rubric, [fill in the blank] + Housing. The phenomenon is observable at multiple scales, from infill Hybrid Buildings with condos sitting on top of a public space, to Transformed Blocks rebuilt and rearranged into places for living, performing and gathering, to New Neighborhoods that attempt to remediate and improve old sites, shaping parks, creating spaces for culture and childcare, adding new density.

+Housing helps keep the city affordable, accessible, sustainable, and architecturally ambitious. Projects that include cultural institutions, new schools, improved infrastructure, and green roofs are often built faster and more efficiently. That said, all pluses have their minuses, and this exhibition looks beyond the benefits of the +Housing formula, examining its potential impact on the look, economy and public life of New York City.

Exhibition Curator: Alexandra Lange

Exhibition Designer:Pro-Am Inc.

Champion: Studio Daniel Libeskind

Supporters: HumanScale Corporation; James McCullar & Associates; Gensler

Friend:
Benjamin Moore & Company
Costas Kondylis & Partners
Forest City Ratner Companies
Frank Williams & Associates
Hugo S. Subotovsky Architects
Ingram, Yuzek, Gainen, Carroll & Bertolotti
Magnusson Architecture & Planning
Mancini Duffy
Rawlings Architects
Ricci Greene Associates
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Syska & Hennessy
Trespa North America
Universal Contracting

Contributor:
Anchin, Block & Anchin
Calvin Tsao
Consolidated Brick & Building Supplies
Cosentini Associates
Cross Construction Company
DeLaCour & Ferrara Architects
Domenech Hicks Krockmalnic Architects
FXFOWLE Architects
Helpern Architects
IBEC BUILDING CORPORATION
Levien & Company
Michael Zenreich, AIA Architect
Monadnock/Capsys
Myron Henry Goldfinger, FAIA
New York Building Congress
Perkins Eastman
Plaza Construction
Porter & Yee Associates
Robert A.M. Stern Architects
Roberta Washington, Architect
Rothzeid Kaiserman Thomson & Bee
Shen Milsom & Wilke
Skanska USA Building
Strategic Development & Construction
Swanke Hayden Connell Architects
Theo. David, Architects
Thornton Tomasetti
Weidlinger Associates

September 5 — January 3, 2009

New Practices New York 2008

New Practices New York 2008 is the second juried portfolio competition and exhibition in a new biennial tradition sponsored by the New Practices Committee of the AIA New York Chapter. It serves as a platform for recognizing and promoting new, innovative and emerging architecture firms within New York City that have undertaken unique and commendable strategies – both in projects and practice.

From the 52 portfolios submitted, the New Practices Committee – consisting of Amale Andraos (Work AC), Jennifer Carpenter (TRUCK), Peter Eisenman (Eisenman Architects), William Menking (Architect’s Newspaper) and Charles Renfro (Diller Scofidio + Renfro) – was expected to choose the six most promising firms. The competition winners, all of whom will be participating in our exhibition are:

Baumann Architecture

Common Room

David Wallance Architect

Matter Practice

Openshop | Studio

Urban A&O

The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of programs organized by the AIA New York Chapter in collaboration with New Practices Committee

Exhibition organized by the AIA New York Chapter and the Center for Architecture Foundation

Exhibition Design: We Should Do It All

Media Partner: The Architects Newspaper

Underwriter: Häfele

Patron: ABC Imaging

Lead Sponsors: Ibex, MG & Company, Poliform, Thornton Tomasetti

Supporters: Fountainhead Construction, FXFOWLE Architects

Beverage Sponsor: SAAGA Vodka

Related Events

Each firm will have a six-week exhibition and will be delivering a Hafele NY Showroom at 25 East 26th Street. For more information, visit Hafele’s New York showroom listing at www.hafele.com/us

11.25.08

11.25.08

As AIANY is always looking to improve, it has launched a seven-question survey about e-Oculus. Please take a couple of minutes to tell us what you think about the publication and how we may improve it in the future. Click here.

– Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

CLICK ON BLOG CENTRAL: AIANY BLOG: The AIANY Chapter has launched a new blog. Blog Central features opinion pieces on architectural issues relevant to NY-based designers, firms, and projects, along with spotlights on debates and discussions at the Center for Architecture and AIANY. It is an informal discussion board. Be sure to check it out regularly and contribute to the dialogue.

Some of the recent debates include:
· South Street Seaport Redevelopment. AIANY is supporting General Growth Properties with SHoP Architects to develop South Street Seaport. Click the link to read more about the testimony at the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

To become a regular contributor to Blog Central, please e-mail e-Oculus. Pen names are welcome.

Elderly Populations Influence Planning

Event: Home Design in an Aging World
Location: Center for Architecture, 11.17.08
Speakers: Jeffrey P. Rosenfeld, Ph.D. — Director, Gerontology Program & Gerontology Center, Hofstra University; Wid Chapman — Senior Faculty, Parsons The New School for Design
Organizer: Sarelle T. Weisberg, FAIA — Chair, Sub-Committee of the AIANY Housing Committee, New Directions for Design for Seniors
Sponsors: AIANY Housing Committee

Courtesy Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Ph.D.

Senior housing is changing in India, from dormitory-style living (left) to private, hotel-style residences (right).

In studying senior care in Asian countries such as India, China, and Japan, Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Ph.D., director of the Gerontology Program and Gerontology Center at Hofstra University, has found trends that demonstrate both a changing attitude toward the elderly and the influence of Western culture on the East. Internationally, senior centers are transitioning from “old age homes” where widows and widowers are housed when they become a burden on their families, to retreats for elderly couples called “retirement communities.”

The architecture of senior centers demonstrates an existing dual system. In India, for example, seniors are traditionally marginalized if they are unable to live at home. They are grouped with the mentally ill and drug addicts in inexpensive dormitory-style rooms with little privacy. The buildings are designed using typical vernacular construction. The newer centers, however, draw on Western models to influence the design. Rooms are private, with private toilets, and are made with materials that are used in similar centers internationally. Residents are supposed to feel as if they are staying in a hotel or spa. They can interact with the local community and engage with all generations; they are not kept out of sight, out of mind.

In China, the one-child family is transforming aged care. Rosenfeld explained that the mindset of Chinese families is such that daughters are expected to care for their husbands’ aging parents. As a result, half the population is left without care. Also, many young adults move to cities for work leaving their aging families behind. Since people are living longer, there is a demand for more senior housing, and without an existing architectural vocabulary to draw on they are looking to the West for a model. This is a similar issue in Japan. Coupled with a labor shortage, Japan is also experimenting with technology — robotic exoskeletons and care toys — to compensate for inadequate staffing.

Rosenfeld admitted that not much change has been made in architectural models themselves, with a few exceptions. The Architectural Body Research Foundation, founded by Arakawa and Madeline Gins, tries to challenge residents cognitively and sensorally. For example, the Reversible Destiny Lofts are deliberately disorienting. Materials change levels throughout and objects are placed in the middle of circulation spaces. Residents have to actively think to maneuver through the space. Whether or not this model is successful has yet to be seen, said Rosenfeld, but at least it’s innovative.

In the U.S., senior housing is changing in similar ways to Asia. Wid Chapman, senior faculty at Parsons The New School for Design, discussed how the aging population has a desire to interact with local communities, with people of all ages. People want to maintain a continuity with their past, even if they can no longer live on their own. If they are able to live at home, many are choosing to retrofit for accessibility, while others are hiring designers to create universal designs.

This September, the NY Academy of Medicine, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and the NYC Department of Health and Human Services released Age-Friendly NYC, a report on initiatives to improve the city from an aging population’s perspective. NYC is among the best cities for the elderly to live, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), stated Chapman. With accessible outdoor space, proximity to mass transportation, and contact with civic and community events, urban centers like NYC are proving to be high on seniors’ lists of preferred residences. As more studies are released, Chapman believes that urban centers are the next wave of the future for senior care.

Women Speed-Mentor to Leadership

I strongly believe in the power of mentorship in the profession, but it is often difficult to find someone who has the perfect combination of availability and willingness to share experiences and a kindred professional trajectory. The AIANY Women in Architecture (WIA) Committee has found a solution to this issue with its annual “Speed Mentoring” program.

Similar to speed dating, the rules are simple. Four women of different experience levels sit around a table, fill out a short questionnaire, exchange contact information, and talk for 20 minutes. Once time is up, everyone switches places in the room to find three new women of different experience levels to talk with for 20 more minutes. And so on.

Throughout the evening at the Miele showroom, many universal themes for practicing architects were addressed — how to start your own business, how to deal with the bad economy, how to adjust to changing technology, and how to balance work with life. Women discussed overcoming insecurities and finding a voice in the workplace; which computer programs work best for different design phases; what it was like to work as a woman in the field in the 1960s versus today; and how to maintain an interest in the field. They also talked about how raising a family had led them to either leave the profession for one with a better pay-scale and shorter hours (such as development), or start their own firm where they could be in control of their schedule.

What made the November 20 event this year so successful was the wide variety of women who gathered. From firm principals, to emerging designers fresh out of school, to women who chose related but alternate career paths, to those who left the profession altogether (even the founder of the original Women in Architecture Committee was there!), the program highlighted the most important aspect of mentorship: everyone can learn from everyone else’s experiences. Thank you WIA for providing the venue.