Author: Jessica Sheridan Assoc. AIA LEED AP

In theory, the Intern Development Program (IDP), helps emerging designers obtain a varied experience in the practice of architecture. In addition to the Architect Registration Exams, the three-years-worth of required hours are supposed to extend the education of designers and prepare them for the pitfalls of licensure. The system is also set up to let employers know what is required of them when they train their interns. Unfortunately, practice is never as smooth as the principles. Ask any intern or recently licensed professional, and you will get an earful of what barriers they had to overcome to complete and file their hours. Part of the reason fewer designers are getting licensed, I believe, is because of the complicated and costly bureaucracy that many do not see as necessary for practice.

This Saturday, 06.28.08, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) will vote on an initiative that will make the IDP process even more difficult. Resolution 2008-07, which includes the “6 Month Rule,” will require interns to file their training units every six months. Training units not reported in a timely manner will expire on a rolling clock after eight months. The National Associates Committee has voiced opposition, and now the AIA National Board has announced a formal position against the resolution as well.

A rolling clock should not be a deciding factor on whether or not one’s experience is valid. While NCARB may be trying to prevent interns from filing all of their hours at once, the organization should focus more on how to help designers become architects. There are many ways it can do this, from establishing guidelines for designers who were educated and/or practiced abroad, to requiring that firms set up committees or programs that help interns complete their hours. It could establish more scholarships to help pay NCARB fees, and work toward making the training unit forms Mac-friendly, not just PC-based. Ultimately, NCARB should help the profession thrive, not hinder its growth.

To read more, the Boston Society of Architects and the AIA Emerging Professionals website have the information well organized online. There is an active discussion thread debating the pros and cons of the initiative on the AIA Archiblog. And the AIA has published FAQ’s on the resolution.

The Coney Island Development Corporation (CIDC) launched the Coney Island Fun Guide. The online resource contains everything from daily event listings, to the Brooklyn Cyclones schedule, maps and addresses for local attractions.

(Continued from above)

e-O: Tell me about how you researched and developed the site model.

Christopher Pounds: The first thing that leapt out at us was the large dip in the site’s typography. We then took note of Riverside Drive, the MTA bridge, and the subway that comes out of the ground, and from there we looked at what programs on the site are useful to the community. We kept those programs and cleared others out to create an open space. Because two bridges are already lifted off the ground, we proposed a scheme that was also lifted off the ground, providing open access to those programs from all sides.

Anna Kostreva: We decided to create trajectories from the street and another building that has elevated functions. Around nine stories up, we developed a circular ring creating cohesiveness for the university.

CP: In some ways it’s a critique of the Columbia campus, because the campus is gated off and we’re introducing direct access from all sides. We tried to provide many points of access on the campus. Those points are where we located vertical towers that contain libraries.

AK: The idea is that whoever is coming in from the university would access the university through a library relating to neighboring academic programs. Individuals come into the university structure either in a virtual or physical way. The endeavor for knowledge is what’s holding the university up.

So people come up through the library, access the university, and then the framework of the circle level acts both as interior and exterior where people move from one locus to the next.

CP: Our matrix also suggests how the campus can expand for the next few hundred years. There’s a finite quality to the circle, but portions extend out, suggesting trajectories for future generations.

AK: The towers can also expand upward, and the framework toward the interior.

e-O: Once the matrix was established, how did the rest of the students in the studio integrate their projects?

CP: Some chose to completely reject the structure, some chose to directly integrate. There are some projects that worked with the ground, even though the matrix is elevated, and these projects challenged the matrix. There is also a wide variety of scales among the projects. Dennis and Raye’s project integrates with the structure. Tom placed his tower completely out of the matrix, but it works with the ground in a specific way.

Dennis Murphy: We saw the matrix as the generator for our project. We incorporated a pier near the river’s edge between Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, and we oriented a vertical tower in the center.

Raye Levine: We started with a program of a marketplace. We wanted to create a center where everyone in the university can gather. Plazas provide exhibition space for artwork. We developed a center displaced from the center [of the matrix] where the city ends and water begins.

DM: The program is for an exchange of knowledge, not necessarily just art.

RL: And also the university and city can branch out into the water.

DM: One other thing is that we never saw our project as being just for students. Students and the public can use the space. That’s really important to us.

Tom Brooksbank: I imagine that my tower is an alter ego on the site, because during the day it’s dark, and at night it lights up. It would be an “other,” a presence on the site. I was also trying to find a way to make an ambiguous space, where you can’t really tell which elevation you are looking at or how deep it is.

The program is for photosensitivity research. There isn’t really a cure or a known reason for this sun allergy. So the ground level is in essential darkness that would be for research, healing, and living for those extreme cases. Then the building would get lighter as you go up. Within the building are these curvilinear spaces that wrap around the human body as you move through it. I tried to find a completely new type of space.

e-O: Did you find that the studio agreed on any ideas about what a “campus of the future” could be?

LW: They thought not so much about permanent monuments, but about temporary structures that can come and go rather than be fixed. There was a lightness and transience to design. It gives way to a transparency rather than opacity of morals.

AK: The idea of movement among disciplines was taken on by a lot of students, which was promoted by our matrix by having circulation at different levels and direct connections between structures themselves.

e-O: How did working on this project change your idea of what urban planning/architecture is?

TB: It’s a laboratory to try and find things that could reappear and develop later in our work. It’s 32 different ideas of what architecture can become. Also, there isn’t any right or wrong. It’s about choices and taking them as far as you can.

AK: For us [as master planners], it was a struggle to articulate something at an urban scale and a unified whole, while still allowing the individual projects to have an identity.

CP: One great achievement of the project is that it’s not just a campus of the future, it’s talking about the future of education. It’s a moment that people can begin to see new ways of linking disciplines. Because the structure is so readable, people will be able to accept those changes, and new connections — or disconnections — may develop over time.

06.10.08

Now that summer has arrived, the weather is perfect for wandering around the city looking for new undiscovered buildings and neighborhoods. With this issue, the Downtown Alliance of New York launched a Doors of Downtown photo essay. If you can identify all of the doors in the photo essay, you may win a prize. For more information, go to the New Deadlines section.

– Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

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

If you would like to become a regular contributor to The Center, please e-mail e-Oculus.

NOTE: In the last issue, the report “AIA Convention Advocates Civic Activism” featured a panel discussion at the AIA Convention, Civic Architecture: Design and Identity in a Changing Society. AIANY member Barbara Nadel, FAIA, moderated the discussion. We regret the omission.

After Alain Robert scaled the New York Times Building to protest global warming (followed by Renaldo Clarke’s climb to raise awareness about malaria) on June 6, I read all of the reports about how management was beefing up security to prevent future incidents. While I believe precautions are needed to prevent anyone off the street from climbing, I think there is an opportunity for designers to consider how building façades might take on new life — to support the climbing community.

“Buildering” is not new. Documentation exists as early as the 1890s, according to Wikipedia. Other forms of structure scaling include a martial arts-inspired Parkour, BASE jumping, and even Craning. Robert is a celebrity in this world (his website claims he has climbed more than 70 buildings worldwide), and even though he is frequently arrested for his feats, he is sometimes paid to climb for celebratory events. Professional rock climbers ascend mountains much higher than most buildings, so why has buildering never been accepted as a professional practice?

In 2007, Dan Goodwin (a.k.a. Spider Dan), who climbed the Sears Tower in 1981, proposed the Skyscraper Defense Act calling for a new department within Homeland Security called the Skyscraper Defense Department. Goodwin intends to modify high-rise rescue procedures, appealing to cities to create a master plan for every skyscraper outlining roof rescue protocols, and to assemble a team of professionals who can rescue occupants trapped inside a building from the exterior. Exterior egress stations should be provided on each floor; refuge areas should be strategically placed throughout the skyscraper; and green, non-toxic materials should be used in construction to pose no short- or long-term ill effects to climbers.

If passed, Goodwin’s proposal would change skyscraper construction significantly.In addition to rescue procedures, the changes could also encourage a new, legal profession of “urban climbing,” establishing a more modern definition of building inhabitation.

To see up-close photographs of Alain Robert on the New York Times Building, check out The Center, AIANY blog.

Now that summer has hit the city, you can take advantage of the NYC Streets Renaissance (NYCSR) Block Party NYC. Mini-grants were awarded to fund 30 block parties intended to bring together neighbors, local businesses, and community groups by flooding streets with people, music, and art. The goal is to help re-imagine local streets through a community-led design process. As the website states, “Block Party NYC is a good, old-fashioned block party and a chance to redesign your street — all in one day.” Check out the online calendar to see where the next party will happen.