Author: Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP - Contributing Editor

Help Shape NYC’s Waterfront

Our city has more than 500 miles of shoreline that provide endless opportunities for commercial, maritime, and residential building projects, public access, and, of course, natural preservation. To accomplish these tasks, the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP) is embarking on Vision 2020: A New Comprehensive Waterfront Plan to “set forth long-range goals for a 21st-century waterfront and establish a sustainable blueprint for the future of New York Harbor, its tributaries, creeks, and bays,” according to Chair Amanda Burden, FAICP, Hon. AIANY.

The DCP wants your input in this year-long planning process. A kick-off public meeting is scheduled for 04.08.10, 6:00PM at Murry Bergtraum High School located at 411 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. You may also visit the DCP website to learn more, view the timeline, and share your ideas.

The Center for Architecture announced the six finalists of its OPEN CALL for Innovative Curtain Wall Design: Honor, Liquid Wall by Peter Arbour, Assoc. AIA, and RFR Consulting Engineers; Merit, The Integrated Concentrating Solar Façade System by HeliOptix and developed by CASE / Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Citations for Climate Camouflage: High Performance Masonry Envelope by CASE (Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); F. A. T. (Fluent Adipose Tectonic): Face Lift by form-ula; HelioTrace Façade System by SOM, Permasteelisa, and Adaptive Building Initiative, a co-venture between Buro Happold and Hoberman and Associates; and Self-Shading Curtain Wall, Kuwait University College of Education by Perkins+Will in joint venture with Dar Al-Handasah. A full-scale model of Liquid Wall will be installed this fall at the Center for Architecture…

The 2010 BSA/AIANY Housing Design Awards winners include the Artreehoose by Della Valle Bernheimer, which received an Honor Award for Design Excellence, and 40 Bond, designed by Herzog & de Meuron with Handel Architects (Architect-of-Record), which received a Citation for Provocative Design…

Six finalists have been selected for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Amanda Burden Urban Open Space Award, including Greeley Square Parks in NYC…

Francis Cauffman and its design team have been honored with a 2010 Vista Award, in the category of New Construction, for the Critical Care Building at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, which was featured in the Winter 2009/10 issue of Oculus…

Mark Strauss, FAIA, LEED AP, Senior Partner at FXFOWLE Architects, will speak about the City Regenerative Plan for the Nordhavnen Peninsula in Copenhagen and the Sustainable City for the 21st Century at the 2010 Think Green Global Forum, an international sustainability conference taking place 04.07-09.10 in Nanjing, China…

The SMPS-NY 14th Annual Honor Awards Dinner on 04.13.10 will include the presentation of the Public Sector Award to Iris Weinshall; the Media Award to Diana Darling and William Menking; the Private Sector Award to New York University; the Marketing Achievement Award to Deborah Rosenberg; the Marketing Champion Award to Leonard Koven, PE; the Pinnacle Award to Carol Doscher; and the Professional Development Grant to Jonathan Hernandez…

James Beard Foundation Awards finalists in the category of Outstanding Restaurant Design include Andre Kikoski Architect for The Wright in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and evan douglis studio for Choice Market…

Michael Van Valkenburgh will be awarded the 2010 Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture…

The Outstanding Women in the Building Industry for 2009 at the Women Builders Council (WBC) Champion Award winners include NYC-based architects E. Bruce Barrett; Nancy Goshow, AIA, LEED AP; Beth Greenberg, AIA; Debra Inwald, AIA, LEED AP; Jill N. Lerner, FAIA; and Deborah Taylor, AIA, LEED AP…

Crain’s New York 40 under 40 winners include Andrea Wenner, founder of Out2Play and Josh Lockwood, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity-NYC… Juliette Lam will be one of the recipients of the Founder’s Awards given for excellence in Business at the Salvadori Center’s Annual Cocktail Benefit on 05.05.10…

New Jersey Institute of Technology’s New Jersey School of Architecture was awarded the $25,000 Grand Prize for the 2010 NCARB Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education in the Academy….

The NJ Chapter of the AIA will induct architect Michael Graves, FAIA, as the first architect to be honored in the NJ Hall of Fame (NJHOF) in May…

The New York Restoration Project (NYRP), lead partner of MillionTreesNYC, and the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (NYASLA) are collaborating to document the trees that have been planted by reaching out to private design consulting firms and to bring attention to the fact that trees are available, potentially free of charge, for site projects… The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has named Bradford McKee the new Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Architecture magazine…

Jeffrey Williams, AIA, and Yann Leroy and interior designers Kate Greenwood and Paul Greenwood — partners at BBG-BBGM — along with the firm’s Director of China Patrick Lo branched out on their own to launch studioaria…

Michael Wood is the new Executive Director of the Association of Architecture Organizations…The McGraw-Hill Companies has appointed Keith Fox as president of McGraw-Hill Construction…

M Moser Associates announced that Allan Lee has joined the NY office as a director of strategic planning…NBBJ named three new principals in its New York office during its annual awards and promotions ceremony: Mark Lippi, AIA, LEED AP; Sarah Markovitz, AIA; and Jay Siebenmorgen, AIA, LEED AP…

03.22.10: Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney visited the Center for Architecture.

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(L-R): Terrence E. O’Neal, AIA; Margaret Castillo, AIA, LEED AP, AIANY First VP/President Elect; AIANY President Anthony P. Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney; AIANY Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA; and Margery Perlmutter, AIA, Esq., Director for Legislative Affairs, AIANY.

Michael Toolan

03.26.10: AIANY Consortium members attended the World Urban Forum 5: The Right to the City-Bridging the Urban Divide in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Consortium

Consortium members Urs P. Gauchat, Dean of NJIT College of Architecture and Design; Margaret Castillo, AIA, LEED AP, 2010 AIANY First VP/President Elect; James McCullar, FAIA, 2008 AIANY President; and Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, professor at CCNY.

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA

Adolfo

Consortium members Lance Jay Brown, FAIA (left), and Margaret Castillo, AIA, LEED AP, with First Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy Adolfo Carrión, Jr.

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA

AnnaT

UN Habitat Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka.

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA

03.23.10: openhousenewyork’s annual benefit.

OHNY

Anderson Architect’s Caroline Otto, AIA, president of openhousenewyork (OHNY), presented Richard Meier, FAIA, FRIBA, with the 2010 Made in New York Award for his lifetime commitment to excellence in architecture and support for OHNY.

Linda G. Miller

2010 Oculus Editorial Calendar
If you are an architect by training or see yourself as an astute observer of New York’s architectural and planning scene, OCULUS editors want to hear from you! Projects/topics may be anywhere, but architects must be New York-based. Please submit story ideas by the deadlines indicated below to Kristen Richards: Kristen@ArchNewsNow.com.

THE 2010 THEMES:
Spring: Architect as Leader: (CLOSED).

Summer: AIANY Design Awards 2010: (CLOSED).

Fall: Thinking Back / Thinking Forward and Understanding the Shift: The recession has given us the opportunity to reflect on the last decades of design and building — and what might be ahead. We will investigate trends in design, building, and marketing that are coming into play. What are the next steps in social media, BIM, sustainability, technology, competitions, stalled projects, adaptive re-use, design for flexibility, mergers and firm acquisitions?
Submit story ideas by 05.21.10

Winter: Practice without Borders: The world is growing smaller. New York is an international city, and it is easier than ever for overseas firms to work here and for New York City firms to work abroad. We will look into reciprocity, licensure, removal of boundaries to practice, and international competitions as ways to build renown.
Submit story ideas by 08.13.10

04.09.10 Applications Deadline: Bolt to Jamaica Stadium Design Program

04.19.10 Call for Submissions: AIA Small Project Practitioners Journal No. 50: Partners

04.23.10 Call for Entries: New Practices New York 2010

04.26.10 Call for Entries: 2010 AIANY Design Awards

04.30.10 Call for Entries: Iron Designer Challenge

05.03.10 Call for Entries: The Douglas Haskell Award for Student Journals

05.10.10 Call for Entries: The Earth Awards — $50,000 Grand Prize

05.10.10 Call for Entries: 2010 YAF/COD International Ideas Competition: Temporary/ Permanent Relief Housing

05.14.10 Call for Submissions: Architype Review — Hotels

05.31.10 Call for Entries: Private Plots & Public Spots

06.04.10 Call for Submissions: Land Art Generator Initiative

06.21.10 Call for Entries: Cocktail Napkin Sketch (pdf)

Through 04.10.10
Two Decades: Envisioning Space

SVA

Courtesy of School of Visual Arts

Selected works by current students and alumni from the BFA Interior Design Department over the past 20 years. Divided into six sections — prototypes, renderings, models, and drawings — the exhibition provides a “behind the scenes” glimpse into the creative process of students in the department.

School of Visual Arts

Westside Gallery, 133 West 21 Street, NYC

Through 04.23.10
Ouroboros: The History of the Universe

ouroboros

This 3-D visual installation tells the story of cosmic evolution.

Courtesy Ise Cultural Foundation

Video artist Ali Hossaini teams up with artists Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy, aka SWEATSHOPPE, to present the story of cosmic evolution from the Big Bang to Lady Gaga in an immersive 3-D video environment generated by SWEATSHOPPE’s own software.

ISE Cultural Foundation [http://iseny.org/usr_helio1/index.php]

555 Broadway, NYC

Through 05.07.10
Operators’ Exercises: Open Form Film and Architecture

ActressFace2

Game on an Actress’s Face, one of nine sequences of Open Form film, February 8-14, 1971.

Collaboration between students and graduates from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, students of the Faculty for Camera Operators and Faculty of Acting, ód Film Academy, courtesy Columbia University

This exhibition explores the surprising and productive relationship between Polish experimental film and architecture in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It traces the evolution of Polish architect Oskar Hansen’s theory of Open Form from its origin in Hansen’s own architectural projects to its application in film, multi-slide projection, visual games, and performative practices.

Columbia University

Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Buell Hall, 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, NYC

Through 05.09.10
Ralph Bakshi: The Streets

canal-street

Canal Street, Mixed-media on wood panel.

©Ralph Bakshi, 2010. Courtesy of Animazing Gallery

Ralph Bakshi’s new series of mixed-media construction/paintings was inspired by the gritty and colorful neighborhoods of his youth in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Animazing Gallery

54 Greene Street, NYC

Getting it Wright: Exhibition, New Restaurant Reinvent the Guggenheim

Event: AIA Member Tour: Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum
Location: Guggenheim Museum, 03.10.10
Speakers: David van der Leer — Assistant Curator for Architecture and Design, Guggenheim Museum; Andre Kikoski, AIA — Principal, Andre Kikoski Architect
Organizer: AIANY

Wright_3

The Wright.

Andre Kikoski Architect

Re-imagining the spaces of the iconic Guggenheim Museum is no easy feat. However, recently AIA members toured an exhibition and the museum’s new restaurant space that accomplish just that. David van der Leer, assistant curator for architecture and design, led a group tour of the exhibition Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum, and architect Andre Kikoski, AIA, principal of Andre Kikoski Architect, discussed his design for The Wright, a sleek dining space that occupies the museum’s former cafeteria.

On view through 04.28.10, Contemplating the Void features renderings by more than 200 international artists, designers, and architects who were asked to imagine their own interventions for the museum’s rotunda. Although the museum has installed many artists’ interventions in the past, this exhibition displays proposals without any intention of execution, freeing the artists from legal and financial constraints. The proposals range in media from detailed digital renderings to delicate hand drawings. The curators chose not to frame the works, so it looks like an “all-star studio pin up,” according to van der Leer.

The proposals are diverse: Snøhetta’s “G-String (The Guggenheim Unraveled)” depicts the unwrapped spiral re-wrapped around the neighboring Upper East Side; Toshiko Mori, FAIA’s “Soft Landing” explores her interest in textiles with nets strung across the rotunda for visitors to climb or fall into. GROUP8 imagined a Swiss chocolate extrusion of the space in its proposal “Tasting the Void,” while Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects illustrated a giant water column shooting through the space in its work, “1000m3 of water or 2,000,000 lbs.”

Unlike the participants in Contemplating the Void, Kikoski faced many restraints for his design of The Wright, including budget, schedule, and the challenge of creating a space with longevity: the restaurant will be a permanent fixture in the museum rather than a temporary installation. The Guggenheim’s former cafeteria featured dark brown carpet and bright red walls, and visitors could see all the way through to the dishwasher from the front entrance. Kikoski’s team spent time modeling the design on the computer to correct perspectives and “bring movement into a basically square space.”

Kikoski sought to “create a space to complement the museum,” which he accomplished by developing an analogous material palette, including white Corian counters, and referencing the geometry of the iconic building with swooping arcs in the form of the bar and the layered ceiling plane. For his time, Frank Lloyd Wright used daring materials and technologies, Kikoski explained, so he approached the project as he imagined a young Wright would if he were alive today and working as a young architect.

The wall behind the bar appears to shimmer with fiber-optic walnut panels that are backlit with LEDs. Tiered banquette seating upholstered in bright blue and an art installation by artist Liam Gillick inject color into the space. Yellow, orange, red, gray, brown, and beige powder-coated horizontal aluminum bars line the walls and wrap the ceiling. They bridge the building’s distinguishable portholes, but the outlines are still visible: “I didn’t want to erase or celebrate, but leave them as memory,” Kikoski said.

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

AECOM Contemplates Lessons Learned in Three New Books

Event: Book Launch: The Evolution of Design + Planning in the Age of Climate Change
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.18.10
Speakers: Joe Brown, FASLA — Chief Executive, AECOM Planning, Design + Development; Christopher Benosky, PE — Principal/Regional Director of Water and Environmental Services
Organizer/Sponsor: AECOM

BookLaunchInvite_cover

Courtesy AECOM

Many firms release monographs that are ideal for coffee tables, but AECOM’s three new books, Climate Design: Design and Planning for the Age of Climate Change, The Bigger Picture, and Asia Beyond Growth, include a broad focus beyond the firm’s work to convey concepts and solutions of interest to all designers, architects, planners, engineers, policy analysts, and academics. Joe Brown, FASLA, chief executive at AECOM and former EDAW chief executive officer and president, explained that these books are evidence of why EDAW chose to merge with AECOM last year: “They are invested in global and intellectual capital.”

In creating Climate Design, AECOM employees collaborated with academics including Peter Droege, professor at the Institute of Architecture and Planning, Hochschule Liechtenstein, an expert in renewable energy and sustainable design, to explore ways that the built environment — urban infrastructure, landscape design, and large-scale development — can adapt to changing climates and prevent further damage. The authors concluded that new technology isn’t necessarily the answer; rather, they promote a return to natural design instead of working against it. As Christopher Benosky, PE, principal and regional director of Water and Environmental Services, explained, this book doesn’t give specifics on the evidence of climate change, but offers a new way of thinking. For example, designers face the challenge of integrating buildings and cities with rivers and wetlands. “What if we look at cities as watersheds” by designing low impact developments, Benosky proposed.

The Bigger Picture celebrates AECOM’s many projects around the world, but also acknowledges where they have failed: the middle ground that lies between mega-projects such as the Saadiyat Island Cultural District, an entire new city complete with a Guggenheim Museum, to smaller designs for children’s gardens and the regeneration of Manchester city center. This book, written by Fay Sweet and designed by Pentagram, bridges between the practices of EDAW and AECOM, and documents projects from the research stage through concept, planning, and construction. Firms of any size can benefit from the lessons AECOM learned while executing these diverse works.

The “visual cacophony of Asia with numbers and facts to go along with it” describes Asia Beyond Growth, stated Brown. Packed with photos, statistics, and graphs, the volume shows that Asia is home to the world’s largest and fastest growing cities, and AECOM has completed many projects there. Not a monograph, this book is, instead, a compendium of knowledge gathered throughout these projects. Asia Beyond Growth may offer interesting information, but it fails to offer a remedy for growing pains.

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

Get Out and Sketch

Now that spring has arrived, take your sketchbook outside. For inspiration, visit the Urban Sketchers website . A nonprofit organization “dedicated to raising the artistic, storytelling, and educational value of location drawing,” Urban Sketchers provides a forum for architects and artists to submit their on-location drawings to the blog or Flickr Group. Created by illustrator and journalist Gabriel Campanario, a staff artist and blogger at The Seattle Times, he aims to organize educational workshops and raise funds for artists’ grants and scholarships. How long has been since you’ve taken the time to sketch?

FIGMENT, the AIANY Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) announced the finalists of the 2010 City of Dreams Pavilion Design Competition: ECHOMATERICO (Berardo Matalucci, Fabiano Spano, Guillermo Ivan López Dominguez, Enrico Crobu); Unchung Na and Sorae Yoo of NAMELESS ARCHITECTURE; Ann Ha and Behrang Behin; and Lonn Combs, RA, of EASTON+COMBS…

The Santa Barbara Chapter of the AIA has awarded a 2009 Honor Award to the Santa Barbara Bowl Amphitheater, designed by Handel Architects with Executive Architect DesignARC…

Daniel Libeskind, AIA, has been chosen as the 2010 recipient of the Buber-Rosenzweig Medal; he is the first architect to ever receive this honor, which is bestowed by the DKR (German Coordinating Council of Societies for Christian-Jewish Cooperation)…

Terreform ONE, jointly founded by Mitchell Joachim and Maria Aiolova, Assoc. AIA, won a Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment in the category of “Research & Initiative” for their project “New York City Resource & Mobility,” a visionary plan for NYC that converts waste to buildings and reinvents the city transit system; in the category of “Built Environment,” award winners include The High Line by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro…

Paul Seletsky, Assoc. AIA, has formed a new professional consultancy focused on advanced Digital Design services, called ArcSphere… Eugene Flotteron, AIA, has returned to CetraRuddy after spending some years working for developer Kent Swig…