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

To mark the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam’s founding, Amsterdam and New York architects swapped jobs for a week. Khoi Tran, co-founder of Urban Symbiose in Amsterdam, traded places with Joe Haberl, a designer at NY-based LEESERarchitecture. Sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior & Kingdom Relations — under the banner of NY 400 and in collaboration with the Henry Hudson Foundation — the JobSwap was designed to call attention to the Dutch contributions to the early history of the U.S. It will lay the groundwork for an ongoing grassroots cultural and academic exchange program to complement the from-the-top-down economic and political ties between the U.S. and the Netherlands. In addition to the architects, there are several other professions participating in the swaps, including bartenders, farmers, and midwives.

Architect magazine’s 2009 R+D Award Winners include LED Streetlight by Office for Visual Interaction and Werner Sobek, with Thomas Phifer and Partners; Dynamic Descent by Dean/Wolf Architects; and TKTS Booth by Perkins Eastman with Choi-Ropiha Architects and William Fellows, AIA/Perkins+Will…

2009 Open Architecture Challenge award winners include Blurred Classroom by Gensler… H Associates was awarded First Prize in the International Competition for the National Pavilion of Expo 2012 in Yeosu, South Korea, for “The 3rd Nature: Metaphorical Archipelago” in collaboration with Haeahn Architecture and Danu Architects & Engineers…

Pratt Institute will award four alumni Pratt Alumni Achievement Awards, including Young Woo, founder and principal of Young Woo & Associates and Pratt Trustee… Metropolismag.com was chosen as “best” website it its field by officeinsight…

The Museum of the City of New York unveiled its first annual list, “The New York City 400,” which includes architectural figures Gordon Bunshaft; James Marston Fitch; Cass Gilbert; Richard Morris Hunt; Ada Louise Huxtable, Hon. AIA; Margot Gayle; Phillip Johnson, FAIA; Maya Lin; Joseph François Mangin; Charles Follen McKim; Frederick Law Olmsted; I.M. Pei, FAIA; Saul Steinberg; Robert A. M. Stern, FAIA; I.N. (Isaac Newton) Phelps Stokes; William Van Alen; Calvert Vaux; and Stanford White…

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Google invite the public to vote for its favorite design among the Top 10 People’s Prize finalists for the Design It: Shelter Competition through 10.10.09. Click here to vote…

UMass Amherst and Hancock Shaker Village have announced a partnership that will create a new two-year master’s degree program that combines architecture and public history with on-site training and courses utilizing the Village’s National Historic Landmark site…

Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation has named Vishaan Chakrabarti, AIA, as the first full-time director of its real estate development program… Pratt Institute has named Assistant Chair of Undergraduate Architecture and Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture Lonn Combs as acting chair of its undergraduate architecture program, replacing Evan Douglis, who stepped down to become Dean of the School of Architecture at Rennselear Polytechnic Institute…

The Real Estate Board of New York has selected Mary Ann Tighe as its chair, the first woman to hold this position in its 113-year history… Ruth Reed has been elected the next President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)…

Einhorn Yaffee Prescott welcomes laboratory planning expert Robert DeGenova as a new Senior Laboratory Planner and William Van Horn, AIA, as a new Senior Project Director… Cannon Design announces that Eric Jaffe, AIA, has joined the firm as a principal…

RMJM is partnering with the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust to raise funds during the New York City Marathon, in which actor Ed Norton is running to benefit the Trust…

2010 Oculus Editorial Calendar
Coming soon!

01.15.10 Call for Entries: CISCA 2009 Construction Excellence Awards

Exhibition: “Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City” (through 10.12.09); “Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson” (through 09.27.09); “Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered” (through 09.13.09)
Location: Museum of the City of New York

“Mannahatta/Manhattan.”

Courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society

Four hundred years after Henry Hudson’s discovery of what has become Manhattan, the Museum of the City of New York is exhibiting three very different shows to celebrate this historic event. Viewing Manhattan both before it was “discovered” as an early Dutch settlement and in its modern-day incarnation, the lasting influence of the Dutch is undeniable.

“Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City” depicts the island at the time of Hudson’s arrival — a pristine, natural environment. Called Mannahatta by the local Lenape Indians, which may have meant “island of many hills,” the lush island was home to more than 1,000 species of plants and animals. The exhibition explores the themes of density, diversity, openness, locality, interdependence, and home. Multi-media displays include a topographical model of pre-1690 Manhattan, onto which several maps are projected showing beaver distributions, streams, and biodiversity. Pods contain backlit screens illustrating the natural environment, and viewers move through the show under taxidermy mountain lions, bears, and birds that once inhabited the region. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society and based on Eric W. Sanderson’s “Mannahatta Project.”

“Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson” presents the settlement of Manhattan by the Dutch, showing how its imprint on Manhattan extends today, evident in art, politics, business, and even street names (Broadway is Breede Weg in Dutch, and Bowery is Bouwerij). On display are rare 16th- and 17th-century paintings, engravings, and documents, and everyday objects from life in the early settlement — as well as a large-scale model of New Amsterdam. Visitors can listen to period songs and personal accounts of life in New Amsterdam. The exhibition is designed to make visitors feel as if they in the hull of a ship, complete with sails suspended above.

Finally, “Dutch Seen: New York Rediscovered” features the work of contemporary Dutch photographers who have captured portraits of New York as it is today. Described as “modern work, firmly rooted within the Dutch tradition,” the portraits, landscapes, still lifes, conceptual, and documentary photography are by artists including Rineke Dijkstra, Charlotte Dumas, Hendrik Kerstens, Erwin Olaf, Danielle van Ark, and Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin.

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

NYC members of APA, ITE, ASCE, AIA, and ASLA are invited to attend open houses introducing the recently released New York City Street Design Manual. The first of its kind for the city, the manual is a resource that aims to foster safer, more efficient, greener, and more livable city streets. The culmination of two years of work by a 10-agency task force, it provides policies and design guidelines to city agencies, design professionals, developers, and community groups for the improvement of streets and sidewalks throughout the five boroughs. Topics to be covered include:

· Purpose of the Manual and how it was developed;
· Organization and format of the guidelines;
· Benefits to users including expedited design review;
· Integrating guidelines into streetscape projects;
· Submitting suggestions and learning about updates.
The open houses will take place on 09.16.09 and 10.01.09 at the Department of Transportation headquarters, 55 Water Street, ACCO/Permit Office. RSVP to streetdesignmanual@dot.nyc.gov with name, date of attendance, organization, number of attendees, e-mail address, and phone number by 09.14.09.

The NY-based winners of the BSA/AIANY Urban Design Awards/2009 include, in the following categories: Award for Urban Regeneration, dlandstudio (Gowanus Canal Sponge Park); Award for Placemaking, Ken Smith Landscape Architect and Frederic Schwartz Architects (Santa Fe Railyard Park); Citation for Integrated Transportation and Open-Space Planning, Marpillero Pollack Architects with landscape architects Wallace Roberts and Todd (Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvement Project)…

NY-based winners of the BSA/AIANY K-12 Educational Facilities Awards for Design Excellence/2009 include: The Gluck Architectural Collaborative (The East Harlem School); Gran Kriegel Associates Architects + Planners (Family Court Conversion); Murphy Burnham & Buttrick Architects (St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s School Science Department Renovation and Addition)…

The NY-based BSA/AIANY Sustainable Design Awards Program/2009 Winners include a Citation for Innovative Use of Solar Technology to Simone Giostra and Partners (GreenPix)…

The 2009 recipients of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Illumination Awards include the Museum of Islamic Arts with lighting design by Fisher Marantz Stone, Award of Excellence, and 43 Merit Award projects by NY-based firms (click here for the complete list)…

AIANYS received an award from AIA National for being the region with the most IDP Firms…

Christian Zimmerman, Vice President for Design & Construction at Prospect Park, will be inducted into the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)…

Parsons The New School for Design has appointed Miodrag Mitrasinovic, Assoc. AIA, as dean of the School of Design Strategies and Radhika Subramaniam as director and chief curator of the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center… JCJ Architecture selected Peter Bachmann, AIA, as Studio Director for the NY office…

The Architectural League of New York has moved to 594 Broadway… Westlake Reed Leskosky, Cleveland’s largest architecture firm, is opening an office in NYC… Costas Kondylis and Partners has dissolved; former partners Alan Goldstein, AIA, Steven Hill, and David West, AIA, have created their own group, Goldstein, Hill and West Architects, while partner Costas Kondylis, AIA, opened his own firm, Kondylis Design…

Following the public voting portion of the “America’s Best Restroom” contest, the restrooms at Radio City Music Hall won third place…

2010 Oculus Editorial Calendar
Coming soon!

01.10.10 Call for Entries: Zerofootprint Building Re-Skinning Award