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

Event: Fit-City 4: Promoting Physical Activity through Design
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.08.09
Public Context of Active Design Guidelines: Thomas Farley, MD, MPH — Commissioner, NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH); David J. Burney, FAIA — Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC); Janette Sadik-Khan — Commissioner, NYC Department of Transportation (DOT); Robert LiMandri — Commissioner, NYC Department of Buildings (DOB); Matthew Sapolin, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities
Opening Keynotes: Lynn Silver, MD, MPH — Asst. Comm. DOHMH (Introduction); Professor John Pucher — Rutgers University, Bicycling Policy; Dr. Gayle Nicoll — Chair, Department of Architecture, University of Texas at San Antonio
Panel 1: Presentation of Active Design Guidelines: Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, FR CPC — Deputy Director, DOHMH; Wendy Feuer — Assistant Commissioner, Urban Design & Art, DOT; Alexandros Washburn, AIA — Chief Urban Designer, NYC Department of City Planning; Victoria Milne — Director, Creative Services, DDC; Keith Wen — Acting Director, Code Dev. & Interpretation, DOB; Laurie Kerr — Senior Policy Advocate of Sustainability, Mayor’s Office
Panel 2: Responding to Active Design Guidelines: Linda Pollak, AIA — Partner, Marpillero Pollak Architects (Moderator); Nancy Biberman — President, Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCo); Betty Chen, AIA — Vice President of Planning, Design & Preservation, Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC); Kirsten Sibilia, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP — Chief Marketing Officer, JCJ Architecture; Andrew Dent — Vice President of Materials Research, Material ConneXion
Active Design Case Studies: Jean Oei — Architectural Designer, Morphosis (New Academic Building for Cooper Union) & Charles McKinney, ASLA — Chief of Design, Capital Projects, NYC Parks & Recreation (High Line)
Organizer: AIANY; DOHMH

Courtesy AIANY

“We have engineered physical activity out of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the new Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH); more than 75% of people don’t engage in exercise. While it was only his first day — actually his first hour — in his new position, he looked the part: “He has the lowest BMI of any commissioner,” commented David Burney, FAIA, Commissioner of NYC Department of Design and Construction. All joking aside, obesity, and the chronic diseases associated with it, is a serious problem in the U.S., and NYC is no exception. How can design — applied to infrastructure, urban planning, and buildings — alleviate this public health epidemic? Fit-City 4 sought to address this question by bringing together public officials, health professionals, architects, and designers to participate in a series of panel discussions at the Center for Architecture.

The DOHMH with the Departments of Design and Construction, Transportation, and City Planning have developed New York City Active Design Guidelines. Available this fall, the document will present design strategies to support the integration of healthy behaviors into the daily lives of all NYC residents. As a dense urban environment, the city affords the options of biking and walking. “‘Pedestrian’ may mean boring elsewhere, but in NYC it means ‘fabulous’,” believes Alex Washburn, AIA, chief urban designer at the Department of City Planning. Biking, however, is much more popular in Europe, cited Rutgers Professor John Pucher, who has lived car-free in New Jersey for 37 years. He pointed out that fewer women and seniors ride bikes in the U.S., probably because of safety concerns.

Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn discussed initiatives to create a safer biking environment in the city, such as the newly segregated lanes on 9th Avenue. So far, she says, 200 miles of new lanes have been created as part of PlaNYC. Betty Chen, AIA, vice president for planning, design, and preservation for Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, added that Governors Island, where cars are prohibited, recently invited the public to participate in Free Bike Fridays.

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At the scale of the individual structure, panelists agreed that designers can effectively promote activity through stair design. Victoria Milne, director of creative services for the Department of Design and Construction, believes that stairs should be “prominent, primary, pleasant, and preferred.” A successful exterior stair, according to Charles McKinney, ASLA, chief of design of capital projects for the Department of Parks & Recreation, is the entry to the newly opened High Line, designed by Field Operations with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro. Pedestrians climb an elongated staircase, gaining a new perspective while transitioning from city to park.

Designers can make stairs more accessible and appealing by adhering to optimal dimensions and using interesting, innovative materials. Andrew Dent, vice president of materials research for Material ConneXion, suggested products including fire-resistant glass with embedded LEDs for wayfinding as an option for stair enclosure, and durable, photo-luminescent signage for paving stones to indicate stair location.

An even more straightforward approach to encouraging stair use is the installation of “point of decision prompts,” such as the green signs that suggests taking the stairs to burn calories. According to Nancy Biberman, president of Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, these prompts have been very successful, increasing stair use as much as 67% in one 10-story affordable housing development.

Skip-stop elevators are also a good strategy to encourage stair use in tall buildings; for example, workers in Los Angeles’s Caltrans building by Morphosis are two times more likely to take the stairs, stated Jean Oei, architectural designer at the firm. Also by Morphosis, the new Cooper Union Academic Building in NYC aims for similar success by encouraging interaction between students and faculty in the corridors and stairs that wind through its 11-story atrium.

Active design does have its perceived roadblocks, including ADA Guidelines and clients themselves. While one might expect Matthew Sapolin, commissioner for the Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities, to be an opponent of active design, he believes that people with disabilities are open to walking or traveling farther if the appropriate programming is in place, such as rest stops or informative signs along a long, low-sloped ramp — an alternative to the traditional ADA ramp with guardrails. Kirsten Sibilia, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, chief marketing officer for JCJ Architecture, suggested ways that architects can market active design to their clients. They should engage the clients in a dialogue, she recommends; identifying established concepts clients will understand such as Energy Star ratings and LEED certifications, metrics that effectively illustrate the benefits of active design.

While codes in the 19th century focused on fighting infectious disease, posited Karen Lee, MD, MPH, deputy director of the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control at the DOHMH, the codes for the 21st century should counteract obesity-related chronic diseases. The panelists concurred that designers must take responsibility for public health by programming activity in and out of buildings. While many people prefer to take the path of least resistance — in this case, the car or the elevator — we must design provocative alternatives.

Murrye Bernard, LEED AP, is a freelance writer and contributing editor to eOculus.

Event: New Practices San Francisco: Winner’s Symposium
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.05.09
Speakers: Chris Guillard & Willett Moss — Principals, CMG Landscape Architecture; Robert Edmonds, AIA — Principal, Edmonds + Lee Architects; Thom Faulders — Principal, Faulders Studio; Owen Kennerly, AIA — Principal, Kennerly Architecture & Planning; Jeffrey Day, AIA — Principal, Min|Day; John Peterson, AIA — Founder, Public Architecture.
Moderator: Bill Menking — Editor-in-Chief, The Architect’s Newspaper
Organizers: AIANY/Center for Architecture; AIA San Francisco/Center for Architecture + Design; AIANY New Practices Committee
Sponsors: Lead Sponsor: ABC Imaging; Presenting Sponsor: Hafele; Sponsors: MG & Company; Supporter: Hawa; Friends: diamondLife, Specialty Finishes, Trespa and Yarde Metals — Hauppauge, NY, and Hotel Carlton San Francisco; Media Partner: The Architect’s Newspaper

Courtesy AIA San Francisco

AIANY’s New Practices Program, an annual portfolio competition and exhibition, has gone bi-coastal: New Practices San Francisco premiered this year with six winning firms. To kick off their exhibition opening at the Center for Architecture, which will be on view through 09.19.09, winners gathered to discuss their practices by presenting one project each.

Apparently, it is as difficult to get projects built in San Francisco as it is here, in NYC. San Francisco promotes low-scale architecture, Thom Faulders of Faulders Studio explained, but “as the city gets more complex, it gets more interesting.” Owen Kennerly, AIA, principal of Kennerly Architecture & Planning, noted that there is “a very political aspect to our work” in dealing with neighborhood associations, and it is difficult to get projects approved in San Francisco. Perhaps due to the difficulties of building in San Francisco, only CMG Landscape Architecture presented a project in San Francisco.

Faulders discussed his design for Airspace Tokyo, a multi-residential project in Tokyo. Working with Proces2, also a San Francisco-based firm, they designed a screen for the façade. The skin forms a foliage-like protective zone around the building, which was designed by Tokyo-based Studio M/Hajime Masubuchi. To make the skin appear to float, the firm created a layered, open-celled meshwork.

In developing the Day Labor Station, Public Architecture founder John Petersen explained the extensive community interview process, and how not all of the responses were positive. Luckily, the design moved forward, comprised of a canopy-covered waiting area for workers and a restroom and small kitchen to generate income. The station, like its transient population, can fit into any urban or rural environment, but the first will most likely be installed in Los Angeles.

A 40-acre site in Sonoma County provided a blank slate for the Summerhill Residence by Edmonds + Lee Architects. The three separate buildings — a main house, guesthouse, and detached garage — were articulated through a process of “simple push and pull,” Robert Edmonds, AIA, explained. Organized in a way that angled glazing makes the façades seem to reach for each other, the spaces between the buildings provide outdoor space and circulation.

Six months after Jeffrey Day, AIA, moved to Omaha for a teaching position, he started Min|Day with partner E. B. Min in San Francisco. Functioning as if in a long-distance relationship, the partners don’t feel particularly embedded in any one place. Day discussed their design for a vacation home on Lake Okoboji in rural Iowa, which establishes a sanctuary along a densely populated shore. Sited on narrow lot, the house is designed as a gradient that obscures the neighbors and opens up to the lake.

Kennerly Architecture & Planning designed a photography studio on the site of an old barn in Marin County. Situated between existing trees, the studio “touches the land lightly,” Owen Kennerly, AIA, explained. The firm salvaged redwood planks from the barn to be integrated into the floors and façade. Translucent corrugated polycarbonate forms the roof, and sheets of muslin help to modulate the light for photo shoots.

The work of CMG Landscape Architecture explores the community’s relationship to public space. The design for Mint Plaza aimed to transform a downtown back alley into a public pedestrian plaza and festival space. An arbor, rain gardens, and orange chairs shape the space and provide flexibility for the public and local workers to use.

For more information on the program, exhibition, and competition, visit the New Practices San Francisco website.

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

In this issue:
· NCARB News
· Passing: Bernard Rothzeid, FAIA

NCARB News
Now Available: NCARB Comments on the NAAB 2009 Conditions for Accreditation, Public Comment Edition
NCARB has reviewed the National Architectural Accrediting Board’s (NAAB) 2009 Conditions for Accreditation, Public Comment Edition, which was released for public comment in February 2009. NCARB used two criteria to guide its review process and develop recommendations. The first was whether the proposed language of the conditions would adversely impact the architecture profession’s capacity to serve as leaders and mentors in the world of design and construction. The second was whether the proposed language would make students less capable of successfully participating in the Intern Development Program (IDP).

NCARB’s comments centered around four areas:
· Definitions of Achievement Levels
· Application of the Definitions of Achievement Levels to the Student Performance Criteria (SPC)
· Recommended Revisions to the SPC
· Role of the Intern Development Program (IDP) Education Coordinator

To download NCARB Comments on the NAAB 2009 Conditions for Accreditation, Public Comment Edition, click the link. Information about accreditation and the schedule for development of the final 2009 Conditions for Accreditation is available on the NAAB website, too.

Passing: Bernard Rothzeid, FAIA
Bernard Rothzeid, FAIA, a co-founder of RKT&B Architects, died of leukemia on 05.25.09. He was 83 and lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn. During his more than 50 years as an architect, Rothzeid was most prominently known for his skill in the adaptive re-use of existing structures as well as historic preservation. As the long-time architect for the City Center Theater in Manhattan, Rothzeid also created two theaters for the Manhattan Theater Club and Symphony Space.

In addition to key work in restoration, Rothzeid had a longstanding involvement with residential design and health-care facility planning and design. At the time of his death, he was overseeing the design of a $30 million, 273,000-square-foot hospital complex for the American Hospital in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

Rothzeid was elected to the College of Fellows of the AIA in 1979, and in 1986 he received the Augustus Saint Gaudens Award from The Cooper Union, his alma mater’s most prestigious honor. He also taught at The Cooper Union and at the School of Architecture and Environmental Studies at City College in New York.

Contributions in his memory may be made to Cooper Union, 30 Cooper Square, New York NY, 10003. A memorial will be announced at a later date.