Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP – Contributing Editor – Page 49 – News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

Winners of the 2007 Building Brooklyn Design Awards include, in the categories of Arts & Culture: StudioSUMO (The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art); Community Facility: Donald Blair & Partners Architects (New Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA); Higher Education: Gruzen Samton and Davis Brody Bond (Academic Village — Kingsborough Community College); Dormitory: Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Laurence Tamaccio Design Destinations, and SLCE Architects (Feil Hall); Primary Education: Gran Associates Architects & Planners (P.S./I.S. 395); Office: Coburn Architecture (West Elm Corporate Offices); Civic Works: Perkins Eastman (Brooklyn Supreme & Family Courthouse); Residential-Affordable: Feder & Stia Architects (277 Gates Avenue); Residential-1 to 5 Dwellings: Coggan + Crawford Architecture + Design (South Slope Condominiums); Residential-Multi-Family: Office 606 Design + Construction (L3 Condominiums); Retail: MADE (One Girl Cookies)…

Winners of the 2007 MASterwork Awards of the Municipal Art Society include: Best New Building: Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners; Best Neighborhood Catalyst: Fairway Market in Red Hook by Susan Doban Architect; and Best Commercial Restoration: Battery Maritime Building by Jan Hird Pokorny Associates.

Economic Impact Award winners include the Expansion of NY Marriott Hotel at Brooklyn Bridge by William B. Tabler Architects, SB Architects, and Moss Gilday Group; and Twin Marquis, Inc. by Luis P. Wong. Design & Economic Impact award winners include, in the categories of Mixed-Use: Red Hook Stores by Susan Doban Architect and Energy Concepts Engineering…

Chris Calori, Affil. AIA, and David Vanden-Eynden of Calori & Vanden-Eynden/Design Consultants were named Fellows of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD)… The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has named 13 new honorary members including Susan S. Szenasy, Editor-in-Chief, Metropolis magazine… Peter A. Gross, AIA, has been named Principal of Swanke Hayden Connell Architects… Meltzer/Mandl Architects has appointed Evan L. Schwartz, AIA, NCARB, Director of Design… Mayor Bloomberg appointed Janette Sadik-Khan as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT)… Kimberly Szinger, P.Eng., PE, LEED AP (Stantec Consulting, Ltd.) assumes the position of President (2007-2008) of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) on July 1, 2007…

New York Institute of Technology‘s (NYIT) 2007 Solar Decathlon team has re-launched its interactive website… Solar One, BIG!NYC’s sibling organization, was just awarded $3 million in Mayor Bloomberg’s new budget…

Oculus 2007 Editorial Calendar
If you have ideas, projects, opinions — or perhaps a burning desire to write about a topic below — we’d like to hear from you! Deadlines for submitting suggestions are indicated; projects/topics may be anywhere, but architects must be New York-based. Send suggestions to Kristen Richards.
09.07.07 Winter 2007-08: Power & Patronage

05.21.07 Submission: Higher Education Facilities Design Awards 2007
The Boston Society of Architects is looking for design excellence in Higher Education Facilities. Facilities can be public or private and built anywhere in the world after January 1, 1999 and may be new construction or rehabilitations. Firms entering must either submit projects built in or reside in New England. Questions should be directed to Richard Fitzgerald.

05.24.07 Submission: A|L Light & Architecture Design Awards
Architectural Lighting (A|L) magazine seeks to honor outstanding and innovative projects in the field of architectural lighting design. Acknowledging notable issues in lighting design and design techniques particular to lighting, A|L also presents the A|L Virtuous Achievement Awards (ALVA), which recognizes projects that achieve the Best Use of Color; the Best Incorporation of Daylight; and the Best Lighting Design on a Budget. All winning projects will be published in the July/August 2007 issue of A|L and be featured on the website.

05.30.07 Statement of Qualifications: City of Lake Elsinore Design Competition
This design competition solicits ideas for the development of a new civic center in California — which could include a new city hall, council chambers, post office, public library, business incubator, and other government offices or mixed uses in a campus setting. Two sites have been selected for development that differ in size and surrounding environment, but both are relevant to Lake Elsinore’s historic roots and can catalyze downtown development.

06.22.07 Submission: AIA New England’s People’s Choice Awards 2007
Firms submitting project(s) to the AIA New England Design Awards Program may submit an additional display board of a project to the People’s Choice Awards program that will be exhibited at the Ring’s End Showroom prior to the AIA New England Annual Conference October 5-7, 2007 in New Canaan, CT. Visitors to the showroom and library can vote for their favorite projects. The project submission may or may not be the same as that submitted to the Design Awards program. For more information, click the link or contact Joanne Reese at AIA Connecticut.

06.29.07 Submission: Waterfront Awards Program
This awards program will honor waterfront projects, plans, citizen’s efforts (“The Clearwater Award”) and, new in 2007, student awards. Entries are judged by an interdisciplinary jury, and selected entries will be on display on the Waterfront Center’s website. The awards ceremony will take place during the Center’s annual conference November 2, 2007 in Boston.

07.05.07 Submission: Sinocities Awards 2007
FAR Architecture Center Shanghai is holding an international open ideas architecture design competition on new public space. Designers choose a site on Sinocity, a fictional growing city in the heart of China, and apply their innovative designs. All interested architects and related professionals such as architects, urban planners, landscape architects, and students may enter. All projects will be exhibited in Shanghai in August 2007. Winners will receive 35,000 RMB (EUR 3,500) in total, and the award winner will be invited to Shanghai to the Award Ceremony.

07.27.07 Proposal: The Design Trust: Healthy NYC
The Design Trust for Public Space is issuing an RFP focusing on the need to plan for NYC’s healthy future. Mayor Bloomberg’s plaNYC 2030 states that our city will soon be home to over 9 million city residents, older infrastructure, and a less predictable environment. A healthy NYC 2030 — i.e., a city that we all still want to live in — depends on our ability to act now, directing the city’s growth to achieve our goals for the future. Each project proposed should explicitly address this issue.

09.17.07 Registration: Self Sufficient Housing
The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia is issuing an international summons to architects, designers, and students. This competition encourages the design of a “SELF-FAB HOUSE,” self-sufficient dwellings that anyone can build. Using industrial or traditional craft-based techniques generated by digital processes, software-driven manufacturing, with a focus on sustainability, the prize (total value: 39.500,00 EUR) will be distributed at the discretion of the jury.

Exhibition Announcements

“Chinese Pavilion” (model), 2005, brass.

Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Through 07.29.07
Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture
Since the early 1990s, Frank Stella has designed various architectural structures, including a band shell, pavilions, and museums. Works range from small models to a quarter-scale mock-up and features how Stella’s formal concerns transitioned from painting to wall-reliefs to freestanding sculpture, to architecture. The exhibition is concurrent with Frank Stella on the Roof, on view through 10.28.07.

The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave, NYC

Global Village Shelter.

Through 09.23.07
Design for the Other 90%
Design solutions that address basic needs for the vast majority of the world’s population not traditionally serviced by professional designers are on display. More than 30 works include: “LifeStraw,” a mobile personal water purification tool; furniture made from hurricane debris through the Katrina Furniture Project; and Nicholas Negroponte’s “One Laptop per Child” project, an inexpensive, universal laptop computer. Organized by curator Cynthia E. Smith, along with an eight-member advisory council, the exhibition is divided into sections focusing on water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy, and transportation, and highlights objects developed to empower global populations surviving under the poverty level or recovering from a natural disaster.

Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution
2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue, NYC

Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies.

Courtesy James Sanders

05.25.07 through 06.22.07
Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies
This multimedia installation, based on the award-winning book by designer and writer James Sanders, will whisk visitors into a cinematic city with large-scale projections from NY films and never-before-seen “process” footage from Hollywood. Exhibited are five, three-story-tall “scenic backing” paintings from the studio era of the 1940s and 50s, recreating views of NY including the U.N. (from “North by Northwest” — the actual painting Cary Grant ran in front of) and the old Penn Station. Many of these artifacts have never been seen before in public.

Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal
15 Vanderbilt Ave, NYC

Carpenter’s Thousand Points of Light

Event: Environmental Refractions
Location: The Cooper Union, 04.10.07
Speaker: James Carpenter — principal & founder, James Carpenter Design Associates
Organizer: The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union

Glass panels with blue reflectors create the effect that 7WTC is merging with the sky.

Jessica Sheridan

Light conveys information and defines our surroundings. The work of James Carpenter, principal and founder of James Carpenter Design Associates, explores perceptions of light in transmission, reflection, and refraction, often abstracting images brought in from outside (sun, sky, water, trees). Carpenter discussed a few of his early projects as part of the Feltman Lectures, a series dedicated to advancing lighting design through the exploration of practical, philosophical, and aesthetic attributes of light and illumination.

The Luminous Glass Bridge was designed to enrich and awaken users’ perception of nature. A chapel in Indianapolis is a meditative environment created through structural glass prisms that split the visible spectrum into the blue to yellow range. A glass screen for the Rachofsky Residence, designed by Richard Meier, FAIA, is virtually structure-free. The edge of the glass is revealed, and privacy is created on one side constructed of glass with heightened reflectivity.

Carpenter’s interests predominantly focus on daylight rather than artificial light, but he has begun to integrate LED technology in his projects since it reacts similarly to natural light. He explored both realms in the enclosure, lobby, and podium light wall in 7 World Trade Center. The façade enclosure celebrates the incredible quality of light in Manhattan, according to Carpenter. The 8-inch-deep skin is composed of glass panels with blue stainless steel reflectors at the sill, creating an effect that the building is merging with sky. The base of the building enclosure is constructed of two permeable layers that conceal a Consolidated Edison sub-station. The first layer blocks views during the day, and at night a stainless steel scrim reflects light from LED sources — proving that our perception is easily altered through the abstraction of light.

Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, is a designer with TEK Architects and Director of Forward, the quarterly publication of AIA’s National Associates Committee.

Challenging the Glass Box

Event: Daylight and the City: Day Lighting in New York City Part 2, 1961 to Present
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.18.07
Speakers: Margaret Maile — design historian and Matthew Tanteri — daylighting consultant, Tanteri+Associates
Panelists: John An — principal daylighting, shading design, and lighting energy analyst, Atelier Ten; Florian Idenburg — project architect for the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NYC, SANAA
Moderator: Margaret Maile
Organizer: New York Section of the IESNA

As a follow up to last fall’s Part 1 of Daylight and the City, Tanteri+Associates’ Margaret Maile, design historian, and Matthew Tanteri, daylighting consultant, reconvened with a group of panelists to discuss daylighting in modern NYC. Starting where they left off (the Seagram’s Building and the 1961 Zoning Ordinance), panelists discussed where we’ve come since then and how history has influenced daylighting strategies today. Though the “glass box” is still an icon of contemporary architecture, designers no longer treat it as a sealed, artificially lit, interior environment. Modern technology and trends towards sustainable design have changed the way we articulate building façades and address daylighting. Panelists debated about whether daylighting is an art of a science and whether occupants should be entitled to “daylight rights” in the same way that air rights are regulated. It was agreed that sun charts are essential tools to evaluate the sun, despite more advanced technology available.

To illustrate a modern approach to daylighting in NYC, Florian Idenburg explained his strategies in the design of the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery. Early in the design process, his team conducted a zoning analysis of surrounding buildings to predict future sunlight patterns. The eight-story massing and expansive program occupies the entire zoning envelope. Three large galleries read as boxes that shift within the envelope in order to “let light in and people and art out.” Further strategies to admit daylight include the building’s permeable skin and integrated skylights that are grated to allow firefighter access. The grating itself was carefully selected and tested with a full size mock-up in order to allow the maximum penetration of daylight.

The modern condition and our love affair with the glass box continue to present challenges for daylighting, as designers grapple with issues of glare and thermal performance. Daylight is a major measure of success in a lighting strategy.

Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, is a designer with TEK Architects and Director of Forward, the quarterly publication of AIA’s National Associates Committee.

In this issue:
·AIA Teams Up with Google Earth
·AIANY Members to Speak at GSD
·Big Apple Tour of San Antonio

AIA Teams Up with Google Earth
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) launched two new AIA layers in Google Earth with the software’s recent upgrade: Blueprint for America and America’s Favorite Architecture. Marking AIA’s 150th anniversary, the AIA and Google Earth partnership demonstrates architecture’s impact on the world to more than 200 million Google Earth users.
America’s Favorite Architecture layer features the American public’s favorite structures, as selected by a Harris Interactive poll announced earlier this year. Google Earth users can now see newly-created 3-D models of the ballparks, bridges, buildings, and memorials that characterize architecture and comment on the poll results.

The Blueprint for America documents community service efforts funded by the AIA, in which AIA members donate their time and expertise to collaborate with community leaders and local citizens to address issues such as homelessness, sustainable communities, and downtown revitalization. Clicking on the Blueprint for America layer enables users to explore how AIA members and local citizens are working together to resolve real issues in their communities.

To learn more, either go to the websites, or watch the AIA/Google Earth YouTube video available online here.

AIANY Members to Speak at GSD
The Summer 2007 Executive Education program held by the Harvard Graduate School of Design comprises some 40 workshops covering design, real estate, business development, management, planning, and technologies. AIA New York Chapter member speakers include Randolph Croxton, FAIA; William Pedersen, FAIA; Walter Chatham, FAIA; Stephen Kliment, FAIA; Gregory Beck; Raymond Bordwell, AIA; J David Hoglund FAIA; Robert A. Klein, AIA; and Paul Milana, AIA. For details, visit the website or telephone: 617.384.7214.

Big Apple Tour of San Antonio
By Jeremy Edmunds, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

While forgetting the Alamo may be forgivable, missing the array of programs your peers are serving up later this week is not. Come support your fellow New Yorkers who are presenting or moderating 25 programs at the AIA Convention. Topics range from spicing up your presentations to improving your writing skills to choosing technologies to deliver your projects. New Practices New York will be exhibited; a reception for AIANYS will celebrate new Fellows and Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, this year’s Topaz Award Winner. AIAS and Architect magazine will throw parties Thursday evening. The Council of Architectural Component Executives (CACE) will host a luncheon on Friday highlighting reasons to come to NYC in August. Friday evening the new Fellows will receive their medallions at the Alamo.

A full list of events and seminar handouts (to conserve this year’s convention is paperless!) are available online. Following is a list of all programs with NY-based speakers and significant events by day and time. Enjoy!

Wednesday, 5/2

8:00 AM-12:00 PM
· WE02 The Human Connection: Bring Your Presentations to Life!, Carol Doscher; Rich Swingle
· WE14 Tall Buildings at Work: The New High Performance Office, David White with Vidar Lerum, PhD, Assoc. AIA; Eui-Sung Yi

8:30 AM-5:30 PM
· WE25 Integrating Green Design with Historic Preservation — NWA, Roy R. Pachecano, AIA, APA, NCARB; David J. Pfeffer, Esq. with Brian Chandler; APA, Stephen Colley, AIA

1:00-5:00 PM
· WE33 Sustainable Lighting Challenges, Barbara Cianci Horton with James Benya; Gilbert Lang Mathews, Esq.
· WE35 Writing for Success in Architecture Practice: Improved Tools and Techniques for Clear Communication, Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA

6:30-9:00 PM
· New Practices New York Exhibition opening at Blue Star Arts, 101 Bowie St., San Antonio, TX

Thursday, 5/3

10:00-10:50am
· AIA Candidate Speeches and Regional Caucuses

1:30-3:00 PM
· TH04 Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design, Robin Guenther, FAIA, with Kira Gould, Assoc. AIA; Sandy Mendler
· TH08 Sustaining Our Elderly, Mitch Green with Jeffrey W. Anderzhon, FAIA; Ingrid Fraley, IIDA
· TH17 Creating Sustainable Psychological and Physiological Designs, Vincent Smith with Lisa Krumins; Barbara Lyons Stewart, AIA

3:00-4:30 PM
· E10 AIA Honors and Awards Ceremony

4:00-5:30 PM
· TH34 Greening Affordable Housing: New Innovations from the Field, William Stein, AIA, LEED AP with Bruce Hampton, AIA, LEED AP; Bill Roschen, AIA; Walker Wells, AICP, LEED AP
· TH48 Sustainability, Design, and Innovation, Susan Szenasy with Kira Gould, Assoc. AIA; Lance Hosey, AIA, LEED AP; Henry Siegel, FAIA
· TH49 Drivers of Change: Energy, Water, and Climate Change, Fiona Cousins, PE, LEED AP, Jessica Strauss, AIA, LEED AP
· TH51 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Forum

6:30-9:00 PM
· AIA New York State Reception at Aztec on the River, 201 East Commerce Street

Friday, 5/4

8:15-9:45 AM
· FR08 Lessons Learned from the ArchVoices Essay Competition, Elizabeth Donoff with Matt Ostanik, AIA, CSI
· FR09 Innovation and Sustainability in Blast — Resistant Design, Robert Smilowitz, PhD, PE, with Ken Hays; Kevin O’Connor, AIA, LEED AP; Morgan R. Williams, AIA
· FR18 Designing for Aging Baby Boomers as Opposed to Seniors: What’s the Difference?, Priscilla Wallace with Steven Wayne Goggans, AIA; Paul Morris, FASLA; Judy Schriener

10:00-11:30 AM
· Gold Medalist and Topaz Award presentations

1:30-3:00 PM
· FR30 New York New Visions: Success or Failure?, Alexander Garvin, APA; Rosalie Genevro; Mark E. Ginsberg, FAIA, APA; Mark Strauss, FAIA, AICP
· FR36 New York City Builds on Its Legacy, Laurie Kerr, LEED AP; Karen K. Lee, MD, MHSc, FRCPC; Deborah Taylor, AIA, LEED AP
· FR39 Advocacy Tactics for a Sustainable Endgame: The Politics of Sustainability, Jeremy S. Edmunds, Assoc. AIA, PE, LEED AP with Ron Faucheux, PhD, Esq.; John Norquist, Hon. AIA; Ambassador Richard N. Swett, FAIA
· FR43 Sustainable Communities in Our Nation’s Regions: AIA Honor Awards for Regional and Urban Design, J. Max Bond Jr., FAIA; Lance Jay Brown, FAIA with Constance Bodurow, Assoc. AIA, AICP
· FR47 Sustainable Design Perspectives after the Disaster, Marianne Cusato, CNU with Robert J. Berkebile, FAIA; Walker Wells, AICP, LEED AP

4:00-5:30 PM
· FR66 Making a Difference: AIA 2007 Young Architect Award Recipient’s Discussion
· FR74 Deconstructing Sustainable Interiors, Susan Szenasy with Jeff Barber, AIA, LEED AP; Carlie Bullock-Jones Thompson; Tom Paladino; Kendall P. Wilson, AIA, IIDA, LEED AP

6:00-7:00 PM
· FR80 The Viridian Loan Fund: Bringing Green Roofs to Affordable Housing, Leslie Hoffman

6:00-7:30 PM
· Fellows’ Investiture at the Alamo

6:00-8:00 PM
· New Practices at Blue Star Arts, 101 Bowie St., San Antonio, TX

7:30-11:30 PM
· E30 Fiesta! San Antonio Host Chapter Party at LaVillita

Saturday, 5/5

8:15-9:45 AM
· SA07 Resilient Green Design Teams and Processes, Kathleen Bakewell, Assoc. AIA; Gerry Lang, AIA
· SA13 Designing the Sustainable Workplace in the Civic Environment, Barbara A. Nadel, FAIA with Edward A. Feiner, FAIA; Gary Haney, AIA, NCARB; Thom Mayne, FAIA
· SA17 Design Issues and Considerations for Improving Sustainable Roofs, Douglas Stieve, AIA with Christopher W. Giffin, AIA; Richard S. Koziol, AIA, NCARB

11:30 AM-1:00 PM
· SA26 Professional Practice in the 21st Century, James Sawyer, AIA with James P. Cramer, Hon. AIA, IIDA

1:30-3:00 PM
· SA50 AIA Institute Honor Awards for Architecture

Jeremy Edmunds, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, is moderator of “Advocacy Tactics for a Sustainable Endgame: the Politics of Sustainability” on Friday May 3rd at 1:30 PM.

Terrence E. O’Neal, AIA, 2006 President of AIANYS, accepted on behalf of AIANYS the Component Excellence Outstanding Single Program Award for Government Affairs from AIA National for last year’s Spring Symposium: “One New York State: Urban Policy and Regional Design”…

The James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation has awarded two mid-career research grant awards: the Kress Mid-Career Grant, for John Matteo‘s proposal, Preservation Engineering — A New Curriculum, and a Fitch Research Grant in memory of late Trustee, Richard Blinder, for Samuel Gruber‘s study, Saving American Synagogues: Preservation materials pertaining to the history, architecture and religious significance of older American synagogues…

The AIA announced the 2007 COTE Top Ten Green Projects, including New York firms Steven Holl Architects (Whitney Water Purification Facility, New Haven, CT); and Croxton Collaborative Architects (Willingboro Master Plan & Public Library, Willingboro, NJ). Honorable mention winners included Polshek Partnership Architects (William J. Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, AR); and Kiss + Cathcart Architects (Stillwell Avenue Terminal Train Shed, NY, NY)…

The 2007 AIA Housing Awards were recently announced. The only NY-based project to win an award is the House at the Shawangunks, New Paltz, NY, by PA-based Bohlin Cywinski Jackson…

This year’s Community Planner Awards celebrate active community residents. Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of the United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park, advocate for the city’s environmental justice movement, and community-planning activist, was honored with the second annual Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award. A lifetime achievement award was presented to community board veteran Wilma Maynard of Bedford Stuyvesant. Certificates of honorable mention were given to Damaris Reyes of the Lower East Side, Harry Bubbins of Mott Haven, and Laura Hoffman of Greenpoint…

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is the 2007 International Architecture Award winner for Bridging the Rift on the Israel/Jordan border…

Nancy Aber Goshow, AIA, Managing Principal of Goshow Architects, has been appointed the North Eastern Regional Director of Women Construction Owners and Executives, a national advocacy group…

Polshek Partnership Architects founder James Stewart Polshek, FAIA, has assumed a new role in the firm as Senior Design Counsel and has, consequently, given up his partnership interest…

The National Endowment for the Arts is now accepting applications for a new Design Director to replace Jeff Speck, who is stepping down in May. The vacancy announcement can be found on the agency’s website…

5.18.07 Submission: Architect Magazine R+D Awards
New technologies are revolutionizing architecture processes. The R+D awards honor innovative materials and systems at every scale — from HVAC and structural systems, to curtain-wall and ceiling-panel assemblies, to discrete building materials such as wood composites and textiles.

06.01.07 Submission: Schedium
The AIA NY Chapter’s Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) invites drawing portfolio submissions as part of its new program, Schedium, intended to celebrate the drawing abilities of emerging architects. Artists selected from the portfolio competition may be asked to participate in a live drawing series. International practitioners are welcome. Eligibility is limited to those with an architecture degree or international equivalent, who have received an architecture degree after 01.01.91 or received their architectural license after 01.01.97, whichever is less restrictive. Four winners will receive a $1,000 stipend plus additional benefits.

06.01.07 Submission: Best Firm to Work For
The 2007 Best Firm to Work For Summit (October 4-5, 2007) recognizes the top architecture (and engineering firms in a separate category) based on the results of employee surveys. In addition to an awards reception, the two-day event will focus on Best Practices in AEC Firm Management, Hiring and Retention Strategies, The Physical and the Cultural Environment of the Workplace, Employee Compensation and Benefits, and The Organizational Structure of the Firm.

Exhibition Announcements

SOM’s Burj Dubai.

Courtesy Skyscraper Museum

Through 8.07
World’s Tallest Building: Burj Dubai
This exhibition places Burj Dubai in both the historical context of the competition for the world’s tallest building and in the contemporary arena of Dubai’s explosive growth. A collective effort of 90 designers in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with a team of consultants, the design and construction of the tower is the focus. Architectural models, drawings and computer animations, wind-tunnel models, construction photographs and videos, animations of elevators and façade machinery, and a section of the curtain-wall, among other items are on view.

The Skyscraper Museum
39 Battery Place NYC

Student proposal for a community natatorium in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Karen Kuo and Glen Ho, courtesy Pratt Institute

05.07.07 through 05.18.07
Pratt Institute at Cyprus House
Pratt Institute graduate students in architecture will exhibit a variety of proposals for a new community natatorium (narrow valley) in Nicosia, capital of the Republic of Cyprus — the last divided capital in Europe. Architectural models, drawings, and computer simulations illustrating the students’ proposals will be on display with historical research and site documentation obtained by the students during the conceptual phase of their designs. The 10 students were directed in their studies by Pratt Professor Theoharis David, FAIA.

Cyprus House, Consulate of The Republic of Cyprus
13 East 40th Street, NYC

Portfolios Set Six Young Firms Apart

Event: New Practices New York: 06 Views/06 Positions
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.04.07
Speakers: Matthew Bremer, AIA — Architecture In Formation; Mark Foster Gage — Gage/Clemenceau Architects; Gordon Kipping, AIA — G Tects; Tobias Armborst — Interboro Partners; Amale Andraos — WORK AC; Marianne Hyde — Zakrzewski Hyde Architects
Moderator: William Menking — Founder & Editor, The Architect’s Newspaper & New Practices Showcase Jury Chair
Organizer: AIA NY New Practices Roundtable 2007; The Architect’s Newspaper
Sponsors: Häfele America; MG & Company; Fountainhead Construction; Microsol Resources

Courtesy Center for Architecture

Much of winning the New Practices New York Showcase competition depended on how successful the submitted portfolio appeared to the judges. “It’s more important how it looks on the page,” explained jury chair William Menking, founder and editor of The Architect’s Newspaper. Some of the portfolios reviewed were “really bad.” So what do jurors look for in a good portfolio?

Firms could submit up to 10 projects, but most submitted fewer. Portfolios had to be in an 8 1/2″ x 11″ format, leaving limited space “to make someone fall in love with you,” said Mark Foster Gage of Gage/Clemenceau. Matthew Bremer, AIA, of Architecture In Formation approached the portfolio design process as a way to “say the most with the least.” Amale Andraos of Work AC looked for outside assistance — she and partner, Dan Wood, AIA, hired a graphic designer to “read” the firm and establish guidelines for their portfolio.

Emerging architects are often confronted with the issue of how to present their work, often choosing to collaborate with others or with a more established firm. Interboro Partners didn’t show any built work. They followed a strategy that “started out with a thesis and then tried to support it,” according to firm principal Tobias Armborst. Marianne Hyde of Zakrzewski Hyde Architects explained that she and her partner/husband, Stas Zwkrzewski, used a timeline at the beginning of their portfolio to clarify their professional careers.

The New Practices New York competition provides a forum and resource for recently established architecture firms. An exhibition was held at the Center for Architecture in March 2006, and each firm creates an installation at the Hafele Showroom. The next installation in May will be constructed by Work AC, and a discussion with the firm’s partners will occur at the Häfele Showroom May 10. Click the link for more information.

Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, is a designer with TEK Architects in New York City and Director of AssociateNews, the national quarterly publication of AIA’s National Associates Committee.