Category: In The News

Event: New Works: Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture
Location: Museum of Arts and Design, 01.22.09
Speaker: Brad Cloepfil, AIA — Principal, Allied Works Architecture
Organizer: Museum of Arts and Design

The Museum of Arts and Design’s new home at 2 Columbus Circle has been fraught with controversy. Preservationists decried the changes by Allied Works Architecture (AWA) to Edward Durell Stone’s Venetian-style building; some architecture critics looked at the new renovation as not going far enough toward making a bold design gesture.

In a recent talk, AWA principal Brad Cloepfil, AIA, revealed his perspective on the renovation of the museum, which opened in its new location last September. He showed no particular preoccupation with making a grand architectural statement — instead, his focus was on opening up the building to its surroundings and creating a space that feels vibrant, alive, and integrally connected with the fabric of the city.

One early scheme involved using art vitrines as “columns of light” that would penetrate vertically through the various levels and tempt visitors to explore. That idea proved impractical, Cloepfil said, but its spirit remains in a system of glassy slits that cut through the floors, allowing museumgoers to glimpse the shadows of artworks or visitors on other levels. The façade is also slitted, both horizontally and vertically, yielding views of the city to MAD visitors and allowing glimpses of the museum’s collection to people outside.

Other AWA museum projects reveal a similar concern with fostering a connection with the urban surroundings. The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis features ribbons of concrete that intersect and overlap, creating “a bounded place” that is still “intimately connected with the city,” according to Cloepfil. At the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the firm designed a soon-to-open addition that’s elevated off the ground so that “people could move through the building physically, see into the building, see through the building, and it would become a kind of filter for the activity of the campus,” he said.

As attendees wandered about after the talk, the lights of cars and buildings glowed through the strategically placed slits and windows, demonstrating the way the museum welcomes its surroundings. The architects have given a nod to the art and the design of the city.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for Oculus, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, and Wired, among other publications.

With NCARB’s launch of Version 4.0 of the Architect Registration Exams (ARE), designers seeking licensure are turning more and more to online discussion groups and chat rooms for advice from recent test takers. While it is worth celebrating all means of communication used to prepare future architects, a recent breach of the exam’s “Confidentiality Agreement” prohibiting dissemination of exam content, as well as violations of the U.S. Copyright Act, has created a rift in the system.

Several ARE candidates have been accused of posting exam questions and answers to online forums. Some of the individuals have received warnings, while others have been referred to the NCARB Committee on Professional Conduct (PCC). According to the NCARB website, “Depending on the severity of the disclosure, these candidates may have their exam score cancelled and/or all of their eligibilities suspended for six months to three years or more.”

Other than punishments awaiting the individuals, the violations are impeding the ARE process overall. NCARB and Prometric are undertaking quality control checks. This is delaying the process to alert candidates whether or not they have passed their exams. I know of someone who took an exam last November and has yet to hear if she passed. Also, NCARB is threatening to extend the six-month wait period to retake a failed division to protect the pool of questions (a test taker should never see the same version of a division). The organization may increase test costs to make up increased development and operational costs. It may even stop delivering entire divisions for a “significant period of time” to protect the tests’ content if it determines that too much information was released.

NCARB acknowledges the fine line between “helping” and “cheating.” In a profession that prides itself on responsibility and morality, I find it extremely disappointing that the line has been crossed. Surely, we are better than that.

To read the official statement made by Erica Brown, AIA, ARE Director at NCARB, click here.

In this issue:
· The Dutch are Coming!
· Religion Goes Green
· Kids Are Happy at the Blue School
· Coney Island Puts On the Glitz
· Performing Arts Center is Shell Shocked
· New York Designer Renews Florida Westin
· Hotel/Spa/Wine Center Flowers in Alsace

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The Dutch are Coming!

At a recent press conference with Dutch officials, Mayor Bloomberg announced plans for the Dutch-American celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York Harbor. Peter Minuit Plaza at The Battery will become the site of a new 5,000-square-foot New Amsterdam Plein & Pavilion, to be designed by Dutch firm UNStudio in collaboration with Handel Architects. The site will be designed as an “outdoor living room” for spontaneous and scheduled activities as well as an intermodal transportation hub, where bicycles, buses, subway, and water transportation intersect with the cultural offerings.

Walkways will feature engraved quotations from Russell Shorto’s book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America. A carved stone map of the Castello Plan, a circa 1660 map of Lower Manhattan, will grace the entrance. The open space will draw visitors with UNStudio-designed seating and tables. The pavilion will have an undulating roofline and curving walls intended to evoke an opening flower, and the façade will be equipped with LEDs allowing for a constantly changing light show at night. The site will also feature berms and perennial gardens, designed by NYC Parks & Recreation using the color palette of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf, who created The Battery Bosque Gardens and the Gardens of Remembrance. The project is made possible by a major grant from the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to The Battery Conservancy as part of the NY400 celebration and in honor of the enduring relationship between New York and Holland.

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Religion Goes Green

Out of 14 firms invited to submit proposals, BKSK Architects has been selected to design a new, 13,000-square-foot green convent for The Community of the Holy Spirit, a contemplative order of Episcopalian nuns in Morningside Heights. Design inspiration came from the nuns’ desire to connect more profoundly with the natural world and live in an environmentally friendly manner. Spaces are intended to inspire quiet contemplation, both individually and collectively. The presence of natural light and falling water are brought into sanctuaries as symbols of a divine presence. The convent will include dual rooftop gardens, rainwater collection, and energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. Also on the boards at BKSK is a green synagogue in Brooklyn.

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Kids Are Happy at the Blue School

Hudson Studio Architects has completed a new preschool/kindergarten for the Blue Man Group on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The brainchild of the three original partners of the successful theater, their latest production, the Blue School, takes the approach that art and creativity are central to education. The space itself is transformed through light and sound in ways that the students can control. The school features a versatile padded space called the Wonder Room. The padding lifts up to reveal a digital interactive floor system used for learning through light, color, and movement. The space also has a climbing wall, and is used for yoga/movement sessions. Similar to the stage show, the school has talk tubes that allow the kids to communicate between rooms and the students can use UV-sensitive paint to create a mural that can be seen when the hallway lights switch from full spectrum to black light.

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Coney Island Puts On the Glitz

City Planning Commissioner Amanda M. Burden, Hon. AIANY, announced the launch of a public review for a comprehensive rezoning plan that would re-establish Coney Island as a year-round destination and bring new economic opportunities to the area. The plan would foster a total of some 6.8 million square feet of new development, and the proposed 19-block zone would create an open and accessible 27-acre indoor and outdoor amusement and entertainment district. Under the proposed rezoning, an estimated 1.1 million square feet of amusement and entertainment-related uses — such as dark rides, virtual reality, water parks, IMAX theaters, circuses, and restaurants and catering facilities — and 800 hotel rooms could be developed in the district, creating year-round job opportunities. The rezoning would also catalyze redevelopment of vacant and underutilized land for mixed-income housing and neighborhood retail and services. The plan is the culmination of an interagency planning effort led by the Department of City Planning and the Economic Development Corporation.

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Performing Arts Center is Shell Shocked

Ground has been broken on the new Holzman Moss Architecture-designed $32.8 million, 68,000-square-foot Performing Arts Center at Francis Marion University (FMU) in Florence, SC. The 900-seat multipurpose hall features adjustable acoustics and staging options to accommodate a broad scope of music programs from solo performances to 80-person orchestra ensembles. A fly tower and orchestra pit also allow for music, dance, and theater productions. The firm designed a built-in, single-piece, automated orchestra shell enclosure that in minutes transforms the stage and fly loft from a tuned musical environment to an open and flexible stage house for theatrical events at the push of a button. The customized, patent-pending Actuated Stage Shell extends into the interior of the room, enveloping both the stage and audience in a single cohesive enclosure. A series of large roller wheels distribute the weight of the 20-ton shell to move easily along the surface of the stage floor. The complex also contains a 100-seat black box theater, and an academic wing for offices, classrooms, and support spaces. The facility is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010.

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New York Designer Renews Florida Westin
New York-based hospitality design firm Therese Virserius Design recently completed the renovation of 120,000 square feet of hotel space for Westin Hotel and Resorts in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The resort-style hotel’s rejuvenation included the renovation of 300 guest rooms and suites, meeting facilities, common areas, ballrooms, five pre-function rooms, and boardrooms. The new look was achieved by using custom carpeting, crown molding, contemporary lighting, natural light, bold patterns, green foliage, and blue and brown hues throughout.

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Hotel/Spa/Wine Center Flowers in Alsace

Steven Holl Architects, in collaboration with Swiss firm Rüssli Architects, has been commissioned to realize a new 100-room destination hotel, spa, and wine center for Loisium SAS in a forest overlooking vineyards in Alsace, France. The concrete frame structure sheathed in blackened wood siding is designed to emulate nearby red cliffs and the forest landscape. The design uses this concept of “arborescence” to influence the order and space of the building. Exterior spaces are divided, providing privacy for the spa while inviting the public into the restaurant. The flower-like center pavilion is made with red weathered steel, similar to the cliffs, and colored glass in different shades of red, and will house a wine gallery and a gathering space with chapel-like acoustics for concerts and special events. It can also be a place for silence and reflection, connecting the site with the adjacent 11th-century Marbach Abbey, located on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route.

A new online forum has been developed to imagine a collective vision of the future of the built environment. The project/online exhibition, Vision 2020, collects perspectives from architects, critics, students, leaders, and the public with the intention to provide a clear and holistic picture of what an architect needs to be, think, act, and do to be relevant in the future. Vision 2020 was developed by Andrew Caruso, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, and Tony Vanky, Assoc. AIA, who both served as president and vice president of the American Institute of Architecture Students in 2007-2008. They grew frustrated with the lack of long-range visioning of the architecture discipline and envisioned the project as a means to create a holistic understanding of the problems and opportunities facing humanity because of the built environment.

The AIA Long Island Chapter’s 44th Annual Archi Award winners include, in the following categories: Un-Built, 245 Tenth Avenue by Goshow Architects; Commendation, Bucharest Medical Center & Hotel Campus and Interior Architecture Commendation, Mason Capitol Management and Commercial/ Mercantile Commendation, Long Island Headquarters, all by Spector Group; Private Residence and Small Projects (Under $200,000) Archi, Private Bathroom by Murdock Young Architects; Archi, Hofstra Performing Arts Center by Wank Adams Slavin Associates (WASA); Sustainable Design Commendation, Ossining Public Library by Beatty, Harvey & Associates Architects; and Commendation, Plumm Shoppes by Allen & Killcoyne Architects…

Syracuse University unveiled the winners of its design competition, “From the Ground Up: Innovative Green Homes,” including NY-based ARO/Della Valle Bernheimer and Cook + Fox… The Forum for Urban Design selected H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, teamed with Eng-Wong, Taub & Associates, as one of six finalists culled from over 250 international entrants for its Red Hook Bicycle Competition… The winner of the 2009 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program is MOS; finalists included Bade Stageberg Cox, L.E.F.T. architects, and PARA-project…

The 2009 P/A Award winners include Stan Allen and Carlos Arnaiz of Stan Allen Architect for the Taipei Waterfront; Charles Renfro, AIA, Ricardo Scofidio, AIA, and Elizabeth Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro for Alice Tully Hall; Sylvia Smith, FAIA, of FXFOWLE Architects, also for Alice Tully Hall; James Vira, AIA, and Jason Cadorette of Viraline for the Rapidly Depolyable Inflatable Container disaster housing; and Stephen Apking, FAIA, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Inland Steel Building Restoration… The National Association of Home Builders 2009 Pillars of the Industry Award Finalists include Handel Architects, which won two awards: Best Mid-Rise Condominium Community, 505 Greenwich, and Best High-Rise Condominium Community, Millennium Tower Residences…

Steven Holl, FAIA, has been awarded the first BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Arts Category… Matthew Bremer, AIA, of Architecture In Formation, is one the eight recipients of the 2009 AIA Young Architects Award…

The Center for Civil and Human Rights has selected five firms to compete to design a new $125 million center in downtown Atlanta, including NY-based firms Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Huff + Gooden Architects; and Polshek Partnership Architects… The Smithsonian has announced the selection of six firms who will participate in a two-month design competition that will determine which firm will submit a formal proposal for the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, including Devrouax & Purnell Architects/Planners and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects (joint venture); and Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with KlingStubbins…

RMJM announced the formation of a Global Health Studio (GHS)… openhousenewyork has appointed Renée Schacht executive director… The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance announced Cortney Worrall as the new Director of Programs… Cannon Design named Dale Greenwald Associate Principal… Gensler announces the appointment of Leslie Jabs, AIA, as Principal…

2009 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, note that OCULUS editors want to hear from you! Projects/topics may be anywhere, but architects must be New York-based. The themes:

Spring Issue: Elevating Architecture / Design Literacy for All. Closed.

Summer Issue: AIANY 2009 Design Awards and AIANY/BSA Biennial Design Type Awards. 02.13.09: Late registration deadline.

Fall Issue: Carbon Neutral Now. The new green frontier, carbon neutrality, researched, explored, planned, and designed at all scales by New York architects.
06.01.09: Suggestion Deadline

Winter Issue: Health & Architecture. Architecture designed to promote fitness, health, and wellness will be profiled. Projects selected from within this growing field will demonstrate sensitivity to generational and demographic issues, sustainability, and technology.
08.01.09: Suggestion Deadline

If you have suggestions, please contact OCULUS editor-in-chief Kristen Richards.

02.16.09 Call for Nominations: 2009 Sustainable Leadership Awards for Design and Development
These awards honor outstanding contributions to sustainable design and development leadership. Winners will be featured in global outreach. Awards are given in Interior Design, Architectural Design, and Development, and are sponsored by the International Interior Design Association, the AIA Committee on the Environment, the AIA Interior Architecture Knowledge Community, and CoreNet Global.

04.10.09 Call for Entries: 2009 Lester Dundes Interior Design Competition
The annual competition recognizes extraordinary design projects and to honor the members of the New York Chapter of the International Interior Design Association. Projects must have been completed after 01.01.08.

04.23.09 Call for Entries: The John M. Clancy Award Award for Socially Responsible Housing
The principals of the Boston architecture firm Goody Clancy established an award to honor the decades of creative commitment John Clancy, FAIA, brought nationwide to the planning, design, and construction of multifamily housing for diverse populations at all income levels. The award recognizes and encourages excellence in socially responsible urban housing by honoring an organization, group, or individual who has been a major force behind one or more built housing developments.

04.24.09 Call for Entries: Intersections: Grand Concourse Beyond 100
The Design Trust for Public Space and The Bronx Museum of the Arts announce an ideas competition seeking bold visions from architects, planners, artists, designers, and others for how the Bronx and Grand Concourse can evolve in the coming decades and cope with pressing needs for housing, green space, and transportation. Up to seven finalists will be awarded a cash stipend to further develop their proposal for inclusion in the exhibition Intersections: Grand Concourse at 100 — Future at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, opening 11.01.09.

Call for Entries: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Scholarship
The School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is accepting applications for scholarships to two design studio-based graduate degree programs: the Masters and Ph.D in Architectural Sciences with a concentration in Built Ecologies. The degree programs are designed for individuals with backgrounds in architecture, engineering, or other fields who are interested in the next generation of performance-based design strategies. Coursework for the program is taught in NYC at the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE). The Research Assistantship program covers full tuition and living expenses, with scholarships available. Applications are still being accepted, but prompt online submission is preferred.

Event: On Architecture: A Conversation
Location: Scandinavia House, 01.21.09
Speakers: Ada Louise Huxtable, Hon. AIA — Architectural Critic; Kent Barwick — President Emeritus, Municipal Art Society
Organizer: The Architectural League of New York; co-sponsored by the Municipal Art Society

Trained as an art historian, Ada Louise Huxtable, Hon. AIA, was the first architectural critic for the New York Times, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 1970. Currently the architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal, Huxtable recently sat down with Kent Barwick, president emeritus of the Municipal Art Society, to discuss the history and future of architecture and urban planning in NYC as well as her latest book, On Architecture. Her high regard for structure, aesthetics, and function has remained potent throughout her career. “You cannot separate what makes a building stand up and what it looks like,” she said. But it was her marriage to an industrial designer that “made all the difference.”

Huxtable’s affection for NYC is similarly nostalgic as she recalled touring Lower Manhattan on foot with her husband, noting the richness of authenticity residing in every corner. Certain buildings in the city, of course, stand out to her. She praised Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building for its success of proportion, sensitivity to detail, and pertinence to its time. She appreciates SANAA’s New Museum because of its coherence of space and collection — a quality she compares to Gehry Partners’ Guggenheim Bilbao. Museums to Huxtable are secular monuments in which to find repose, and she attributes her critical eye to the time she served as a curatorial assistant at the Museum of Modern Art before she began her writing career.

On Architecture is a collection of Huxtable’s writings from the 1960s onward including an extensive chapter on NYC and The World Trade Center, which the author terms “a real New York story.” This is not a complete anthology, however, and in anticipation of future architectural developments she stated, “I want to stick around awhile.”

Jacqueline Pezzillo, LEED AP, is the communications manager at Davis Brody Bond Aedas and a regular contributor to e-Oculus.

Event: The Beginnings of Suburbanization: Federal to Greek Revival Row Houses in the 1830s (initial lecture, “Architecture and Changing Lifestyles”)
Location: Urban Center, 01.14.09
Speaker: Francis Morrone — Adjunct Instructor, New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies & Fellow Emeritus, Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America
Organizers: Municipal Art Society

If the U.S. is in the process of recognizing a combined ecological/economic/infrastructural crisis and adapting the built environment to it, the past offers examples of leadership responding energetically to comparable challenges. Architectural historian Francis Morrone suggests looking to an often-overlooked statesman who took constructive risks at times of transition and trouble: DeWitt Clinton, NYC’s 10-term mayor (1803-1815), then governor (1817-1822, 1825-1828) and, critically, Canal Commissioner (1810-1824). Morrone connected the details of residential construction to the deeper channels of social evolution, interpreting the scale and style of doorways and rooms as subtle indicators of national change.

Going beyond the topic of the city’s Federal Style and Greek Revival houses, Morrone made the case for the 1830s and 1840s as a pivotal era in NYC’s history as well as urban modernization. As mayor, Clinton commissioned the surveying and mapping of Manhattan’s street grid in 1811, envisioning the orderly growth of a city populous enough to fill the island — this at a time when urban planning was an unknown concept, most of Manhattan was forested wilderness, and settlements extended from the Battery only about as far north as Houston Street. By spearheading the construction of the Erie Canal, the largest public-works project undertaken in the Western world, Clinton also connected the city with the shipping lanes of the Great Lakes and the agricultural economy of the nation’s interior, thus making that growth possible. After its construction, Morrone noted, NYC became not only the world’s largest seaport, but larger than the nation’s next four combined. In the 1820s as now, revolutions in transportation infrastructure drove the economy. Morrone called Clinton “without question the most visionary mayor New York ever had.”

The built legacy of Clinton’s era and shortly afterward, Morrone asserted, indicates that NYC’s expansion involved processes similar to what today’s urbanists decry as gridlock and sprawl. Horse-drawn omnibuses and their successors, the rail-guided horse-drawn streetcars that ran from 1832 to 1917, created the congestion that defines modern street life. Amid unprecedented growth in population and a migration, by those who could afford it, away from the deadly epidemics found in crowded downtown streets, Greenwich Village changed from the home of craftsmen into something Morrone sees as an early form of a suburb. Brooklyn Heights, he says, was likewise the first commuter suburb, with business life and domesticity separated by the East River ferry.

The elaborate sequence of stages, sheltered spaces, and entrance decoration of a Greek Revival house, in contrast to the smaller, more modest doorways of the Federal Style, suggests to Morrone the rising ideology of familial privacy, or “cult of domesticity,” that characterized Victorian-era America. A building with a full entablature and prominent columns radically separates the public street space from the interior. There, later-19th-century technical innovations such as indoor plumbing and the telegraph, which created “communication” as a distinct concept no longer synonymous with transportation, would make private life a new type of frontier.

The remaining lectures in this series, continuing with a January 28 talk on later-19th-century apartments, should provide insights into the counterpoint among technologies, belief systems, and built forms.

Bill Millard is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in OCULUS, Icon, Content, The Architect’s Newspaper, and other publications.

This year the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) is launching a new version of LEED. Instead of streamlining the process, or making the system more clear to professionals seeking accreditation for themselves or their buildings — not to mention to the clients — the new version is sure to create many levels of confusion.

First of all, titles will change. Individuals who are already accredited professionals (APs) will become Legacy LEED APs, and unless they change their status they will no longer appear as active LEED APs. Individuals who have passed the exam but are not presently working on a LEED project will be called LEED Green Associates, while those who are working on a LEED project will be designated LEED APs. There is a category of LEED AP Fellows for those who are “distinguished by their years of experience,” to be determined by a peer review that is not outlined on the website. One of the differences between LEED GAs and LEED APs is that the latter will a have higher application fee (new in 2009), a higher exam fee, and double the number of required continuing education hours (also new in 2009). I, personally, do not understand a need for a distinction between professionals who are working on LEED projects and those who are not. Everyone should have the same requirements, pay the same fees, take the same test, and benefit from the program universally. It’s bad enough the exam will be more difficult, claiming a pass rate of only 20% compared to the current 34%.

Secondly, a new point system has been created that is weighted using what the GBCI calls “Life Cycle Assessment Indicators.” Priority will be given to Climate Change, as it is currently the most pressing issue. In the future (new versions will launch biennially), if environmental and societal priorities shift, so will the point system. In addition, local chapters may allow for bonus credits based on issues unique to their locales. For a building to obtain certification the scale has increased from 69 to 100 points — certified projects require 40 points, silver 50, gold 60, and platinum 80.

Since the system will keep changing, I understand the need for LEED APs, or LEED GAs, to complete continuing education requirements. Plus, I feel it is important to stay up to date on new developments in the industry. However, with the new AIA sustainability requirements for CEUs, the ARE exams changing to reflect more green issues, the new building code taking a cue from the more environmentally sound International Building Code, not to mention other local initiatives, I wonder why the GBCI needs to add another layer of red tape to the process. How come the GBCI did not collaborate more closely with the AIA (as far as I know) when coming up with continuing education requirements?

Overall, I am not averse to change. What I do protest, though, is making the process more complicated, much more expensive, and ultimately more difficult for those dedicated to sustainable design.