News – What’s New at AIANY and the Center for Architecture.

RMJM Hillier, with Diane Lewis Architects and Beckelman+Capalino are finalists in an adaptive re-use competition hosted by the Sarasota Architectural Foundation to save Paul Rudolph’s Riverview High School in Sarasota, FL…

McGraw-Hill Construction‘s GreenSource magazine won FOLIO: magazine’s Ozzie Awards for “Best Design, New Magazine,” and “Best Overall Design” in the
business-to-business category; and the Architectural Record website received a bronze Ozzie award in the “Best Site Design, B-to-B” category…

Francis Cauffman Architects announces the opening of its NYC office … AIANYS welcomes Marthanne Gershman as the new Director of Finance… Sofia Galadza has joined IA Interior Architects as Director of Public Relations…

11.01.07 Registration: Archive Institute Poster Competition
UNICEF and UNITE FOR CHILDREN. UNITE AGAINST AIDS calls for poster designs from artists under the age of 18 who want to help bring increased attention to the widespread AIDS epidemic. The theme for the competition focuses on the relationships between HIV/AIDS, “the home,” housing, and/or communities.

11.01.07 Call for Proposals: Milka Bliznakov Prize
Virginia Tech’s International Archive for Women in Architecture (IAWA), a departmental research and outreach center in the School of Architecture + Design, requests proposals for an annual prize of $1,000. Proposals may include an original project, research, or scholarly work that advances the recognition of women’s contributions in design.

11.09.07 Submission: City of the Future
The History Channel, partnered with the AIA, is calling architects and designers nationwide to imagine the future of San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. Initiated last year, when competing cities included NY, Chicago, and Los Angeles, designs are developed in one week, and submissions are assembled in a public forum the morning they are to be judged; a $10,000 prize will be awarded in each city.

12.14.07 Submission: Arthur Ross Awards for Excellence in the Classical Tradition
The Institute of Classical Architecture & Classical America will select five award recipients for a body or career of work (not individual projects) from among the following categories: Architecture, Artisanship/Craftsmanship, Community Design/Civic Design/City Planning, Education, History/Journalism/Criticism/Writing/ Editing/Publishing, Landscape Design/Gardening, Patronage, Fine Arts, Stewardship: Good Manners, and Graphics/Photography/Illustration.

12.17.07 Registration: South Street Seaport: Re-Envisioning the Urban Edge
AIANY’s Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) committee invites design students and young professionals within 10 years of graduation to register for the 2008 biennial international ideas competition. In collaboration with the Seamen’s Church Institute, this new competition challenges entrants to present ideas for a community support center/gallery space with sanctuary and public mediation garden at the river’s edge near the South Street Seaport.

1.04.08 Competition: 2008 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition
Metropolis magazine is challenging young designers to respond to the worldwide need to save and protect the earth’s water supply. The award program supports and showcases young professionals’ outstanding design innovations, and this year the international competition asks designers to consider water in all of its forms — pure, gray, black — and our many points of contact with it. All design professionals in practice for 10 years or fewer are encouraged to participate, and the winning designer or team will be awarded $10,000.

09.18.07

Although this year’s 9-11 remembrance ceremony was much more low-key than in past years, check out this issue to read about what is happening in Lower Manhattan. See Remembering 9-11, Downtown Receives Dose of Realism, Three Draws a Crowd, and Sited for updates.
– Jessica Sheridan, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP

Event: Progress Report on the Redevelopment of Lower Manhattan
Location: Marriott World Financial Center, 09.06.07
Speakers: Avi Schick — Chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Robert Douglass — Chairman, Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association (introduction)
Organizers: Lower Manhattan Development Corporation

Avi Schick addressed some issues of progress in Lower Manhattan and skirted others.

Jessica Sheridan

With signs of progress (or at least of Freedom Tower construction) finally in sight, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) chairman Avi Schick spoke with optimism, respect, and responsibility in his recent progress report on the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. He spotlighted silver linings and tried to keep the most recent setback, the August 18 Deutsche Bank fire, in appropriate perspective.

Ground Zero still is promising more than it is achieving, and the cultural and recreational components lag behind the more profit-driven elements. But the 9/11 memorial, East River Esplanade, and a soon-to-be-announced $45 million LMDC grant for “community enhancement” should begin redressing that balance in 2008 and 2009.

In June JPMorganChase said it would build its new investment-banking headquarters at the Deutsche Bank site; Schick anticipates 7,000 new jobs from the project. He also cited new hotels and a 20% increase in local apartment inventory. Making Lower Manhattan livable on a 24-7 basis depends on public-sector initiatives as well as the business community.

As with many political addresses, things left unsaid made as much difference as things covered. Schick paid homage to firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia killed in the Deutsche Bank fire, and pledged that LMDC would “ensure that the conditions that led to the blaze, that exacerbated it, and that contributed to the difficulty in fighting it are completely eradicated.” Schick pledged, “We will bring that wretched building down.” Accountability for those conditions, however, remained between the lines; John Galt Corporation and Bovis Lend Lease never came up. Recent revelations about air quality around the World Trade Center site, too, were ignored. However, outside engineering review will align construction timetables with technical considerations, not political ones.

Perhaps the most encouraging inference one can draw involves LMDC’s reluctance to offer false encouragement. When asked for the best estimate of when Deutsche Bank would be gone, Schick declined to specify a date, claiming that the demolition would proceed “sequentially and slowly and carefully.” A question about the transit center received the same treatment. A more headline-minded spokesman might have nailed down a deadline or two for the sake of drama, feasible or not, but Schick has apparently been around Ground Zero long enough to know better.

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

Event: Politics, Publics and Design
Location: Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, 09.10.07
Speakers: Dr. Rene Spitz — Chairman, International Design Forum (IFG), Ulm; Kenneth Frampton — Ware Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia University; Adi Shamir — Executive Director, Van Alen Institute
Organizers: Kadambari Baxi — Associate Professor, Undergraduate Architecture, Barnard College & Columbia College; Irene Cheng — Doctoral Candidate, GSAPP, Columbia University

Living City was awarded a 2007 New York Prize Fellowship through the Van Alen Institute.

Courtesy David Benjamin and Soo-In Yang

In a time where globalization meets global warming, the boundaries between public and private are constantly shifting. The International Design Forum (IFG) Ulm and Van Alen Institute are two organizations examining the relationships among politics, the public realm, and design — the former with an annual design competition, and the latter with its New York Prize Fellowship.

The Designing Politics competition intends to “encourage projects to develop consequences which leave a lasting mark on our social and physical environment,” according to Dr. Rene Spitz, IFG Ulm chairman. What made the winning projects in 2006 stand apart from other submissions was the way they examined the relationship between design and politics.

The KwaThema Project: Designing Negotiations Between Planning and Violence, submitted by Hannah le Roux of Johannesburg, proposes to overcome the tension between violence and planning within derelict public spaces in a small township in South Africa by working with the local community. One aspect of the project, for example, is to transform an eroding former liquor store into a children’s playground with help and input from local school children. Uncounted Counts. Citizenship by Design and Design for Democracy is a research project investigating the relationship between the individual and the state, examining nationality within globalization. Created by Kadambari Baxi, associate professor at Barnard and Columbia Colleges, and Irene Cheng, doctoral candidate at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Columbia University, research will lead to prototypes of alternatives to the standard products, including passports, naturalization tests, ballot papers, and election booths.

The Van Alen Institute’s 2007 New York Prize Fellowship “provides international emerging practitioners and scholars an opportunity for in-depth research and a platform for interventions in the public realm,” according to the online overview. Living City, one of the prizes awarded to David Benjamin and Soo-In Yang, evaluates NYC’s air quality. For three months, Benjamin and Yang will develop a full-scale architectural membrane that “breathes” reacting to the surrounding air quality. Through a responsive, kinetic surface, movement is converted into public information.

In response to the panel discussion held at GSAPP on the two programs, Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at GSAPP, discussed the importance of contextualization, but voiced concern over the inherent latency some of the projects presented. Whether or not all of the projects will be implemented, the proposals are forward looking and a step in the right direction toward social responsibility.

Annie Kurtin is a first-year MArch student at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University.