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

Event: Design for the Other 90%
Location: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, through 09.23.07
Curator: Cynthia E. Smith

The Bamboo Treadle Pump, designed by Gunnar Barnes of Rangpur/Dinajpur Rural Service and IDE Nepal, is used in Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Mayanmar, Cambodia, and Zambia to allow farmers to access groundwater during the dry season.

©2003 International Development Enterprises, courtesy Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Both provocative and critical to the well being of individuals and their communities, the innovations presented in Design for the Other 90% at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum aims for relevancy in our current aesthetics-obsessed environment. The exhibition offers a glimpse into how design may encourage growth and prosperity for those who have compromised access to basic human needs. The show addresses categories such as shelter, water, health, and energy, presenting a small collection of products meant to improve the quality of life for those in developing countries. For example, the MoneyMaker Block Press, designed by Martin Fisher and used in various African locations, allows 5-8 workers to produce up to 800 bricks a day. The increased productivity speaks for itself; these are designs that are being put to good use.

For an exhibition striving to emphasize the power of design, however, there is a serious lack of visual media depicting these items actually in use, or even in the context in which the other 90% live. While some products, including the Water Storage System, designed by International Development Enterprises (IDE) India, or Bamboo Treadle Pump, designed by Gunnar Barnes of Rangpur/Dinajpur Rural Service and IDE Nepal, are easily imagined in rural towns, the Solar Dish Kitchen, designed by BASIC Initiative Mexico Program of the University of Texas and University of Washington, or Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child look out of place, provoking issues of regional and cultural specificity that are no stranger to most architects and beg the question: what position are we in as designers to anticipate what the “other” really needs?

The few items shown in action are illuminating on the design level, but also highlight another drastic shortcoming of the exhibition: the definition of design has been limited to mean “objects” — gadgets that, while useful and important, are more like emergency tactics rather than long-term strategies for change. For instance, The LifeStraw, designed by Torben Vestergaard Frandsen and used in Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Uganda, is an invention that can filter typhoid and cholera bacteria to provide adequate drinking water. Yet, imagining the straw as a lifetime solution reveals its own improbability as anything but a temporary fix to a much larger and significant environmental and economic problem. Designers are surely capable of imagining more complex strategies, and not just topical Band-Aids.

Both the vital need for designers to step outside the high-end design world of the privileged 10%, and the potential for creativity are reasons enough to make Design for the Other 90% worthy of conversation and debate, whatever its shortcomings may be. The tools on display offer interesting ideas, but are only the first step, and understandably so; the design process can be long and tedious, and rarely generates a perfect first attempt. Hopefully, if more designers are inspired to participate, better and more enduring solutions may be around the corner.

Rachel Schauer is concentrating her studies on architecture and communications at New York University Gallatin School. She also is e-Oculus‘ graphic designer.

Event: Sustainable Design Review
Organizers: Students at Parsons The New School for Design: Rishi Desai, Justine Abu-Haidar, Patricia Ormaza, Tanye Prive (Design and Management); Aritz Bermudez Monfort (Communication Design)
Winners: First Place: Caroline Pham (Integrated Design); Second Place: Hae Jeong Choi (Product Design)

(l-r): “Subway Light Project” lights up commuters’ days; “Holon A.” is an interactive industrial agricultural information booth; “Why Sustain?” is a learning and information center made from sustainable materials maximizing natural light.

(l-r): Caroline Pham; Becky Stern; Amanda Gilbert

The first annual Sustainable Design Review, a student-led green initiative at Parsons The New School for Design, asked students to define sustainability. “Our mission is to foster an overall awareness and dialogue relating to social, environmental, and other forms of sustainability in school projects and consequently student perceptions,” according to founder and chairperson Rishi Desai, who conceived of the project with other Design and Management and Communication Design students at Parsons.

The winning entry, called the “Subway Light Project,” submitted by Caroline Pham of the Integrated Design Curriculum, introduces natural light into subway stations by incorporating fiber optic technology and sunlight collection panels. Windows and seating areas illustrating natural and urban landscapes are illuminated with full spectrum light to benefit sun-deprived city residents. “Terra Bites,” the second place entry by Product Design major Hae Jeong Choi, is a mobile cart that acts as a delivery and vending truck for local, fresh food.

Jury members, who sifted through more than 100 submissions and chose 10 finalists, included: Susan Szensay, editor-in-chief of Metropolis; Majora Carter, founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx; Kira Gould, Assoc. AIA, AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) chair; Chelsea Holden Baker, assistant editor of DWELL; Douglas Diaz and Loretta Staples, professors at Parsons; Jackie Brookner, ecological artist; and students Ryan Wood and Tracy Chow.

“Word of mouth was the weapon to get this idea the support it needed. Now it is all about the dialogue,” the website background statement declares. After being in contact with some of the students who entered the competition, and in an effort to continue the discussion, they wrote to me about their experiences participating in the Sustainable Design Review:

[This competition] contributes to the argument that design should not only be about beauty and creativity, but should also be about responsibility. Winning this competition has taught me the importance of responsible design. I believe that the idea of sustainability can be beneficial to a new way of thinking, not as an alternative to normal life, but as a trigger for innovation.
– Caroline Pham, Winner. The “Subway Light Project” began Fall 2006 while she was an exchange student at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm.

[The Sustainable Design Review] initiative provides peer and industry review outside the classroom environment for projects with a nontraditional goal. Experiencing the process helped me put my project in a larger perspective.
– Becky Stern, “Holon A.,” Design & Technology Department

By entering this competition, I wanted to increase the recognition of interior design as paramount to sustainability. I hope to focus my career on creating sustainable interior spaces and increase awareness that sustainability can be beautiful and effective on many levels.
– Amanda Gilbert, “Why Sustain?” Associate in Applied Sciences student

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

(l-r): Steve Sartori; Kristen Richards

On a sizzling August day, a small group of journalists were treated to a day trip to a much cooler Syracuse for a hard hat tour of Newhouse III, the latest addition to Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications complex. Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the $31.6 million, 74,000-square-foot addition is the final step of I.M. Pei, FAIA’s master plan begun with the completion his 1964 building; the second building by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, opened in 1974. For James Polshek, FAIA, and Tomas Rossant, AIA, the challenges included respecting the period architecture while creating a vibrant, new face for the campus (the school is located at one of the university’s main entrances). “My belief is that any building with an intellectual purpose has to tell a story,” Polshek said. Newhouse III tells its story with an undulating, fritted glass façade with the words of the First Amendment etched in letters six feet high along the base. Inside, a soaring, skylit atrium fills the interior spaces with natural light.

With the rapid evolution of the digital age, communal spaces in the two older buildings had been cannibalized for computer and media labs. According to Rossant, the new building will become “the missing social heart” of the communications school, with lounges, casual gathering spaces, a 350-seat auditorium, and a Food.com dining area, along with high-tech labs and classrooms that bring together the communications disciplines. Opening celebrations for Newhouse III, made possible by a $15 million grant from the S.I. Newhouse Foundation and the Newhouse family, will kick off on September 19 with a keynote speech by U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.

Kristen Richards is editor of Oculus magazine and ArchNewsNow.com.

I have been following the discussion about the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) vacancy in Washington D.C. The hiring process is as follows: Congress’s Architect of the Capitol Commission recommends three potential individuals from which the President may or may not choose one to be appointed for the 10-year position. Controversy has sprouted because these names have not been released to the public, and because of the spreading rumor that someone who is not a registered architect may fill the position.

According to the Architect of the Capitol website, the AOC is responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the U.S. Capitol Complex, which includes the Capitol, congressional offices, Library of Congress, Supreme Court, U.S. Botanic Garden, Capitol Power Plant, and other facilities. Duties include mechanical and structural maintenance, upkeep and improvement of the Capitol grounds, and arrangement of inaugural and other ceremonies. Current projects range from the replacement of worn Minton tile in the Senate corridors to the installation of security devices and the development of a Capitol Complex Master Plan. The AOC must also serve as a member of eight governing or advisory bodies including the D.C. Zoning Commission, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Capitol Police Board.

To be expected, the AIA has been voicing its collective opinion that the position must be filled by a licensed, registered architect — see The Architect of the Capitol Should be an Architect website. The website includes links to the AIA Board of Directors’ letter to the President, a letter supporting the AIA’s position from former AOC George M. White, FAIA, ongoing coverage in the Angle, and commentary on the AIA Archiblog. There is also a petition to Congress.

I agree that for a job called “Architect,” a registered architect must fill the position. This has been established by law. However, in reviewing the many responsibilities of the AOC, I see that it would be difficult to find one person who can successfully fill the vacancy. On the AIA Archiblog, Desiree Sheehan asks, “Wouldn’t appointing a design team be a better choice?” Collaboration and specialization is a trend in the architecture profession. Here is an opportunity to redefine the AOC, giving a team of individuals with diverse experiences the chance to successfully shape the future of the nation’s capital.