Film screening and conversation with co-directors Coan "Buddy" Nichols and Rick Charnoski
Moderated by Jerold Kayden, Co-Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, and Frank Backus Williams Professor of Urban Planning and Design

"Deathbowl to Downtown" chronicles four decades of life in New York City and showcases the emergence and influence of the urban skateboarding scene as it evolved in the gritty streets of the five boroughs. With narration by Chloe Sevigny and musical tracks provided by the Beastie Boys, Drunk Injuns, Minor Threat, Eric B. & Rakim, Wu-Tang Clan and the Talking Heads, among others, "Deathbowl to Downtown" is the first feature length film to show the rise of skateboarding from a New Yorker's perspective.

Scripted by Jocko Weyland (author of The Answer is Never: A Skateboarder's History of the World), "Deathbowl to Downtown" traces the untold and historically rich story of how skateboarding evolved in New York City, beginning in the mid 1970's with a group of skaters known as the Zoo York Crew and then developed into its present day form. "Deathbowl to Downtown" shows how New York skaters made due with the harsh realities of the city's urban landscape and unintentionally helped shape the face of modern skateboarding.

In addition to candid interviews with dozens of prominent and influential skaters, "Deathbowl to Downtown" also features architects and scholars, who shed light on how the city's urban planning unknowingly led to the development of terrain that was quickly adapted by skateboarders looking for their own version of the California dream.

"When we first showed the film in New York, the reception we received was overwhelming. The cultural aspects of skateboarding we explore in the film make it something that you don't have to be a skater to enjoy," noted Buddy Nichols, co-director of the film. "We've made some minor tweaks and can't wait to take it on the road to show it and skate in other cities."

The film features interviews with:

- Chris Pastras
- Lance Mountain
- Mike Vallely
- Puppethead
- Keith Hufnagel
- Steve Rodriguez
- Jeff Pang
- Bruno Musso
- Bill Thomas
- Jerold Kayden (Professor of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design)
- M. Paul Friedberg (designer of the Brooklyn Banks)

For more information visit: "Deathbowl to Downtown" official website

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)

Mark Rakatansky
Principal, Mark Rakatansky Studio
Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University
"Double Agency: Tafuri / Piranesi - The Remix"

Lecture description:
This will kill that: Victor Hugo claimed that the new media (the book) will kill the old media (the building), and in a recent incarnation it has been claimed that computers will kill close-readings of buildings. Contrary to that belief, this research utilizes digital animation software to closely re-read the critic Manfredo Tafuri's reading of Giovanni Piranesi's one built work, the Santa Maria del Priorato in Rome, revealing the double agency of both critic and architect.

This doubling of the ability to act as well as to demonstrate that ability is enacted in the building through the sequencing of performative and transformative systems within the object, a series of parametric tectonic systems that vary their manner(ism) in response to a range of internal and external forces.

Biography:
Mark Rakatansky is principal of Mark Rakatansky Studio, a multimedia practice that focuses on the performative capabilities of design: exploring how design elements can develop as characters as they engage in and through their particular spatial scenes. His most recent design work includes a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Center for persons with mental illness in Kanakapura, India; Turning House in Sugok-ri, Korea; and Recombinant Campus, a series of designs for Queens College. His designs and writings have appeared in numerous publications in Australia, Austria, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, and the United States. His recent writings include: "The Possibility of Another Culture" in Space (2007), "Envelope Please" in Tschumi and Chang, eds., The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the 21st Century (Monacelli, 2004), and "Why Architecture is Neither Here nor There" in Cairns, ed., Drifting: Architecture and Migrancy (Routledge, 2004). He has received a diverse range of awards and citations in architecture, urbanism, landscape, and graphic design, including the Architectural League's Emerging Voices, Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism fellowship, Graham Foundation grant, I.D. Annual Design Review, New York State Council on the Arts Award, PRINT, Progressive Architecture Award, and 2001 Venice Biennale's The City.

Rakatansky received his Masters in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He teaches in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia, as well as at Parsons and Pratt, and has taught at Harvard University, Iowa State University, Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and University of California at Los Angeles.

For more information visit: Mark Rakatansky Studio website

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)

Jinnai Hidenobu: "Reading the Urban Landscape of Tokyo: Ecology and History"

The lecture is the first of our GSD PhD Talks series, and will be held in Piper, 2 October, 6 pm.

Jinnai is a professor of architecture at Tokyo's H??sei University, where he teaches architectural and urban history, and continues to conduct research abroad. He earned his doctorate at Tokyo University, upon which he studied at the Unesco International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property and the University Institute of Architecture of Venice.

His research has been centered on waterfront cities and their relationship with their natural environment. Jinnai has published extensively on the cities of the Mediterranean with a special interest on Italy, and has gained international recognition for his groundbreaking study on Tokyo, A Spatial Anthropology, in which he traced in the modern city twice destroyed and rebuilt in the course of a few decades the patterns of seventeenth-century Edo life retained despite a radically different urban landscape.

This lecture is sponsored by the GSD PhD Program, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the Department of History of Art & Architecture's Rockefeller Fund for East Asian Art, and is supported by AsiaGSD. For questions, please contact Alex Bueno at bueno@fas.harvard.edu.

For more information visit: GSD PhD Talks

For event details contact: Alex Bueno (bueno@fas.harvard.edu)

Lewis S. Ranieri
Prime Originator and Founder, Hyperion
"Revolution in Mortgage Finance"

Lewis S. Ranieri, is the prime originator and founder of the Hyperion private equity funds ("Hyperion") and chairman and/or director of various other non-operating entities owned directly and indirectly by Hyperion. Mr. Ranieri also serves as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Ranieri & Co., Inc., a private investment advisor and management corporation, and he is founder of Ranieri Partners, LLC, an investment company focused on financial service opportunities. He is also Chairman of Franklin Bank Corp. and Root Markets, Inc., an internet-based mortgage leads company. Prior to forming Hyperion, Mr. Ranieri had been Vice Chairman of Salomon Brothers, Inc. ("Salomon"). He is generally considered to be the "father" of the securitized mortgage market. Mr. Ranieri helped develop the capital markets as a source of funds for housing and commercial real estate, established Salomon's leadership position in the mortgage-backed securities area, and also led the effort to obtain federal legislation to support and build the market. At Salomon, Mr. Ranieri had responsibility for the firm's activities in the mortgage, real estate and government-guaranteed areas.

Regarded as an expert and innovator in both the mortgage and capital markets, Mr. Ranieri has served on the National Association of Home Builders Mortgage Roundtable continuously since 1989. In recognition of his dedication and lifelong achievements in the housing industry, Mr. Ranieri was inducted into the National Housing Hall of Fame. He is also a recipient of the lifetime achievement award given by the Fixed Income Analysts Society, Inc. and was subsequently inducted into the FIASI Hall of Fame for outstanding practitioners in the advancement of the analysis of fixed-income securities and portfolios. In November 2004, BusinessWeek magazine named him one of "the greatest innovators of the past 75 years," and in 2005, he received the Distinguished Industry Service Award from the American
Securitization Forum.

Mr. Ranieri serves as a trustee or director of Environmental Defense and The Metropolitan Opera Association and is also on the Board of the American Ballet Theatre.


HISTORY OF THE JOHN T. DUNLOP LECTURE

The John T. Dunlop Lecture commemorates the life and work of the late John T. Dunlop, Lamont University Professor Emeritus of Harvard University from 1985 to 2003 and United States Secretary of Labor during the Ford administration. In a lifetime career dedicated to improving labor-management relations, Professor Dunlop's skillful arbitration and negotiation led to celebrated dispute resolutions in academia, industry, and government.

In 1999, the Joint Center for Housing Studies partnered with the National Housing Endowment and the Graduate School of Design to create a named lecture that would serve as a lasting tribute to Professor Dunlop and his many contributions to the national housing community.

For event details contact: Elizabeth England (elizabeth_england@harvard.edu)

Kongjian Yu
President, Turenscape; Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing, China
"The Art of Survival: Recovering Landscape Architecture"

Lecture description:
Time Magazine called Kongjian Yu as "The Force of Nature," and Yu defined landscape architecture as the art of survival. In this lecture, Dr. Yu uses multiple projects to demonstrate landscape architecture as a powerful tool to achieve sustainability and green urbanism, and define a new and poetic vernacular landscape in contemporary China, while addressing issues of survival, such as flood control, food production, ecological recovery.

Brief bio:
Kongjian Yu received his Doctor of Design Degree at The Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995. He is the founder and dean of the Graduate School of Landscape Architecture at Peking University, and the founder and president of Turenscape, which is an internationally awarded firm with more than 300 professionals and is one of the first and largest private landscape architecture and architecture firms in China.

Dr. Yu is a five-time winner of ASLA Honor Awards (The American Society of Landscape Architects) in the past five years for his ecologically and culturally sensitive projects, two-time winner of the Architectural Review Award (Commended, Architectural Review, UK). Dr. Yu is the winner of the National Gold Medal of Fine Arts (2004, China). In 2004, Dr. Yu was awarded the Oversea Chinese Pioneer Achievement Medal by the Chinese central government for his overall contribution to the nation. Dr. Yu was the keynote speaker for the 40th and 43rd IFLA World Congress, and the 2006 ASLA annual conference. In October, he will also keynote at the 2008 ASLA annual conference.

Dr. Yu publishes widely, including more than 200 papers and 15 books. His current book is: The Art Of Survival: Recovering Landscape Architecture. His major research interests include: the theory and method of landscape architecture and urban planning; the cultural aspect of the landscape; landscape security patterns and ecological infrastructure.

For more information visit: Turenscape website

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)

Now in its 20th year, this annual report looks at the pressures facing the nation's housing markets and beyond them to the underpinnings of long run housing supply and demand. Copies of the report, press release and fact sheet will be available at the event

For more information visit:

For event details contact: Elizabeth England (eengland@gsd.harvard.edu)

Mimi Hoang + Eric Bunge,
Principals, nARCHITECTS, Brooklyn, NY
"63% BUILT, 37% NOT BUILT"

Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang's New York based practice nARCHITECTS aims for maximum effect with an economy of conceptual and material means. Their recent and ongoing projects range from buildings to ephemeral environments, and include Switch Building in Manhattan, Windshape in Lacoste France, Canopy for MoMA/P.S.1, a new park for the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, and Villa-Villa in Ordos, China. nARCHITECTS' work has been published and exhibited internationally, including the forthcoming monograph "nARCHITECTS 2000-2008" with Design Documents, now in press. Recent awards include AIA Design Honor Awards (2007, 2005), a NYSCA (New York State Council of the Arts) Award (2007), The Architectural League of New York's Emerging Voices (2006), an AR+D Mention (2006), Architectural Record's Design Vanguard (2004), the MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program (2004), and New York Foundation for the Arts grants (2007,2002).

Hoang received a Master of Architecture from Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from M.I.T. She teaches graduate design studios at Yale and Columbia Universities and has taught at Berkeley University. Prior to co-founding nARCHITECTS, she trained in New York, Boston and Amsterdam.

Bunge received a Master of Architecture from the GSD and a Bachelor of Architecture from McGill University. He teaches at Columbia University, and has taught as the Coordinator of Graduate Thesis at Parsons School of Design, as well as at R.I.S.D., Barnard College, Berkeley University and University of Toronto. Prior to co-founding nARCHITECTS, he trained in New York, Boston, Paris, Calcutta and London. Bunge is the recipient of the 2005 Canadian Professional Rome Prize.

For more information visit: nARCHITECTS firm website
  or: Their studio option offering at the GSD this semester

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)

Joanna Aizenberg
Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science; Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor; Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
"Natural Glass Houses in the Deep: Lessons in Design"

In the course of evolution, Nature has developed strategies that endow biological processes with exquisite selectivity and specificity, and produce superior materials and structures. This is wonderfully exemplified in the realm of inorganic materials formation by organisms, so-called "biomineralization".

Learning from and mastering Nature's concepts not only satisfies humankind's insatiable curiosity for understanding the world around us, but also promises to drive a paradigm shift in modern materials science and technology.

Professor Aizenberg's research is aimed at understanding some of the basic principles of biomineralization and the economy with which biology solves complex problems in the design of functional inorganic materials. She then uses biological principles as guidance in developing new, bio-inspired synthetic routes and nanofabrication strategies that would lead to advanced materials and devices. Aizenberg is one of the pioneers of this rapidly developing field of biomimetic inorganic materials synthesis.

Professor Aizenberg pursues a broad range of research interests that include biomimetics, self-assembly, crystal engineering, surface chemistry, nanofabrication, biomaterials, biomechanics and biooptics.

For more information visit: The Aizenberg Biomineralization and Biomimetics Lab website

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)

New Trajectories: Contemporary Architecture in Croatia and Slovenia
Presentations and panel discussion with Petra Ceferin, Sasa Randic, Bostjan Vuga, and moderators Mariana Ibanez and Eve Blau

Sasa Randic is a principal of Randic-Turanto, located in Rijeka, Croatia. Bostjan Vuga is a principal of Sadar Vuga Arhitekti in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Petra Ceferin is an architect and researcher; she writes and lectures on the construction of architectural imagery, the influence of media on architecture and the possibilities of an autonomous architecture. She lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

About the exhibition:
How are emerging practices in these newly independent countries setting new benchmarks in innovative design? How have young Croatian and Slovenian architects embraced both the legacy of their architectural traditions and forward-thinking production? What will be the impact of the countries' joining the European community on the design sphere?

These and other questions are addressed in "New Trajectories: Contemporary Architecture in Croatia and Slovenia," which focuses on the work of thirteen practices. The exhibition, which is curated by Mariana Ibanez, Assistant Professor of Architecture, is on display in Gund Hall Gallery at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. A moderated discussion with architects from both countries will be held in conjunction with the exhibition from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm on September 17 in Gund Hall's Piper Auditorium.

"New Trajectories" is the first in a series of exhibitions and conferences at the GSD that seek to redress the imbalance of our views of the design disciplines that are primarily informed by a set of dominant practices over what might be called minor or emergent practices in different parts of the world.

Over the last ten years, the economies of Croatia and Slovenia -- in transition from communist Yugoslavia to capitalist countries -- allowed for a flourishing design community to emerge without the pressures of a demanding market. Well-organized systems of public competitions gave young practices access to complex commissions -- testing innovative ideas at multiple scales and seeing them realized. As a result, new generations of Croatian and Slovenian architects have developed exceptional work that is both innovative and charged with the legacy of their own architectural heritage. Regardless of the differences between the two countries and the design practices, the production techniques and strategies implemented by these architects can be situated at the core of contemporary architectural production.

As Slovenia has joined the European Union, soon to be followed by Croatia, these nations will be open to foreign investments and foreign architects. Larger corporate interests and the seduction of the instant icon will present an interesting challenge to local designers. As they have ably demonstrated, however, the architects of Croatia and Slovenia will certainly enter this new stage, while expanding into global territories, with a confidence stemming from their established identity.

For more information visit: Randic-Turanto firm website
  or: Sadar Vuga Arhiteki firm website

For event details contact: Brooke King (bking@gsd.harvard.edu)