Philosophers expand meaning of ‘space’ at GSD >>

Peter Sloterdijk of Germany and Bruno Latour of France visited the Harvard Graduate School of Design last week (Feb. 17) to deliver sequential lectures in Gund Hall’s Piper Auditorium.

The double bill was titled “Networks and Spheres: Two Ways to Reinterpret Globalization.” Sloterdijk told the brimming, fervent crowd of 450 that the double visit was bound to be “a crash course in philosophy.”

[Harvard Gazette; February 26, 2009]

 

Prof. Michael Hays wins awards for Buckminster Fuller projects >>

Prof. Hanif Kara explores role of engineers in design process >>

Professor Hanif Kara, Critic of Creative Engineering at GSD, discussed the roles of the engineer and the architect in the design process during a recent NOW? event with Dean Mohsen Mostafavi at the GSD. During his presentation, Professor Kara advocated for a more collaborative working relationship between engineers and architects, noting that they should be “parallel practitioners” in an integrated design process, based on an interdisciplinary rather that multidisciplinary model is the future.

Structural engineers, he maintained, are far more advanced than architects in their knowledge of materials and in their more comprehensive education about tools and technologies, and are also trusted (more than Architects) by their clients. Architects, he maintained, need to be experts at more than just design, developing a competency in the role of technology and technique which provides a more comprehensive basis for creating, without necessarily becoming – engineers or scientists.

“Engineers can pretend to fit into the shoes of architects, but our most important role is to provide our specific expertise and collaborate with them to make the architecture better, not take over the ‘design’ process.” He said, if you leave engineers to do architecture, you will end up with ‘optimal’ structures rather than beautiful buildings and places. Engineers are shaped to be convergent thinkers.

The best engineers in his view are those who have‘empathy’ with the Architect, but not at the expense of technical prowess, or by trying to play Architects. There is a new opportunity to develop a shared discourse between Architects and Engineers as a result of recent developments.

Professor Kara is Director of the London-based firm Adams Kara Taylor, Consulting Structural and Civil Engineers and Professor of Architectural Technology at KTH Stockholm.

[Architect; February 2009]

Book Review of GSD 08 Platform >>

[Daily Dose of Architecture; February 24, 2009]

Urban design studio at forefront of developing San Jose, CA transit center

The City of San Jose has entered into an agreement with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design for an Urban Design Studio Project to begin identifying possibilities for the future of San Jose’s Diridon Station and its adjacent surroundings. [The studio is led by Rodolfo Machado, Co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design.]

The project, “New Ways: San Jose/Silicon Valley,” will offer a creative vision that will support overall economic development goals, enhance grant funding opportunities for the station expansion, and complement other planning taking place in preparation for the start of California’s new high-speed rail service.

Read full article >>

[MSNBC; February 10, 2009]

Rodolfo Machado, Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design and co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, and his students tour San Jose City Hall during their on-site research for the studio Diridon Station, San Jose, Silicon Valley Capital, CA. 

Walter Rask, Principal Architect for the City of San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency, gives students a walking tour of downtown San Jose. The students will prepare studies to redevelop the city’s central transportation center, Diridian Station, by combining a pre-eminent multi-modal transit station with a strong employment base, a large residential community, entertainment, open space, and mixed uses.

“Patterns” exhibition explores connections through architecture

“Untitled,” by Brett Albert, an architectural student at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, is a diagram for a design project that integrates forms, colors, materials, and elaborate patterns. It’s part of “Patterns: Cases in Synthetic Intelligence,” a show up at the GSD’s Gund Hall Gallery through March 15.

[Boston Globe; February 20, 2009]

Photo by Mary Kocol

[Building, Design + Construction; February 16, 2009]

Read full Building, Design + Construction article >>

Related: Harvard Gazette, February 26, 2009 >>

Profs. Herzog & de Meuron’s, Koolhaas’ practices among 10 top design firms

Herzog & de Meuron: The Beijing Olympics made this firm’s “Birds’ Nest” stadium an instant icon; its “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” design for the Miami Art Museum shows range.

Rem Koolhaas’s OMA: You have to love a guy who can design both a giant headquarters building for China’s CCTV and catwalks for Prada.

Read full article >>

[Fast Company; February 11, 2009]

Universal design expert  Leibrock creates ideal boomer residence

If there were a glitzy, razzle-dazzle competition for cheerleading captain of the Aging in Place movement — and given the boomer resistance to anything to do with aging, there certainly should be —Cynthia Leibrock, designer, consultant and Harvard instructor, would be a contender, strutting down the barrier-free, skid-free runway of a well-lighted arena; tossing an easy-grip baton in the air; blinding the judges with a smile and that fascinatingly taut face. Leibrock teaches universal design regularly for the GSD Executive Education summer program.

Read full article >>

[New York Times; February 18, 2009]

Dean Mostafavi issues diversity initiative for GSD

Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, has created a new diversity initiative, aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented minorities within the GSD faculty, staff, and student body.  Concerned about the low numbers of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans at the GSD and in the design professions, the Dean has established a committee of faculty, students, staff, and alumni to look at the issue and make recommendations. Dean Mostafavi, announcing his commitment to expanding diversity at the GSD said, “Since its founding, the Graduate School of Design has been a crossroads of learning and intellectual debate. Today, the school is committed to building on that legacy of cultural diversity, firm in the conviction that a multiplicity of voices and viewpoints among students, staff, and faculty is essential to our mission of advancing the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design.” 

Image: Kris Snibbe

Read quote from Dean Mostafavi in POWER magazine >>

Prof. Koolhaas/Design Critic Prince-Ramos’ Wyly Theater central to Dallas Arts District

The 600-seat, 80,000-square-foot Wyly Theater was designed, initially, by Koolhaas' Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and was taken over by REX, founded in 2006 by OMA alum's Joshua Prince-Ramus and Erez Ella. The design programmatically reshuffles typical horizontal theater layouts into a 12-level vertical expression, placing front-of-house and back-of-house areas above and below the auditorium, rather than around it. 

Read full article >>

[Architectural Record, February 2009]

GSD/Univ. of Paris to hold courthouse design conference; Profs. Leers and Picon to present

Andrea Leers, Adjunct Professor of Architecture; and Antoine Picon, Professor of Architectural Theory and History, will present at “The Architecture of the Courthouse: A Franco-American Retrospective, 1991-2006 to be held on March 26 and 27 at the Institut National d’Histoire d’Art in Paris.  The event, which is being organized by the GSD and the University of Paris, will assess the new generation of courthouses in France and the U.S.

Professor Leers, who has designed award-winning courthouses, will open the conference with introductory remarks and participate in a panel discussion about “What we can learn from each other in promoting design excellence in national courthouse building in the U.S. and France.” Professor Picon will present “Perspective and Commentary” regarding case studies of courthouse design in France and the U.S.  For further information, contact Andrea Leers at apleers@lwa-architects.com.

Prof. Jerold Kayden advocates improving public use of privately owned space

Cities are filled with spaces intended for the public -- but many of them are clearly owned and operated by the private sector. Though cities bend rules to get these spaces built, the public benefit is often outweighed by the cost. The challenge now is to make them better.

"By allowing bigger buildings than would otherwise be allowed by the zoning, the city is essentially saying 'we're willing to violate legally what we would otherwise think is appropriate because we’re getting something back in return that is even better.' So it better be better," said Jerold Kayden, professor and co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning at Harvard University. He's also the author of "Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience", an extensive study of more than 500 of these spaces conducted from 1998 to 1999. His study, and the subsequent studies it inspired, have found that the public benefit of these spaces is largely disproportional to the benefits enjoyed by developers.

Read full article >>

[Planetizen; February 12, 2009]

Prof. Richard Peiser speaks out on housing crisis; foreclosures

“One of the most vexing aspects of the housing crisis is the plight of an estimated 4 million to 8 million homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes through foreclosure. The need to assist those homeowners is urgent,” says Richard Peiser, Michael D. Spear Professor of Real Estate Development, in his Op Ed article in the Boston Globe.

Read full article>>

[Boston Globe; February 11, 2009]

Autodesk releases results of Christoph Reinhart’s lighting research

For the past two years Christoph Reinhart, Associate Professor of Architectural Technology, has been the principal investigator for a validation effort of  3ds Max Design, Autodesk’s main lighting simulation program. Autodesk recently released the results of his research on “The Briefing Room,” a prominent virtual conference room that instantly reaches thousands of practitioners and experts in the field. This important study is particularly relevant in showing that 3ds Max can yield physically accurate simulation results compared to measurements.

“This means that that it can be used for sustainable design purposes and code compliance under LEED,” says Christoph. “Autodesk is selling about 100,000 seats of the software per year, so this research will reach and affect a lot of people.” He will present the results as an invited speaker at Lightfair 2009 in May in New York. Lightfair is the world’s largest architectural lighting trade show with over 15,000 participants.

Additional information >>

For the published study, visit: http://www.autodesk.com/us/3dsmaxdesign/B3241.MentalRayValidation_v3.pdf

Prof. Toshiko Mori projects published in world architecture atlas

Toshiko Mori’s projects, The Newspaper Café in the Jinhua Architecture Park, Jinhua City, China; and Link Hall at Syracuse University, New York were featured in the recently published Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century World Architecture. Toshiko Mori is Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture.

GSD librarians presented at symposium on Hofmann and Sert

Special Collections librarians Mary Daniels and Ines Zalduendo presented at the February 9 symposium, “The Artist and Architect: Hofmann and Sert,” held at the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University. The symposium addressed the nine paintings created by Hans Hofmann in 1950 for a series of murals for Jose Lluis Sert’s plan for rebuilding the city of Chimbote in Peru. At the time, he created several of his most significant abstract paintings including these nine works never seen before in a U.S. museum.  Other speakers included Eric Mumford, Associate Professor of Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis; and Sandy Isenstadt, Assistant Professor of Art History, Yale University.

For information about the accompanying exhibition: http://www.brandeis.edu/rose/exhibitions/current/hofmann.html

Students create innovative environments with sustainable materials >>

Joint Center for Housing Studies’ report cites rise in sustainable remodeling >>

Dean Mostafavi calls attention to the importance of building interiors

“Why is architecture so often represented only from the outside? Do architects just pay more attention to the outside? Or is it perhaps because the external view of a building provides the image of a totality, an image that in its flatness is easier to comprehend than one of the interior?,” questions Dean Mohsen Mostafavi in his essay in the current issue of Harvard Design Magazine.

Read full article >>

Current issue of HDM >>

Frank Barkow’s firm  designs award-winning Daimler Group headquarters

Barkow Leibinger Architects, the firm of Frank Barkow, Design Critic in Architecture, has won first prize in the 2008 Survey Competition for its design of the new Daimler Group headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

MDesS student Peter Christensen coauthors award-winning book

Peter Christensen's co authored book with Barry Bergdoll, Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, was selected as one of the best trade illustrated books in this year’s Association of American University Presses (AAUP) annual design competition. The 2009 Book, Jacket, & Journal Show will premiere at the AAUP annual meeting this June, then travel throughout the country to various member universities from September 2009 to April 2010. Peter is in the History and Philosophy of Design MDesS program.

More information >>

Michael Meredith’s firm wins MoMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects Award >>