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September 2019 News Roundup

From “Drawing Attention: The Digital Culture of Contemporary Architectural Drawings,” at the Roca London Gallery, co-curated by Grace La.

Drawing Attention: The Digital Culture of Contemporary Architectural Drawings,” at the Roca London Gallery, explores contemporary architectural drawing and features an expansive collection of over seventy drawings from established and emerging practitioners around the globe including Jimenez Lai, CJ Lim, O’Donnell + Tuomey, and Neil Spiller. Co-curated by Grace La, the exhibition is part of the London Design Festival.

Anita Berrizbeitia gave a keynote lecture at the International Federation of Landscape Architects’ conference in Oslo. “Given the current challenges of species extinction and resource scarcity, I pose that the landscape will increasingly be the space where the conflicts between the interests of the few versus the need of the many are registered and negotiated,” wrote Berrizbeitia in an introduction to her lecture. The conference took direct aim at the climate crisis, asking how landscape architects can mitigate the destruction of nature and people.

Model for Khoa Vu’s (MArch I ’19) thesis “Grayscale”

Laier-Rayshon Smith (MUP ’20) was awarded an APA Foundation Scholarship. Smith’s vision for equitable communities includes working at the intersections of social interaction, policy, design and the decision-making processes that formulate the built environment. Experience working at non-profit organizations in Pittsburgh helped to shape this vision. The APA Foundation’s mission is to advance the art and science of planning through philanthropic activities that provide access to educational opportunities, enrich the public dialogue about planning, and advance social equity in the profession and in our communities.

Justin Stern (Ph.D ’19, MUP ’12) is the new Pollman Fellow in Real Estate and Urban Development 2019-2020. Stern’s research focuses on the interplay of economic development, technological disruption, and urban form in the rapidly urbanizing regions of East and Southeast Asia. As a Pollman Fellow, Stern will work on the research project “Offshoring, Automation, and the City: Mapping the Urban Futures of Global Outsourcing Hubs,” which builds on his dissertation. The research will address BPO automation in Bangalore, Johannesburg, Kraków, and Manila. Topics will include how local governments, real estate development corporations, and others prepare for the threat of BPO automation, and what lessons can be learned about functional building obsolescence caused by societal, economic, and technological changes.

Khoa Vu’s (MArch I ’19) thesis “Grayscale,” advised by Preston Scott Cohen, was recognized as one of the winners of 2019 Architecture MasterPrize in the Cultural Architecture category. “Grayscale” exploits the inbetween as central to providing a new design methodology and spatial type. The aim of this thesis is to discover spatial conditions that exist between nature and the man-made, the old and the new, the inner, imaginative mind and the external, perceived world. The project proposes a new Cultural and Laboratory Hub for a highland resort city in Vietnam called Dalat, “the city of fog and thousands of pine.” The thesis will be also exhibited at the GSD Dean’s Wall from 10/21 – 12/20, selected by the Chair of Architecture Department Mark Lee.

 

Robert Pietrusko’s sound installation Six Microphones, which was exhibited at Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2013 and at the Carpenter Center in 2015.

Weiss/Manfredi was recently selected as one of three finalists for Reimagining La Brea Tar Pits, an international competition for the historic museum and park in Los Angeles. DS+R and Dorte Mandrup (Copenhagen) are the other two finalists. In reimagining the 13 acres of Hancock Park, La Brea Tar Pits, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the architects assembled teams that included not only architects and landscape architects, but scientists, engineers, designers, and artists. Recently, Weiss/Manfredi’s Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park won the Spaces, Places, and Cities category in the 2019 Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards. Both the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Overlook and Tulane University Commons are opening to the public this fall.

Robert Pietrusko’s sound installation Six Microphones, which was exhibited at Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2013 and at the Carpenter Center in 2015 is being released by LA-based record label, LINE: Sound Art EditionsIt is now available for streaming, digital download, and on double vinyl.

Jesse Keenan published an article in Science entitled “A Climate Intelligence Arms Race in Financial Markets.” The articles focuses on black box technology and public science integrity issues in built environment systems associated with climate adaptation planning and investment. Science is one of the most prominent journals in the world among all disciplines. Currently, it is ranked #3 behind Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Alex Krieger published an editorial in The Business Journals entitled “Viewpoint: The many lives of Boston’s Old Corner Bookstore”.

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