NOV Events

Some ongoing and upcoming events of note in NYC worth highlighting. And don't forget tomorrow is the Design Trust for Public Space's annual benefit and Saturday is the Institute for Urban Design's Arrested Development symposium at Cooper Union. 'Tis a busy month.

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PERFORMA 09

The third edition of the internationally acclaimed biennial of new visual art performance, will be held in New York City from November 1–22, 2009, showcasing new work by more than 150 of the world’s most exciting contemporary artists.

Here are some architecture-related programs with snippets; click the links for more information.

Performa Hub
Biennial Headquarters
41 Cooper Square
Sunday, November 1 - Sunday, November 22, Open 10am-8pm
Located in the latest architectural gem on the Bowery, the brand new Cooper Union building, the Performa Hub will function as our headquarters during the biennial.

The Public School (for Architecture)
Van Alen Institute & nyc.thepublicschool.org
30 W. 22nd Street, #6
Sunday, November 1 - Sunday, November 22, times vary
Performa is pleased to collaborate this November with The Public School (for Architecture) New York, a project by Van Alen Institute New York Prize fellows common room and Telic Arts Exchange.

Pre-enacting the Now and Future City
City of Tomorrows
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street
Saturday, November 7 3:00pm
A playful tour of the New York City of the future that merges urban geography, science fiction and guerilla street theater. Four short sci-fi scenes about New York City's political, spatial, and social futures...

Actions Propaganda
Performa Hub
41 Cooper Square
Saturday, November 7 11:00am
Performa teams up with Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, on a workshop laboratory inspired by Actions: What You Can Do With the City, a CCA exhibition with 99 actions that instigate positive change...

Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture: Towards Post-Capitalist Spaces
An Architektur
Gair Building No 6
81 Front Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
Thursday, November 12 - Saturday, November 21, times vary
The transformation of the urban landscape within the last decades has increasingly been dominated by the demands of capitalist utilization. Due to the current crisis, however...

Sirens Taken for Wonders
Paul Elliman
Performa Hub / Van Alen Institute
41 Cooper Square / 30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor
Friday, November 20 - Saturday, November 21, times vary
“Sirens Taken for Wonders” takes the double form of a workshop (Nov. 20, 10 pm) and a panel session with Arline Bronzaft (Chair of Noise Committee, Mayor’s Committee on the Environment of New York City), Laura Kurgan (an architect and artist), and Raviv Ganchrow (architect and sonologist) (Nov 21. 4 pm) to explore the coded languages of sirens and the different connotations we attach to them...

P.A.
Marina Rosenfeld
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
Sunday, November 22 7:00pm
A sound art performance by Park Avenue Armory artist-in-residence Marina Rosenfeld, "P.A." uses the massive airspace and complex social function of the Armory drill hall as both a reflecting and distorting structure...

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UIWe: Culture Designers

Thursday, 11/5, 6:30pm
Self-described "cultural designers" JACOB BLAK and CHRISTIAN PAGH discuss their Copenhagen-based practice, UIWe, with DOMINIC LEONG, Partner, LEONG LEONG ARCHITECTURE.

Free and open to the public
RSVP: gdb2106[@]columbia[dot]edu

Studio-X
180 Varick Street, STE 1610
Between King and Charleton Streets
212 989 2398

[Studio-X is a downtown studio for experimental design and research run by the Graduate Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University.]

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RIGHTS OF WAY
A New Politics of Movement in New York City?
A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH DAVID SMILEY, CIVIC LEADERS, ACTIVISTS, AND CITY PLANNERS

Thursday, 11/12 6:30 PM

The James Room
4th Floor Barnard Hall

With the recent turn to pedestrian zones, bike lanes and greenways in New York and in many cities around the world, there is a growing sense that a new kind of urbanism is possible, one no longer dominated by the culture and politics of the automobile. “Rights of Way” will examine the issues surrounding bikes and pedestrianization, and will explore sustainability, finance, public health, and the ways in which the street can serve as a fulcrum in debates about public space and urban life.

MODERATOR
David Smiley, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies at Barnard College

PANELISTS
Noah Budnick, Transportation Alternatives
Richard R. Gonzalez, Urban Design Lab at The Earth Institute
Margaret Newman, NYC Department of Transportation
Linda Pollak, Marpillero Pollak Architects
Sheila Somashekhar, Sustainable South Bronx

Sponsored by the Department of Architecture and the Urban Studies Program

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Paris/New York: 2 Metropoles—Policy for Urban and Social Space

Monday, November 16, 2009 6:30-8:30pm Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, New Academic Building, The Cooper Union For The Advancement of Science and Art, 41 Cooper Square

Discussion with Mireille Ferri (Conseil Régional d’Ile de France, Vice President), Pierre Mansat (Deputy Mayor in charge of the Paris Metropole project, Mairie de Paris), Christian de Portzamparc (Architect, participant to the Grand Paris competition, President of the Association des Architectes pour le Grand Paris), and Amanda Burden (NYC Planning Commission, Chairman). Moderated by Jean-Louis Cohen (New York University Institute of Fine Arts, Professor), with introductions by Anthony Vidler, Assoc. AIA (Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union, Dean & Professor) and Kareen Rispal (French Embassy, Cultural Counselor).

Paris/New York: 2 Metropoles—Planning for Sustainability, Density, and Inclusion

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 9:00am-6:00pm Center For Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets

A day of lectures and panel discussions will present strategies of French and American urbanists in addressing challenges in transportation, densification, social housing and open space. The morning session will be dedicated to issues in Paris arising from the Grand Paris challenge. After a welcome by Sherida Paulsen, FAIA (AIANY, President), urban designer and architect Alexandre Chemetoff will give the opening keynote, introducing a discussion between Emeline Bailly (Chef de projets, Délégation à la Politique de la Ville, Mairie de Paris), Catherine Barbe (Institute for the Sustainable Metropolis, Mairie de Paris) and architects/professors Djamel Klouche (School of Architecture, Versailles) and David Mangin (School of Architecture, Marne-la-Ballee). The afternoon will focus on New York with a panel including Rohit Aggarwala (NYC Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability), Rick Bell, FAIA (AIANY, Executive Director), Adrian Benepe (NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Commissioner), Alexandros Washburn, AIA (NYC Department of City Planning, Chief Urban Designer), and Thomas K. Wright (Regional Plan Association, Executive Director). Alexander Garvin (Yale University, Professor) will give the closing keynote. A reception to follow.

Issuu Ruummage

A few weeks ago I discovered Issuu -- "the leading digital publishing platform delivering exceptional reading experiences of magazines, books, catalogs, reports, and more" -- when I was separately sent a preview of a magazine and a new book. Issuu's interface allows one to flip pages, zoom and pan, and download as a PDF file, among other features. At the time I did not explore the rest of the site, though revisiting Issuu recently I clicked on the "Related" sidebar and searched around, finding some decent architecture selections, presented below. In general, though, the architecture-related titles tend to be individual and firm portfolios, with some catalogs, and magazine and book excerpts too. The titles below are full-length books and magazines, a mix of student and professional publications.


[Architectural Design Research, Vol 3, No. 1]


[b>magazine n°13]


[Canadian Architect October 2009]


[Geometry of Design]


[Urban Planning]

Designer Village Challenge 2009

The destruction caused by natural disasters such as typhoons has long been one of the major contributors to the perpetuation of poverty in developing countries like the Philippines. The suffering of the poor are amplified as climate change - reinforced storms lead to loss of life and property, and a costly halt in their way of life. They are plunged deeper into poverty when they are faced with the economic burden of having to rebuild their homes and livelihood. Many have been forced to relocate to urban centers, further congesting and expanding informal settlements. According to the Global Climate Risk Index, the Philippines is one of the ten most afflicted countries in the world in terms of the number of lives and property lost as a result of damage due to climate, and these are mainly in the form of increasing intensities of typhoons visiting the islands annually. In short, poverty and the lack of climate adaptability has proven to be a treacherous formula for poor communities.

Current mitigation and disaster management strategies are simply insufficient to shield the poor from the onslaught of the changing climate. Building disaster-resistant structures ahead of time would drastically reduce the impact of climate on poverty, bringing an end to the viscous cycle of: disaster – destruction – reconstruction. Moreover, the sense of security brought about by disaster-resistant structures would empower communities to uplift the quality of their lives as they gain more control over it. Without the fear that a storm can easily wipe away the lives that they have built, hopes and plans for the future may grow clearer and within reach.

This competition responds to the urgent need for radical adaptation. Designer Village Challenge calls for a masterplan and design of an eco-agro-tourism development for a rural community in the tropical hotspot of Camarines Sur, Philippines, a province that has repeatedly experienced catastrophic damage caused by strong tropical cyclones. The province of Camarines Sur has made it their mission to rise above it with progressive and pioneering projects that seek to alleviate the condition of its people. With the help of the global architecture community it believes that it can be an example of strength, resilience and innovative adaptability.

The top 3 winning designs will be awarded US $ 10,000, US $ 5,000 and US $ 3,000 respectively. The 1st prize winning design will be built by the Provincial Government in Camarines Sur as a prototype master planned community of 150 houses. Gawad Kalinga, the largest and most active non-government slum upgrading and rural community builders in Asia shall also build one of the winning designs. In addition, all design entries will be compiled and published into an encyclopedia of architecture and planning solutions for climate adaptability. The United Architects of the Philippines shall facilitate the competition and function as its secretariat.

The competition is open to all local and international architects, registered according to the relevant laws in their respective countries. All entrants are required to provide relevant professional registration on the registration form. Where an entry is made by a team of professionals, the team must be led by a person meeting the above criteria. That member must be indicated on the registration form as the entrant.

COMPETITION SECRETARIAT

United Architects of the Philippines
53 Scout Rallos Street, Diliman, Quezon City
1103 PHILIPPINES
Telephone (63-2) 4126364, (63-2) 4126374
Fax (63-2) 3721796
Email: info@designervillage.org
Website: www.designervillagechallenge.org