News & Events

Thursday, August 18, 2016
National Architectural Accrediting Board Re-accreditation

The School of Architecture is pleased to announce that at their July 2016 meeting, the board of directors of The National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) reviewed the Visiting Team Report for the school and granted our professional Bachelor of Architecture degree program an eight year term of accreditation. 

A NAAB accreditation review is a collaborative endeavor that spans more than a year, beginning with collecting information for the Architecture Program Report through hosting a site visit by the visiting team. The visit itself involved meetings with faculty, students, deans, alumni and Acting President Bill Mea, and preparing exhibits of student work across the entire curriculum. 

The School of Architecture is grateful to everyone at The Cooper Union who participated in and supported this process, including many School of Architecture alumni, and is gratified by the result. A full copy of the Visiting Team Report can be found here.

Master of Architecture II Advanced Design Studio and 2015-16 Graduate Thesis Exhibition
The Critical Moment: Process as Production 

SAVE THE DATE: Opening Thursday, September 15, 6:30-8:30 PM in The Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery

The Master of Architecture II Advanced Design Studio is culminating the 2015-2016 academic year with its graduate thesis exhibition. The Critical Moment: Process as Production will be on view from Thursday 15 September through Friday 30 September 2016. 

Gallery Hours:  Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 7 PM 

Located in The Foundation Building, 7 East 7th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10003.  Free and open to the public.

(Left to right: Anik Pearson AR '95, Sue Ferguson Gussow A'56, Elizabeth Graziolo AR '95 and Michael Samuelian AR '95)
Sue Ferguson Gussow Scholarship Announced

Members of The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture class of 1995 are working to raise an endowed scholarship named in honor of Sue Ferguson Gussow A'56, professor emerita, who taught drawing to generations of graduates of the school. The organizers of the fund, Michael Samuelian, Anik Pearson and Elizabeth Graziolo, recently announced they have reached over $40k in donations since its public kickoff in June. Their goal is to reach $100k by the end of the year, a number that will allow for a scholarship to be granted to a first-year architecture student every year. Learn More...

OPEN CALLS & OPPORTUNITIES
DEADLINE APPROACHING  

DESIGN COMPETITION | Van Alen Institute and the West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency: Shore to Core is a design competition and a research competition that uses West Palm Beach as a model to reimagine our waterfront cities and better understand individuals' relationships to the built environment.   The design competition seeks two multidisciplinary design teams to envision the future of waterfront cities. The winning design team will work with West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency to develop the first phase of their proposal in West Palm Beach.  The research competition seeks a research team to identify ways that the urban environment affects our minds and bodies. The winning research proposal will be developed into a pilot research study in West Palm Beach. Deadline: August 21, 2016.  Learn More... 

Fall Internship | Design Workshop, Aspen will be offering a fall internship.  While we realize that school is nearly starting, we hope that we will be able to match with a student who is interested in learning from a team of collaborative professionals in a creative business environment.  Assignments will vary and may include project research, site visits, sketching, computer production, design reviews and assisting on marketing proposals. We are strongly interested in candidates with dual degrees in both landscape architecture and urban design or planning. Please apply through our online employment application. Deadline: August 23, 2016. Learn more... 
ONGOING         

CALL FOR PAPERS | VIRAL: Information Technology as Prophet, Panacea, or Pariah? VIRAL--the inaugural call for papers for TECHNOLOGY | ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN (TAD)--is timely in asking whether architecture is once again on the threshold of significant changes in the material, technical and procedural context of design. In the twenty-first century, it is information technologies which are transforming how buildings are designed, constructed, delivered, occupied and assessed. From crowdsourcing to collective wisdom, technology is redefining our human relation to the environment, and to each other. Yet, to what extent are architects, and those who educate them, actively involved in articulating a path for such technologies within their work-be it in their research, scholarship, or design work? Alternatively, to what extent are architectural educators cautious, resistant, or critical of this highly speculative engagement with barely recognizable or material forms of technology?  
TAD seeks contributions from scholars, educators, designers, and architects who research, test and create using these emerging technologies and who seek to articulate and theorize the impact which they will have on the built environment. Deadline: September 1, 2016. Learn More...

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS | Open House New York is a nonprofit organization that provides broad audiences with unparalleled access to the extraordinary architecture of New York and to the people who help design, build, and preserve the city. For the annual OHNY Weekend event, we open up over 200 sites across all five boroughs to provide tours and access to the public, highlighting remarkable buildings and cutting edge infrastructure and design.  For this year's Weekend event on October 15 and 16, we hope to recruit a large team of volunteers to help out in a wide variety of ways at our sites all around the city. Learn More...

GRANT TO INDIVIDUALS | The Graham Foundation  Architecture and related spatial practices engage a wide range of cultural, social, political, technological, environmental, and aesthetic issues. We are interested in projects that investigate the contemporary condition, expand historical perspectives, or explore the future of architecture and the designed environment. We support innovative, thought-provoking investigations in architecture; architectural history, theory, and criticism; design; engineering; landscape architecture; urban planning; urban studies; visual arts; and related fields of inquiry. Open discourse is essential to advance study and understanding, therefore our grantmaking focuses on the public dissemination of ideas. With our support, the work of individuals and organizations reaches new audiences, from specialized to general, and creates opportunities for critical dialogue between various publics. Deadline: September 15, 2016. Learn More...

CALL FOR PAPERS | Between Data and the Senses; Architecture, Neuroscience and the Digital Worlds is a conference which will take place in London in March 2017 and is organized by the University of East London with the support of Museum of Architecture and ARUP. The conference will examine how digital and physical works overlap and what methods, approaches and findings architects can borrow from sciences. The cross-over between the digital and the physical is being increasingly addressed in design disciplines, architecture, arts and urban studies. These practices attempt to break-down the dichotomy between data and the sensuous. They translate elusive, ephemeral and intangible aspects of a place into solid data and vice-versa. The conference will be organized around the following key-themes: Architecture and Neuroscience/Neurophysiology, Digital and Physical and Cross-disciplinary networks. Posters and short papers of work in progress are also most welcome. Deadline: Abstracts due by September 15, 2016. Learn More...

ACCEPTING PROPOSALS| FIGMENT has teamed up with the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects NY Chapter (AIANY) and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to host a competition to design and construct an architectural pavilion on Governors Island, the City of Dreams Pavilion. The City of Dreams Pavilion will be a gathering place for people to meet, learn about the arts programs on the island, enjoy a performance or lecture, and experience the interaction of art and the historic context of  Governors Island. Deadlines: Register by Sept. 15, 2016 and Proposals due by September 30, 2016. Learn More... 

CALL FOR PAPERS |The ACSA  invites paper submissions for its 105th annual meeting, under 18 thematic session topics plus an additional open category. Authors may submit only one paper per session topic. The same paper may not be submitted to multiple topics. Some themes are: Design for Performance: Bridging the Gap Between the Poetics and the Pragmatics, Nomadic Cities or Life on the Run, Enslaving the Masters: The Pedagogical Challenges of Parametric Design and Fabrication in Architecture, Health + Design, Money Talks: The Impact of Macro Investors in the Shape of Cities, The Stadium: Architecture, Urban Regeneration, and Politics, The Fertility of Urban Ruins: Obsolete Industrial Cities as Ecosystem Holders, and more. Deadline: September 21, 2016. Learn More... 

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS | The Design & Health Research Consortium is a joint program of Architects Foundation, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and ACSA.  As we enter our third year, ACSA and AIA seek to invite 6-8 established, multi-disciplinary university-led teams working to understand design's role in realizing health-promoting, equitable spaces. Invited teams will join an existing network of 17 universities. Deadline: September 30, 2016. Learn More...

DESIGN COMPETITION | Transforming The Tunnel: The City Branch Philadelphia's City Branch is an unused network of 115-year-old rail lines that transported goods and people into and out of Center City Philadephia. SEPTA, the region's public transit authority, purchased the branch in 1995 with hopes of turning it into a light-rail or rapid-bus route into the heart of the city but no projects have developed yet. Beginning near 21st Street is a covered "Tunnel" section which extends six blocks before the tracks reemerge and slowly "Ramp" back above ground by 31st Street. What design interventions could improve access to, transit through, lighting in, and programming for the City Branch Tunnel, making this covered section useful, fun, and safe for all - while supporting (or at least not precluding) potential future uses? The competition is open to all undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students who are actively matriculating at a college or university during the run of the competition (October 7-28, 2016).  Deadlines: Registration by October 6 and Submission by October 28, 2016. Learn More...

APPLICATIONS OPEN | Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant The Center for Architecture is currently accepting applications for the Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant with the purpose to further the personal and professional development of an architect in early or mid-career through travel. Travel plans should be focused on a selected topic of interest to the individual, rather than a part of a larger humanitarian or institutional endeavor. If appropriate, the winner may be asked to present at the Center for Architecture upon return. Proposals should be judged on need, focus and benefit. Deadline: November 1, 2016. Learn More...

DESIGN COMPETITION | Eleven invites thinkers, architects, designers, artists, academics and visionaries from around the world to imagine innovative solutions for Moontopia - the first ever self-sufficient lunar colony designed for living, working, researching and - why not - a little space tourism too. With all this buzz surrounding space travel, will we finally see mankind return to the Moon with a view to inhabit? What does this mean in terms of design? How can architecture adapt to its lunar surroundings and respond to a whole new set of criteria - be it advantages or threats - such as extreme temperature shifts, lunar quakes or reduced gravity? What could lunar architecture actually look like today? Deadline: November 11, 2016. Learn More... 

DESIGN COMPETITION | The Schindler Global Award: Urban Design for Coexistence is a student urban design competition. It is focused on mobility, understood as a key driver of desirable change in urban areas around the world. The SGA is a chance for young designers to match their skills and imaginations against the challenge of shaping the cities of today and tomorrow. Students of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and design are invited to come up with holistic design proposals in response to a specific brief. The biannual competition will next take place in 2016-2017, with a site in São Paulo, Brazil. Deadlines: Applications by December 16, 2016 and Projects by December 30, 2016. Learn More...

FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS 
Elizabeth O'Donnell, (AR '83/Arch fac & Assoc Dean) | Juror | Staten Island Aerial Gondola Design Competition, sponsored by Staten Island Economic Development Corporation (SIEDC), Staten Island, NY 

David Gersten, (AR '91/Arch fac) | Contributing Artist | Zoetrope Sun, August 5-6, 2016, Averill Park, NY

David Turnbull, (Arch fac) | Article | "Announcing the 2016 Fuller Challenge Semi-finalists," DYMAXION FORUM, July 5, 2016

Wes Rozen, (AR '05/Arch fac) | Contributing Artist | Zoetrope Sun, August 5-6, 2016, Averill Park, NY

ALUMNI NEWS 
Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Elizabeth Diller, AR '79, Ricardo Scofidio, AR '55/Arch fac emeritus) | Article | "Watch How Diller Scofidio + Renfro's "Shed" Transforms at New York's High Line," ARCHDAILY.COM, August 1, 2016  | Article | "First look at DS+R's new 14-story "Study Cascade" at Columbia University Medical Center," THE ARCHITECTS' NEWSPAPER, August 5, 2016  | Article | "Ten firms are competing to design an artificial island complex in  China," THE ARCHITECTS' NEWSPAPER, August 10, 2016  | Article | "Herzog & de Meuron, Studio Gang, and DS+R among those shortlisted for  new Royal College of Art campus in South London," THE ARCHITECTS'  NEWSPAPER, August 11, 2016

Carmi Bee, (Arch '67) | Article | "Designing Beauty Affordably in NYC," MODERN BUILDER & DESIGN, June/July 2016.

Daniel Libeskind, (AR '70) | Article | "The Frankfurt Concerts of Daniel Libeskind," ARCHITECT MAGAZINE, July 14, 2016

Elizabeth Diller, (AR '79) | Article | "Supertall towers 'damage the city fabric,' says Elizabeth Diller," CURBED.COM, August 8, 2016

Oren Sagiv, (AR '01) | Article | "A new exhibition delves into the early modernism of British Mandate
Palestine," THE ARCHITECTS' NEWSPAPER, August 2, 2016  | Article | "Social constructs: a show of British Mandate Palestinian architecture," WALLPAPER*, July 7, 2016

Alexis Rochas, (AR '02) | Finalist | Place by Design 2016 Finalists, Revitalization Category, SXSW Eco

Situ Studio (Basar Girit, Aleksey Lukyanov-Cherny, Wes Rozen, Bradley Samuels, all AR '05, Wes Rozen also Arch fac)
| Finalists | Place by Design 2016 Finalists, Equity + Inclusion Category, SXSW Eco

Melanie Fessel, (MAR '11) | Article | "2016 R+D Awards, Award: Cricket  Shelter-Modular Edible Insect Farm," ARCHITECT MAGAZINE, July 11, 2016

Che Perez, (AR '14) | Contributing Artist | Zoetrope Sun, August 5-6, 2016, Averill Park, NY

Evan Burgess, (AR '15) | Contributing Artist | Zoetrope Sun, August 5-6, 2016, Averill Park, NY

Vaughn Lewis, (AR '19) | Article | "Vaughn Lewis: SatPro Alum / CU Architecture  Undergrad & SatPro Instructor, Emerald Bay / Desolation Wilderness:  Redefining Wilderness Through Re-Photography," SATURDAY PROGRAM  NEWSLETTER, August 2016

                                                                                         

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