In this issue:
· 9/11 Remembered
· A Memorial Challenge: Keeping People in Mind
· HL23 Follows High Line of Innovation
· Digital Fabrication Permeates Prefab
· Green Speaks for Itself in Workplace Design

Event: Memorial Sites: New York to Nairobi, Photographs by Julie Dermansky & Memorials and Meaning Panel Discussion
Location: Center for Architecture, 09.10.08
Speakers: Julie Dermansky (artist statement) — Artist; Frederic Schwartz, FAIA – Principal, Frederic Schwarz Architects and Architect, Westchester County 9/11 Memorial & Empty Sky Memorial at Liberty State Park; Michael Arad, AIA – Partner, Handel Architects and Architect, National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center; Louis Nelson — Designer, Mural Wall of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.
Moderator: Lance Jay Brown, FAIA — Competition Advisor, National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center competition
Respondent: Rick Bell, FAIA — AIANY Executive Director
Organizer; Sponsor: Center for Architecture

The South Pool of National September 11 Memorial with the latest rendering of the Memorial Museum beyond. Memorial by Michael Arad, AIA, with Peter Walker, FASLA; museum by Snøhetta.

Created by Squared Design Lab, provided by National September 11 Memorial & Museum

While many see a memorial as a single object, such as a statue or fountain, Frederic Schwartz, FAIA, Michael Arad, AIA, and Louis Nelson have tried to reach beyond this notion to create unique spaces for healing and reflection. Though each memorial has a different purpose with varying site conditions, several common themes resonate through all of them.

Each project attempts to move people — both figuratively and literally. The designs guide visitors through changing levels via prescribed paths, often culminating in a moment of contemplation. Arad’s design for the National September 11 Memorial channels people down to bedrock and then back up above grade to view the footprints of the former towers from above. The linear design of Schwartz’s Empty Sky Memorial at Liberty State Park, NJ, compresses people between two abstract slabs engraved with the names of victims, culminating in a framed view of the empty space left in the Manhattan skyline by the towers’ collapse. In Nelson’s Korean War Veterans Memorial, viewers find themselves surrounded by life-size steel sculptures of marching infantry soldiers.

The experiences of these memorials don’t always reflect the processes that created them. All of the designers recalled frustrations of having their winning entries altered through the intervention of committees, juries, and government. Often the path from design to built reality is not straight, yet the interaction between designers and grievers (friends and families of the victims) is necessary for appropriate memorial design, the designers agreed. Viewing a memorial is intensely personal, as is the process of designing one. Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, described memorials as the “interplay between abstractness and figurativeness.” Arad sees memorial design as a conflict between rationality and emotion. But ultimately, “people: that’s what a memorial is all about,” said Nelson.

In conjunction with the panel, the exhibition of photographs by Julie Dermansky titled Memorial Sites: New York to Nairobi is on view at the Center for Architecture through 10.04.08. The exhibition reflects on the meaning and history of memorials while addressing site specificity, the culture of place, injustice and genocide, and the irony of sacred sites converted to tourist destinations. The exhibition catalogue is available for purchase online.

Murrye Bernard, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, is a designer with TEK Architects, and has written for Architectural Record, Architecture Boston, and Architectural Lighting.

Event: The High Line: Reviving New York’s Avant-Garde Architecture
Location: Museum of the City of New York, 09.11.08
Speakers: Neil Denari, AIA — Principal, Neil M. Denari Architects; Rick Bell, FAIA — Executive Director, AIANY; Sherida Paulsen, FAIA — Partner, PKSB Architect & Former Chair, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
Panelists: Donald Albrecht — Curator, Museum of the City of New York; Rick Bell, FAIA; Neil Denari, AIA; Thomas Mellins — Curator, Museum of the City of New York; Sherida Paulsen, FAIA; Marc Rosenbaum — Collaborating Architect on HL23, Neil M. Denari Architects
Organizer: Museum of the City of New York

HL23 is designed by Neil M. Denari Architects with the public in mind.

Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

Because of a commitment to design excellence by both the architecture profession and the city, as well as advancements in CAD technology, NYC architecture has thankfully moved beyond the unmemorable designs of the 1980s, stated former chair of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Sherida Paulsen, FAIA. She sees HL23, designed by Neil M. Denari Architects, following in a line of radical and ambitious contemporary architecture, from the Rose Center for Earth and Space by Polshek Partnership to the Hearst Tower by Foster + Partners.

During a recent tour of the New York Fast Forward: Neil Denari Builds on the High Line exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (now extended until 10.12.08), Neil Denari, AIA, walked visitors through his design. In trying to develop a market-friendly yet innovative design, Denari wanted to incorporate both hard-edge Modernistic and free-form Contemporary ideas. Curtain walls and metal panels are 20th century inventions, but he pushes their capabilities by fritting the glass to mimic the structure beyond and customizing the stamped panels with the aid of milling machines.

Because the building is sited next to the High Line and adjacent to the low-rises of the Gansevoort Market Historic District, three faç ades will always be visible in the foreseeable future. Denari, therefore, approached the design as if it were a public building, considering its impact on the public realm, even though it consists of private residences. The full-floor units take advantage of Manhattan views, and the aesthetics of the faç ade will hopefully be pleasing to the public (Denari spoke of the emotive power of good design). During the panel discussion, Rick Bell, FAIA, AIANY executive director, commented on how the floor-to-ceiling glass and cantilevering floor plates make the building “of the street.” No doubt, people on the street will be able to view the interiors of the apartments at night — a fact of life that many New Yorkers are familiar with, and perhaps those prone to exhibitionism will be those who embrace and purchase the units, he said.

Not everything has been resolved, though. Paulsen brought up the challenge that all who design next to the High Line will face — how the lower floors will mediate between street level and park level. With two public rights-of-way, storefronts are not necessarily the answer. Also, Bell raised the necessity to preserve the High Line as a public park. Even though HL23 does not provide direct access to the High Line from the apartments, when private buildings are constructed along the park’s perimeter, public access must be maintained and not impeded.

Event: Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling Panel
Location: Center for Architecture, 09.02.08
Speakers: Ali Rahim — Director, Contemporary Architecture Practice; Hina Jamelle — Director, Contemporary Architecture Practice; Neil Cook — Designer, Reiser + Umemoto; Michael Overby — Designer, Reiser + Umemoto; Scott Marble — Partner, Marble Fairbanks; Karen Fairbanks — Partner, Marble Fairbanks; Barry Bergdoll — The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, MoMA (introduction); James McCullar, FAIA — 2008 AIANY President & Principal, James McCullar & Associates (introduction)
Moderator: Peter Christensen — Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, MoMA
Organizers: Museum of Modern Art; Center for Architecture
Sponsors: Center for Architecture; AIANY Housing Committee

Contemporary Architecture Practice. “Migrating Formations, 2008.” Commissioned by MoMA for the Home Delivery exhibition. High-performance composite. This project supported in part by Z Corporation and ARUP.

Photograph by Richard Barnes, © 2008 The Museum of Modern Art

They are the only works that visitors to MoMA’s Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibition inevitably see twice, remarked curator Barry Bergdoll. They’re at the heart of the show’s mission to explore evolving technological innovations in architecture fabrication and delivery. Yet the three digitally designed and manufactured walls in the vestibule have been overlooked in most press coverage, Bergdoll said, at a recent panel featuring the three NYC firms behind the creations. Calling them “among the most radical propositions in the show,” he said the museum commissioned the projects as “provocations to see where we are in the still-nascent revolution” of computer-aided design and manufacturing.

Ali Rahim and Hina Jamelle of Contemporary Architecture Practice (CAP) explored the design possibilities of rapid 3 -D printing with “Migrating Formations,” a semi-opaque divider whose biomorphic forms resemble rows of bones. The printing was extremely fast, and the process obviated using molds or mechanical joints (the pieces were joined with epoxy resin). One day, similar technologies will be able to print entire homes in a day, Rahim said, which would be efficient, but not necessarily for good aesthetics. Home design is becoming easier for anyone with access to the technology — for better or worse. Therefore, CAP aimed for experimentation balanced with aesthetics. The patterns created by the wall’s curvy, bonelike pieces range between bulbous and angular forms to maximize the visual impact while adhering to the firm’s design sensibility.

The industrial looking “Flatform” by Marble Fairbanks was made, instead, of two laser-cut metal sheets that could be transported flat and then connected with foldout tabs. The result: a kind of “stainless steel Velcro,” as Scott Marble put it, where the intricate system of pinwheeling and opposing tabs provide the wall’s structure as well as its visual appeal. He was enthusiastic about how new digital fabrication techniques have inspired fresh architectural forms, seeing it as an opportunity to further architectural processes, not products, he said.

Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architecture used laser-cut steel to a different effect in “Vector Wall.” Undulating patterns of slits allowed the steel to be hammered into flowing curves, an easier installation than for Flatform, which required a squadron of students to help attach the tabs. The “Vector Wall” design process involved experimenting with variables such as the slits’ length, spacing, and patterning, said Neil Cook, one of the designers involved in the project. Like the other walls, Reiser + Umemoto is already exploring similar ideas and forms on a larger scale in projects such as the O-14 commercial tower in Dubai.

While the panels addressed technological and aesthetic concerns, the architects seemed less preoccupied with the practicality of their creations. Despite the three walls’ permeability, there was barely any talk about issues of visual or auditory privacy (apparently the designers all chose to envision their projects as decorative dividers). Bergdoll aptly observed that all three seemed more in the realm of materials research than an actual domestic program. Still, the panel justified the walls’ prominent placement, helping to elucidate some of digital design and fabrication’s advantages and pitfalls.

Lisa Delgado is a freelance journalist who has written for Oculus, The Architect’s Newspaper, Blueprint, The LEAF Review, and Wired, among other publications.

Event: Architecture: Designs for Living Public Lecture Series: New Directions in Design of the Workplace
Location: Center for Architecture, 09.08.08
Speakers: Martha Hirst — Commissioner, NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS); Dina Frank, AIA, IIDA — President, Mancini-Duffy; Rick Focke — Senior Principal, HOK; Nathan Hoyt, FAIA — Principal, Davis Brody Bond Aedes; Guy Geier, FAIA, IIDA, LEED AP — Senior Partner, FXFOWLE Architects
Moderator: Rocco Giannetti, AIA, LEED AP — Chair, AIANY Interiors Committee
Organizer: AIANY Interiors Committee
Sponsors: Champion: Studio Daniel Libeskind; Supporters: Gensler; Humanscale; James McCullar & Associates; Friends: Costas Kondylis & Partners; Forest City Ratner Companies; Frank Williams & Associates; Hugo S. Subotovsky A.I.A. Architects; Mancini Duffy; Magnusson Architecture and Planning; Rawlings Architects; RicciGreene Associates; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Syska Hennessy Group; Trespa North America; Universal Contracting Group

National Audubon Society Home Office, NYC.

Photo by David Sundberg/Esto, courtesy FXFOWLE Architects

The NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) received a mayoral mandate to reduce city government’s carbon footprint by 30% over the next 20 years in accordance with PlaNYC. DCAS Commissioner Martha Hirst explained that “doing more with less” is no easy task as the Office of Energy Conservation handles the accounts for about 4,000 municipal buildings. Some efforts — more efficient lighting at the Police Academy, and quick roll-up doors for the Department of Sanitation — have presented technical challenges.

Interior designers are doing their part to live up to PlaNYC’s sustainability goals as well. Presenting an office renovation at the Empire State Building for the NGO Human Rights in China, Nathan Hoyt, FAIA, principal of Davis Brody Bond Aedes, spoke of the need to “elasticate” modest space to accommodate a growing staff. Installing floor track movable furniture was one of the decisions made, as well as creating spaces that could serve double, or even triple, uses. At the National Audubon Society offices, FXFOWLE Architects incorporated found furniture and streamlined heating and cooling into the interior design.

“We don’t try to convert the client,” said Mancini-Duffy President Dina Frank, AIA, IIDA; instead, she recommended a “soft sell,” letting the health and economic advantages of environmentally sensitive, LEED-oriented design speak for themselves. Images of Mancini-Duffy’s new interior for AOL’s New York headquarters addressed this: sensor-activated lighting, bamboo paneling, and an open floor plan all made for a seductive, yet practical, interior design solution.

Ian Volner is a writer and critic living in Manhattan.