The Architectural League of New York

Folly

Gabriel Silberblatt — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:15:22 +0000

Click image to see more. All images courtesy of Jerome Haferd and K. Brandt Knapp

“Curtain,” a project by Jerome Haferd and K. Brandt Knapp
July 14 – October 21, 2012
Opening reception, July 14, 2-6 pm

On view at
Socrates Sculpture Park
32-01 Vernon Boulevard at Broadway
Long Island City
The park is open 365 days a year from 10 a.m. until sunset. Admission is free.
For more information about visiting, click here.

The Architectural League and Socrates Sculpture Park are pleased to present “Curtain,” a new project by Jerome Haferd and K. Brandt Knapp. “Curtain” is the winning entry in Folly, a competition co-sponsored by the League and Socrates that invited emerging architects and designers to propose contemporary interpretations of the architectural folly, traditionally a fanciful, small-scale building or pavilion sited in a garden or landscape to frame a view or serve as conversation piece. “Folly” was established by Socrates, in partnership with the League, to explore the intersections between architecture and sculpture and the increasing overlaps in references, materials, and building techniques between the two disciplines.

“Curtain” is a structure composed of a series of frames of slender wood posts, defining a space of 20 feet wide on each side with a triangulated roof canopy varying in height from 8-12 feet. The vertical and horizontal planes of the structure will be articulated with a dense series of suspended white plastic chain. Fixed in some places, hanging free in others, the white chain will create “rooms” that viewers can occupy, offering changing spatial experiences within the outline defined by the wooden framework. The title of the piece alludes to the material quality of the chain as it reacts to breezes off the East River as well as a play on the modernist understanding of “curtain walls” as fixed boundaries.

“Curtain” was selected by a jury that included: Alyson Baker, former Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park (2000–11) and current Executive Director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Yolande Daniels, Studio SUMO; Richard Gluckman, Gluckman Mayner Architects; Christopher Leong, Leong Leong Architecture; and Leo Villareal, artist. The program is directed by Elissa Goldstone, Exhibition Program Manager, Socrates Sculpture Park; and Gregory Wessner, Special Projects Director, The Architectural League of New York.

For more information about the competition, click here.

About the Designers
Brandt Knapp, a Baltimore native, currently works at Richard Meier and Partners in New York. She studied photography as well as architecture and has maintained a strong interest in the arts and teaching. Jerome Haferd is originally from Akron, Ohio. His academic and professional pursuits initially led him to several locales, including the Beijing offices of OMA and Zephyr Architects. He now works under Bernard Tschumi at Bernard Tschumi Architects, New York.

About Socrates Sculpture Park
Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of sculptor Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and artist residency program that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of free public programs. Socrates Sculpture Park is the only site in the New York Metropolitan area specifically dedicated to providing artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale sculpture and multi-media installations in a unique outdoor environment that encourages strong interaction between artists, artworks and the public. The Park’s existence is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity andimprovement of our urban environment.
www.socratessculpturepark.org

Support
Folly, a partnership of Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League, is made possible through a generous grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Socrates Sculpture Park’s Exhibition Program is also supported by the generosity of Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Mark di Suvero, Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, and Spacetime C.C. This program is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and by public funds from the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Special thanks to the City of New York, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, City Councilmembers Jimmy. Van Bramer and Peter F. Vallone Jr., and the Department of Parks & Recreation, Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

Architectural League programs are additionally supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The Architectural League Prize: Michael Szivos; Koji Tsutsui; Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim

Gabriel Silberblatt — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:55:29 +0000

Click image to see slideshow.
The Architectural League Prize
Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim, STPMJ
Michael Szivos, SOFTlab
Koji Tsutsui, Koji Tsutsui & Associates
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Parsons The New School for Design
66 Fifth Avenue
1.5 CEUs

The second evening of lectures by winners of the 31st annual Architectural League Prize. A reception will follow the lectures.

SOFTlab is a New York-based design studio specializing in media: graphic design, branding, strategy, environmental design, and interactivity. The studio was founded in 2005 by Michael Szivos. The office’s work has been shown at the New Museum, MoMA, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the office was selected by the New York Chapter of the AIA in 2010 as part of its New Practice New York program. Szivos received his B.Arch from Louisiana State University and his M.S. in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at GSAPP and is a Visiting Professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate School of Architecture.

Click image to see slideshow.

Koji Tsutsui & Associates was founded in Tokyo by Koji Tsutsui in 2004, opening an office in San Francisco in 2010. The office’s InBetween house received a 2011 World Architecture Festival Award in the Villa Category and was named to Architectural Record‘s Record Houses. The office was also part of Architectural Record‘s Design Vanguard in 2011. In 2009, the office’s Annular Orphanage was a Finalist for the Global Holcim Award. Tsutsui received his B.Arch from the University of Tokyo and his M.Arch from The Bartlett School at University College London.

Click image to see slideshow.

STPMJ is an interdisciplinary architectural practice founded in 2009 with work in scale from furniture to urban infrastructure. The office is lead by Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim and based in Brooklyn, New York. Seung Teak Lee was born in Seoul, Korea. After graduating with a B.E and M.E from Korea University, he received his M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Lee was the recipient of the Harvard Architectural Department’s Faculty Design Award in 2009 and was also a finalist for the SOM architecture and urban traveling fellowship. Mi Jung Lim was born in Seoul, Korea. After graduating with a B.S from Yonsei University, she received her B.Arch from Rhode Island School of Design and M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Click image to see slideshow.

Tickets
Tickets are free for League members; $10 for non-members. Members may reserve a ticket by e-mailing: rsvp@archleague.org. Member tickets will be held at the check-in desk; unclaimed tickets will be released fifteen minutes after the start of the program. Non-members may purchase tickets here, starting June 13. Purchased tickets are available for pick-up at the venue check-in desk and are non-refundable.

Support
The program is supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn. The program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

Architectural League programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The League thanks the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design for co-sponsoring the exhibition and lecture series.

The Architectural League Prize: Jimenez Lai; Emmanuel Ramirez, Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio del Rio, Diego Ricalde; Sean Lally

Gabriel Silberblatt — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:41:27 +0000

Click image to see slide show.

The Architectural League Prize
Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio del Rio, Emmanuel Ramirez, and Diego Ricalde, MMX Studio
Jimenez Lai, Bureau Spectacular
Sean Lally, WEATHERS / Sean Lally
Thursday, June 21, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Parsons The New School for Design
66 Fifth Avenue
1.5 CEUs

The first evening of lectures by winners of the 31st annual Architectural League Prize. A reception will follow the lectures.

Established in 2009, MMX Studio is a collaborative practice based in Mexico City focused on design process and research. The studio is led by Jorge Arvizu, who received his B.S. in architecture and M.S. in civil engineering from the Universidad Iberoamericana; Ignacio del Rio, who received his training in architecture from the National University of Mexico; Emmanuel Ramirez, who holds a degree in architecture from the National University of Mexico and a M.Arch from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and currently teaches at the Universidad Iberoamericana; and Diego Ricalde, who received his architecture training at the National University of Mexico and holds a Master’s degree in architecture and urbanism from the Architectural Association in London, and currently holds a teaching position at the Universidad Iberoamericana. del Rio, Ramirez, and Ricalde were awarded the Mexican Young Creators Award in 2003 by the National Fund for Culture and Arts in Mexico.

Click image to see slideshow.

Jimenez Lai founded Bureau Spectacular in 2008 in Chicago. The office imagines other worlds and engages the design of architecture through telling stories, conflating design, representation, theory, criticism, history, and taste into cartoon pages. These cartoon narratives swerve into the physical world through architectural installations, models, and small buildings. Lai was the recipient of the LeFevre Fellowship. His work has been widely exhibited and published. Lai’s graphic novel/manifesto, Citizens of No Place, will be published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Draft II of this book has been archived at the New Museum as a part of the show Younger Than Jesus. Jimenez Lai is currently an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and graduated with a M.Arch from University of Toronto.

Click image to see slideshow.

Sean Lally founded the office WEATHERS /Sean Lally in 2005 and is currently based in Chicago. The office explores the overlap of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. Lally is the co-editor and contributor of Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space, from Routledge 2007 and was quest editor for the AD Journal issue entitled Energies: New Material Boundaries through Wiley Press 2009. A new single authored book entitled The Air on Other Planets will be published in 2013. He is the recipient of the 2011- 2012 Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome in Landscape Architecture. He is an Assistant Professor at the UIC School of Architecture, Chicago. He received his B.S. in Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his M.Arch from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Click image to see slideshow.

Support
The program is supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn. The program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

The League thanks the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design for co-sponsoring the exhibition and lecture series.

Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers 2012: No Precedent

Gabriel Silberblatt — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:16:15 +0000

Featuring work by 2012 League Prize Winners:
Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio del Rio, Emmanuel Ramirez, and Diego Ricalde, MMX Studio; Jimenez Lai, Bureau Spectacular; Sean Lally, WEATHERS / Sean Lally; Seung Teak Lee and Mi Jung Lim, STPMJ; Michael Szivos, SOFTlab; Koji Tsutsui, Koji Tsutsui & Associates

June 21 — August 3, 2012
Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries
Sheila C. Johnson Design Center
Parsons The New School for Design
66 Fifth Avenue
New York City

The gallery is open daily from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and late Thursday evenings until 8:00 p.m. Admission is free. The exhibition will also be open on the evenings of the lectures, featuring the winners. For more information on the lectures, click here.

For more information on this year’s competition, click here.

The League thanks the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design for co-sponsoring the exhibition and lecture series.

Support
The League Prize is generously supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn. The program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

“Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet”

Gabriel Silberblatt — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:14:42 +0000

“Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet”
Andrew Blum
Thursday, June 14, 2012

Walking Tour — SOLD OUT
5:30 p.m.
RSVP required

Talk & Reception
7:00 p.m.
594 Broadway, Suite 607

The Internet has changed everything. Yet the network itself, its physical nuts and bolts, remains utterly obscured, hidden in secret locations and behind closed doors. In his new book, Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, journalist Andrew Blum goes inside the Internet’s physical infrastructure–its buildings–and flips on the lights. Tubes is a book about real places on the map: their sounds and smells, their storied pasts, their physical details, and the people who work there.

Blum will lead a walking tour of the Internet’s infrastructure in lower Manhattan, followed by a short talk and reception at the Architectural League.

Andrew Blum is a journalist writing about architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel. He is a contributing editor at Metropolis and Urban Omnibus, and his articles and essays have appeared in Wired, The New York Times, Popular Science and Architectural Record, among many other publications.

Admission and Reservations
Admission for both the walking tour and the reception is free and open to the public. Reservations are required for the walking tour. Space is limited to 25 people. Reserve a space by emailing: rsvp@archleague.org. Reservations are not necessary for the talk and reception.

Co-sponsored by Studio-X NYC.

Álvaro Siza Vieira

Gabriel Silberblatt — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:28:15 +0000

Click to see a slideshow of more images

Current Work
Álvaro Siza Vieira
Introduced by Kenneth Frampton and Barry Bergdoll
Friday, June 8, 2012
6:30 p.m.
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1, The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53^rd Street, entrance at The Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building (with curvilinear awning)
1.5 AIA and New York State CEUs

SOLD OUT — Additional tickets may become available. To be added to the wait list, League members may email rsvp@archleague.org.

This event is co-organized by The Museum of Modern Art, The Architectural League of New York, and Aicep Portugal Global, with the kind support of Tap-Air Portugal and the St. Regis Hotel.

Álvaro Siza Vieira is the most important and influential Portuguese architect. His work has been internationally recognized for more than five decades for its coherent and thoughtful response to both site and history in context. His architecture, spread across the globe, is lauded for its intuitive creative drive and innovative spatial experimentation.

A 1992 Pritzker Prize winner, Siza has also received the honorary title of Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and in 1998 the Praemium Imperiale from the Emperor of Japan. More recently, Siza was awarded the 2009 RIBA’s Royal Gold Medal and the 2011 International Union of Architects Gold Medal. He was a Visiting Professor at the École Polytechnique of Lausanne, the University of Pennsylvania, the Los Andes in Bogotá, and at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University as Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor. He continues to teach at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto.

Kenneth Frampton is Ware Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Barry Bergdoll is The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art.

Tickets
Tickets are free and available to League members only (no non-member guests). To join the League and attend this (and all other League programs) for free, click here. Members may reserve a ticket by e-mailing: rsvp@archleague.org, beginning 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 16. Limited tickets available, first-come, first-served.

Support
The Architectural League is pleased to acknowledge the support of TRESPA for the Current Work series. This program is additionally supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Grimshaw

Gabriel Silberblatt — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 16:56:17 +0000

Click image to see slideshow and photo credits.

First Friday
Grimshaw
Friday, June 1, 2012
6:30-8:00 p.m.
Offices of Grimshaw
637 West 27 Street
Gallery Space–Ground floor

Join Grimshaw at its New York office for drinks, informal conversation, and a behind the scenes look at recent and upcoming projects. This program is part of First Friday, a monthly opportunity for League members to visit the offices of leading design practices to see work on the boards and learn more about the offices’ organization and design processes. These informal social gatherings feature happy hour drinks arranged by the host office.

Grimshaw was founded by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in 1980, becoming a partnership in 2007. The firm operates worldwide with offices in New York, London, Melbourne, and Sydney employing over 250 staff.

The practice describes its work as the “search for optimal solutions to create a built environment that uses the planet’s resources carefully.” Its current New York projects include Via Verde Greenway affordable housing (with Dattner Architects) in the Bronx, the Fulton Street Transit Center in Manhattan, the Queens Museum of Art expansion, and masterplanning at New York University. Past work includes the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at RPI, flood mitigation street furniture for the MTA, and bus shelter designs for CEMUSA New York.

Grimshaw’s international portfolio covers all major sectors, and has been honored with over 150 international design awards including the prestigious Lubetkin Prize.

Tickets
First Friday events are free and open only to League members, who may bring up to one non-member guest. RSVP required to rsvp@archleague.org. To become a member and attend this program, join here.

Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu

Reid — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:17:56 +0000

Oyler Wu Collaborative
Emerging Voices 2012
Recorded: March 23, 2012
Running time: 48:19

Most of Oyler Wu Collaborative’s projects are self-built, providing the opportunity for “the design process to continually respond to the feedback provided by the fabrication process.” In addition to speculative façade designs, over the past year the office has built Anemone, a pavilion in Taipei; a traveling installation “reALIze” (in collaboration with Michael Kalish); and “Netscape,” a large steel-framed and knitted rope canopy at SCI-Arc, which was designed and constructed with students. Based in Los Angeles, the firm is led by Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu.

Making Buildings Work: the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center

urbanomnibus — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:42:21 +0000

Click the image above to read the complete post on Urban Omnibus.

The CEO of the city’s first non-profit industrial developer discusses how his organization creates space for a new generation of urban manufacturing in New York City. Read more…

Interview: Sasa Radulovic and Johanna Hurme

Gabriel Silberblatt — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:06:52 +0000

Winnipeg’s 5468796 Architecture is a collaborative firm that engages in design at a variety of scales, participating in “an ongoing dialogue rooted in curiosity and play, generating innovative architectural solutions within modest budgetary constraints.” Their current and recent projects range in scale from the OMS Stage to multifamily housing, including the projects Bloc 10; YouCube; and Welcome Place [Immigrant Housing and Services]. Their exhibition, “Migrating Landscapes,” which examines how Canadians express their diverse cultural memories in the way they live and build, has been chosen to represent Canada in the 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture.

Gabriel Silberblatt: As an emerging firm, what do you see as the advantages and challenges to practice in today’s economic, professional, and intellectual climate?

Sasa Radulovic: Do you mind if I ask you a question? How do you define “emerging” at the moment? Because everybody seems to define it differently.

Anne Rieselbach: It used to mean, “beginning to have a body of built work that’s getting attention.” We changed the wording a couple of years ago, to an “accomplished” body of work, because as with your colleague Jeffrey Inaba, not everyone is building, and everybody defines “building” differently anyway. A “body of work” can encompass installation art and similar, more ephemeral work, which we’ve been highlighting for a while, but also, interesting mapping and other types of projects that don’t find themselves in built expression, but nevertheless are a way of finding form.

SR: Lateral Architecture did that last year, right?

AR: Right, precisely. So it’s a consistent view; it’s a vision, which is how we define the “voice.” The “emerging” part is sort of self-explanatory, although it catches different people at different points in their career, so it’s a good question. But, it’s a time where the work has begun to express its own kind of philosophy, so it’s more than one, cool building, but a body of work.

Johanna Hurme: I think the advantage would definitely be that one feels as though one has to really go after something. Because the work isn’t coming in freely, one has to invent something to make a go of it. It’s always a struggle to see what we can fit into the project, how we can make it interesting, or what we can extract out of it. That in itself breeds innovation in some way or another, or at the very least, the process provides a good ground for innovation. We’re constantly trying to find the right resources or trying to find ways of reallocating resources within the project parameters to, in our minds, create something worthwhile. That’s probably the advantage.

SR: The other aspect I would like to add to this idea of “emerging”…We’re very much a product of where we work, of Winnipeg. It’s a rather conservative environment—almost boring and beige. The architecture is really at the bottom of the cultural radar. It wasn’t like that in the 1960s and 70s; then, Winnipeg had a bunch of people that studied under Wright and Mies. They went up from the IIT and Harvard, and taught there. Faculty of Architecure, University of Manitoba was actually one of the best schools in Canada—when Winnipeg was the third largest city in Canada after Toronto and Montreal, I think at the time—it was bigger than Vancouver and Calgary. So it was actually a really good place to work, and a lot of modernist architecture that was constructed in Western Canada came out of Winnipeg, designed by people that had studied there. But since the ‘70s interest in architecture diminished, which had to do in part with different recessions. So we find that part of the reason we’ve started our firm was sort of a reaction to that gap, that lack of things happening. There were no start-ups in the city for 20 years before us, so it was really dead. Just dead. Nothing “emerging.” So a lot of our architecture is a response, if you wish…

JH: A reaction.

SR: A reaction, right. And we’re trying to figure out what it means. One of the things that we came up with is that it’s an attitude more so than a philosophy, if you wish. Many offices question, “What is [our] philosophy?”

JH: Are you answering the question though?

SR: No, no (chuckle).

GS: I’m interested to know how it is you define the difference between “attitude” and “philosophy.” Or how these words seem to have different charges for you.

SR: Well, a “philosophy” is something that can evolve, but seems to be, to a certain extent, firmly defined, while an “attitude” is something that actually allows you to change, based on what you eat that morning, right?

JH: …or allows you to have a different take on each project, I think, more so than the philosophy. If you’re trying to follow the same philosophy, then you’re always trying to extract the same thing out of every project, whereas attitude is somehow trying to demonstrate that, regardless of the constraints and regardless of the resources that are available, you really can do something interesting or you can do something that’s…

SR: …a “reaction,” no? We want to show that no matter what the budget is, no matter what the program is, no matter how bad the client is, we can do something.

JH: There is no excuse. You can’t just say “next time,” or “we’ll find a better client” or “we’ll find a better budget.” Every time we take on the project we as architects take on the responsibility of trying to make something out of it. And we know, of course that we can fail, and I’m sure we do—and we have—and we’re the first ones to admit that.

However, what we’re ultimately trying to do is not only produce work, but also trying to make architecture part of culture, because very often even in our context it’s left out. The visual arts is one thing; people understand visual arts and what the power of arts can be to any community. And yet, architecture is always looked at as a separate piece, and it’s never been understood as part of the production of culture, and that’s what we’re trying to talk to people about.

SR: There’s been a lot of things happening in Winnipeg in the last five years. For example, we actually do critiques of each other’s work once a month. Different firms present five projects and we get together for about five hours and we talk about them. There are usually 50 to 80 people to an event. Considering there are only 150 registered architects in the city, that’s pretty good!

GS: It doesn’t sound unlike the founding purpose of the Architectural League, which was to have conversations around design problems…

SR: And we’d like to start trying to do the studio visits, which the League has been doing, right? That’s still going on?

GS: Absolutely. So you have a monthly critique? How does one determine who is included?

SR: It’s an open call.

JH: It’s open to all architects. It’s called the On The Boards, so everybody who has a registered firm will get the invite.

GS: This is within Winnipeg?

JH: Actually entire province of Manitoba. When we all get together the idea is, that there’s actually time to give input into the project, so if isn’t complete, more work can be done. You’re not just presenting the finished project; you’re actually soliciting advice, soliciting critique and so on, and you present this within the peer group—and it’s confidential so it doesn’t jeopardize your client relationship. The objective at the end of the day is that we somehow raise the bar of architecture in the city, and we get together and have this collegial relationship with each other. And I think everybody benefits—that’s what we’re hoping.

GS: This series emphasizes the “voice” of practitioners: how would you describe your voice as a studio? Or individually?

JH: Yes, I was just trying to say about the voices; I think that one thing that we’re trying to do as a firm, and this is nothing particularly new, is practice as a group as much as we can and really try to make a completely horizontal practice. And this is no easy task. We’ve been wondering, how does one keep a critical viewpoint on the work while practicing collectively as much as we would like? I don’t think anybody has a formula or a solution for that…

SR: We find it much easier to do that with an attitude as opposed to a philosophy to which everybody in the office has to subscribe.

JH: We have been interviewing people much smarter than ourselves, trying to get to the bottom of this question—do they have a philosophy when they sit down and talk about what their direction is and where they’re going? More often than not, they say that no, it’s a constant struggle to try to define what they are trying to say as a practice. It’s something that’s very difficult for us, too. Right now we realize that we’re at some sort of critical point where we’ve “spewed out” work, but we’re being asked, “What’s your practice about and what’s your voice about?” And we do have some things that we find are common in the work, but if we sit here and pretend that we know exactly where we’re headed, I think that would be foolish.

SR: Right. I want to go back to the discussion we had this morning about one thing we feel is common in the office, as a part of this reaction or sort of attitude, is that our architecture is architecture against ambivalence. All of our projects reject a quiet presence. Whether you like the buildings or hate them, you’re going to be strongly affected by them. That is very much a part of that reactionary attitude towards our environment.

This doesn’t necessarily answer the question about what our voice is, but I think it is indicative of how our firm works: when our Bond Tower got the 2012 Progressive Architecture Award, we went to Zach, one of our guys, and said, “Good job, man. You designed this—awesome!” And he responded, “No I didn’t design this, Colin did.” So we went to Colin, and he says the same thing to us! Since there was no real deadline for the design, every time there was a bit of a time in the office, a couple of people took it on, and it ended up being designed by seven people.

JH: …and nobody had any idea of who the author was; everybody thought somebody else did it, and somehow it came out of the office. So it’s one of the best examples that we have of our ideology at work. There are other examples such as the Centre Village Project. For that project, we had a Lego model sitting at the table, and the challenge was to extract 25 units out of it. At first the task of getting this many units out of it felt sort of impossible within the scale that we could build, which was a three-story walk-up. And yet, every time someone would walk by the table, they would move a couple of blocks, and it became a sort of geometric exercise.

Thinking back on our process, I would add that the one thing that we keep driving with every project is that there is a public element or that we are considering the public realm in some way. We’re always trying to tie the projects into the city. So even if it is for a private developer, there’s got to be some way to get that into the budget.

SR: We try to thread the city through our projects—or tie the projects to the city, both of those things.

JH: Right, but there is almost never a budget for that. It’s always the sellable square footage, rentable area, and that outside space doesn’t help the bottom line, in our developers’ minds. And yet, we try to weave it in every time.

SR: There’s no requirement at all in the city to do that, right? Though there ought to be.

JH: Part of that “collective idea” seems much more obvious to us than maybe it is to most North Americans, I don’t know…

SR: Well you come from a communist country; I come from a communist country so there…

(laugher)

JH: Well there you go!

GS: Actually that’s exactly what I’m interested in hearing more about. Not only are you both immigrants yourselves, but so much of the work being produced by your studio seems to engage issues of migration or immigration. What do you see as the most important challenges your country faces with regards to new arrivals?

SR: In Canada?

GS: Yeah.

SR: The most important challenge I think we’re seeing right now is the possibility that the government might limit the openness that the country has had historically.

GS: It’s very open.

SR: It is very open. Having experienced this as a refugee, I’ve been through it, and at the time I immigrated to Canada, which was 1996, Canada was pretty much the only country that you could get into. And that has been very important to us. We’re exploring some of these themes in our Venice Biennale Project. Once you’ve come to Canada, you are very much encouraged to change the landscape of the country, which is a very open system. What it means, really, is that you’re not supposed to assimilate. Canada profits from your different background and experience.

JH: And I think we’ve always felt that, that we can offer a richness. I was very conscious when I first came over—Will I have to lose my accent? Will I be able to speak English properly?—And then people say, “No, no, no, that’s great.” When I hear that, it makes me so excited—it’s a richness to have a different perspective. I see that especially in architecture.

SR: One of my favorite stories that we encountered during our work on the Venice Biennale Project was about a panel of architects from Toronto who were flown to Holland about six or seven years ago, I think—to participate in a conference about immigration. The question that people had was, “How do we get our immigrants to speak Dutch?” which was completely baffling to the Canadians who said, “Why would you get them to speak Dutch?”

JH: “Why? Why do you care?” The attitude, is that you don’t have to; it’s fine—speak your own language. But in terms of architecture, I think the challenge that we’re seeing is that if you have a very strong sense of identity and very strong sense of your culture it is easier to produce work that you can somehow tie into, or you are able to say is Canadian in some definitive way. And yet, I think that we have very little idea of what Canadian architecture is! Canadian magazines are trying to define that all the time. But why try to define it? I think we’re better off just speaking our own accent.

This interview was conducted on March 2, 2012.