The fourth and final evening of the 30th annual Emerging Voices lecture series, featuring arquitectura911sc and Atelier TAG.  Emerging Voices spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada, or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.  For more information on the competition and annual awards, click here.

Confronted with the complexity and political uncertainty of Mexico City, Jose Castillo and Saidee Springall of arquitectura911sc strive for a “dual commitment to an architecture that connects the physical with the social, and architecture that is grounded and informed by the city.”  Their performing Arts Center in Guadalajara is under construction.  Recently completed projects include a low-income housing development, bookstores, offices, and commercial spaces in Mexico City, as well as urban planning and infrastructure projects throughout Mexico.

Atelier TAG “seeks to reinterpret the civic function of architecture through the careful study of sociocultural context…in order to create evocative spaces where society as a collective can express itself.”  Building primarily in the public realm, the firm has completed projects, including the Bibliothéque Raymond-Levésque  in 2011, as well as the Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne, and the Bibliothéque Municipale de Chateauguay.  Based in Montreal, Atelier TAG is led by Manon Asselin and Katsuhiro Yamazaki.

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 online here, beginning one week before each program until six hours before the program start. Purchased tickets are available for pick-up at the venue check-in desk and are non-refundable.

AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Support
Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices 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 third evening of the 30^th annual Emerging Voices lecture series, featuring Oyler Wu Collaborative and SsD.  Emerging Voices spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada, or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.  For more information on the competition and annual awards, click here.

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.

Jinhee Park and John Hong of SsD approach design as an interdisciplinary venture, simultaneously exploring aspects of architecture, landscape, history, and social systems.  Among their recently completed projects are the White Block Gallery and “Cloud,” an interactive light and sound sculpture, both in Heyri, Korea; and the Braver house in Newton, Massachusetts.  The firm, based in Cambridge, New York, and Seoul, also curated and designed the exhibition New Trajectories: Convergent Flux, Korea, first displayed at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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, beginning one week before each program until six hours before the program start. Purchased tickets are available for pick-up at the venue check-in desk and are non-refundable.

AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Support
Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices 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.

Emerging Voices
SCAPE / Landscape Architecture; Studio NMinusOne
Kate Orff; Christos Marcopoulos and Carol Moukheiber
Friday, March 9, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Rose Auditorium, The Cooper Union
41 Cooper Square
1.5 AIA and New York State CEUs

The second evening of the 30^th annual Emerging Voices lecture series, featuring SCAPE / Landscape Architecture and Studio NMinusOne.  Emerging Voices spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada, or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.  For more information on the competition and annual awards, click here.

A landscape architecture and urban design firm, SCAPE / Landscape Architecture is “committed to the … creative design and construction of the joint urban-natural environment.”  Led by Kate Orff and Elena Brescia, the New York-based firm engages both built landscapes and research projects.  Recent work includes landscape designs for Milstein Hall at Cornell University, the Austin Nichols Warehouse on the East River Waterfront, and the 103^rd Street Community Garden for the New York Restoration Project; and the study “Oyster-tecture,” for the Museum of Modern Art’s Rising Currents exhibition.

Studio NMinusOne works on projects in scales from urban design and architecture to diagnostic objects and building materials. Throughout the cross-disciplinary work of Christos Marcopoulos and Carol Moukheiber one finds the “physiological engagement of the body, through physical/material and informational processes.” The Toronto office’s work includes “real” houses in Toronto and Whistler; “surreal” houses, theoretical projects exploring domestic space; and responsive prototypes such as a digital window and other collaboratively designed projects.

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 online here, beginning one week before each program until six hours before the program start. Purchased tickets are available for pick-up at the venue check-in desk and are non-refundable.

AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Support
Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices 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 Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices Award spotlights North American individuals and firms with distinct design “voices” that have the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design.  The jury reviews significant bodies of realized work that represent the best of their kind, and address larger issues of architecture, landscape, and the built environment.  This year’s jury included Henry Cobb, Paul Lewis, Geoff Manaugh, Jamie Maslyn Larson, Annabelle Selldorf, Claire Weisz, and Dan Wood.

The 2012 Emerging Voices are:

5468796 architecture, Winnipeg
Manon Asselin and Katsuhiro Yamazaki, Atelier TAG, Montreal
Jose Castillo and Saidee Springall, arquitectura911sc, Mexico City
Jeffrey Inaba, INABA, Los Angeles and New York
Christos Marcopoulos and Carol Moukheiber, Studio NMinusOne, Toronto
Kate Orff and Elena Brescia, SCAPE / Landscape Architecture, New York
Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Los Angeles
Jinhee Park and John Hong , SsD, New York, Boston, and Seoul

For information on this year’s lecture series featuring the winning firms, click here.

Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices program is also supported by the Next Generation Fund of the Architectural League.

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 first evening of the 30^th annual Emerging Voices lecture series, featuring 5468796 architecture and INABA.  Emerging Voices spotlights individuals and firms based in the United States, Canada, or Mexico with distinct design voices and the potential to influence the disciplines of architecture, landscape design, and urbanism.  For more information on the competition and annual awards, click here.

Winnipeg’s 5468796 architecture is a collaborative firm that engages 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.

Working in a variety of media, INABA “gives form to content” by “giving shape to facts through design.”  The firm, led by Jeffrey Inaba and based in Los Angeles and New York, applies architectural design at multiple scales, ranging from diagrams and books to installations and master plans. Among the firm’s recent projects are a temporary café for the 2010 Whitney Biennial and installations for: the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale, Korea; Little Tokyo Design Week, Los Angeles; and the Festival of Ideas for the New City, New York.

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 online here, beginning one week before each program until six hours before the program start. Purchased tickets are available for pick-up at the venue check-in desk and are non-refundable.

AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Support
Emerging Voices is generously supported by Maharam. The Emerging Voices 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.

Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity
Marie J. Aquilino, Michael Murphy, and Maggie Stephenson
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Scholastic Auditorium
557 Broadway
1.5 HSW AIA and New York State CEUs

This program is co-sponsored by Metropolis Books, ARTBOOK | D.A.P.

As the frequency of major natural disasters increases, so does the need to help rebuild the communities and lives of those affected. Across the world, innovative architecture and engineering firms, as well as nonprofits and research centers, are making huge efforts to assist these communities by bridging the gap that separates short-term solutions from long-term sustainable recovery. As a result of their work, they are changing the way we think about disaster recovery solutions.

This conversation will explore the ways in which architects and engineers can play truly effective roles in disaster recovery and mitigation. The participants will look at both the successes and failures that they have encountered, particularly in Haiti but in other regions of the world as well. The conversation will be introduced and led by Marie J. Aquilino, editor of Beyond Shelter: Architecture and Human Dignity.

Marie J. Aquilino is a professor of architectural history at the École Spéciale d’Architecture (ESA) in Paris and is developing a program to train architecture students to work in contexts of extreme need in the developing world. Aquilino serves as associate program director of the BaSiC Initiative and is collaborating with Caritas and architecture students on building an orphanage and outreach facility in Titanyen, Haiti.

Michael Murphy is founding partner and Executive Director of MASS Design Group.  He founded the organization in 2007 to better address the need for a holistic design approach in developing economies. Through partnership with Partners in Health, Murphy led the design on Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, assisting with breakthrough architectural solutions to mitigate and reduce the transmission of airborne diseases like tuberculosis.

Maggie Stephenson is senior technical advisor for Haiti at UN-HABITAT. From 2005 to 2011 she was based in Pakistan, where she worked with UN-HABITAT and the National Disaster Management Authority, supporting response and mitigation, based on people-centered approaches, to help the millions of people affected by natural disaster and conflict there. For the last twenty years, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, she has worked in architecture and planning education, urban government, housing and development, and post-disaster reconstruction for governments, the United Nations, nonprofits, and in the private sector.

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, beginning February 8th.

Support
This program is 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.

Competition Deadline
February 15, 2012

Jury
Toshiko Mori
Gregg Pasquarelli
Lisa Phillips
Annabelle Selldorf
Robert Somol

and the Young Architects and Designers Committee
Emily Abruzzo
Dominic Leong
Michael Loverich

Architectural League Program Director
Anne Rieselbach

Call for Entries
Young architects and designers are invited to submit work to the annual Architectural League Prize Competition. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real, and executed in any medium, are welcome. The jury will select work for presentation in public fora, an on-line installation, podcasts, and in an exhibition in June 2012. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000. A catalogue of winning work will be published by the Architectural League and Princeton Architectural Press. The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, series of lectures, and exhibition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects + Designers Committee. The Prize (formerly known as the Young Architects Forum) was established to recognize specific works of high quality and to encourage the exchange of ideas among young people who might otherwise not have a forum. For a list of past winners, click here.

Theme: No Precedent
You’re not new and you aren’t different.
You’re definitely not shocking and you are full of bullshit.
You just don’t fit in.
You’re on the brink but they just don’t understand.
You’re unbelievable.
You are without precedent.

Driven by the desire to create, to be heard, to keep busy or to fulfill untapped and forbidden niches, young architects are a self-defining generation. They are unwilling to wait their turn or to follow in footsteps. It has become normative for young architects to cast aside unfit precedents, codes, rules, and primitives, restlessly defining their projects, their problems, their methodologies, their users, and their spaces of intervention. Their work becomes uncategorizable, suggestive, and speculative; it’s on the brink. It’s neither here nor there, but fodder for the future.

It is risky traveling in uncharted waters. What does it take to create and support something without precedent? What must be constructed in order to convincingly communicate an idea? How do these new territories influence the way we work and what we produce? Inherent to the realization of these ideas is the willingness to work, to test again and again, negotiate, and work through problems: mockups, models, tests, prototypes become essential.

Ideas, works, and methodologies that are unfounded, ungrounded, and suspect are of interest here: the things no one has done before, and that one has little experience with.

How do you build it?
How do you permit it?
How do you draw it?
How do you talk about it?
How do you write about it?
How do you think about it?
How do you erase it?
How do you make it unknown?
How is it unprecedented?

Eligibility
Entrants must submit as individuals or as a group of individuals. If the individual(s) is/are the sole principal(s) of a firm, the firm name will be listed as a winner as well. Entrants must submit work done independently; no work done as an employee of a firm, where the entrant is not a principal or partner, is eligible for submission. Entrants must be within ten years of graduation of either an undergraduate or graduate degree. No student work completed for any academic program or degree is eligible for submission. Educators may not include work done in their studios or for their teaching. Past Young Architects Forum winners are ineligible. If only one partner of a firm is eligible, he or she can enter as a single entrant. He or she must include a signed document from all other partners outlining the collaborative nature of the work and the firm will not be listed as a recipient of the Prize. Collaborative work between unrelated firms or individuals is eligible if the partnership is equal and any project with collaborators must include a signed document from the other collaborator(s) outlining the collaborative nature of the work. Collaborative work will be considered within the context of an individual’s complete portfolio. The competition is open to full-time residents, who need not be citizens, of the United States, Canada, and Mexico only.

Entry forms
Each submission must include an entry form. Insert form, intact, into an unsealed envelope attached to the inside back cover of the submission. To maintain anonymity, no identification of the entrant may appear on any part of the submission, except on the entry form and return envelope.

Entry Form
Partner Acknowledgement Form
Collaborator Acknowledgement Form

Competition Deadline February 15, 2012
Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. or postmarked by this date. There will be no exceptions to this deadline. The League cannot be responsible for entries received by mail after the jury date, which will be approximately a week after the deadline.

Submission requirements
The competition theme is given as a basis for young architects and designers to reflect upon and reevaluate their work. A written statement not to exceed 250 words is required, which defines and considers the work under the rubric of the competition theme. Significant weight is given to how an applicant’s work addresses the theme.

A single portfolio, which may include several projects, must be bound and no larger than 11″ x 14″. The portfolio may not contain more than thirty double-sided pages. CDs, models, slides, and transparencies will not be accepted. Entries must be received at the League office by 5 p.m. February 15, 2012 or postmarked by that date.

The Architectural League
of New York
594 Broadway, Suite 607
New York, New York 10012

Entry fee
Each entrant must submit an entry fee of $25. Entrants may submit cash or a check payable to “The Architectural League of New York.”

Portfolio return
Portfolios will be returned by mail only if a self-addressed envelope with postage is also enclosed. Please ensure that return postage does not expire before August 2012. The Architectural League assumes no liability for original drawings. The League will take every precaution to return submissions intact, but can assume no responsibility for loss or damage. Portfolios may be discarded after one year if no return envelope is provided.

Questions
For more information, email info@archleague.org or call 212.753.1722 x10. To download a copy of The Architectural League Prize call for entries click here.

Selection
Winning entrants will be notified by mid-March 2012.

Sponsors
The Architectural League Prize is supported by Dornbracht, Susan Grant Lewin Associates, and Tischler und Sohn.  Additional funding is made possible from the Next Generation Fund, an alumni fund of the Architectural League’s Emerging Voices and Architectural League Prize programs.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.  The Architectural League Prize is also made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Current Work
Francis Kéré
“Bridging the Gap”
Introduced and moderated by David Turnbull

This program is co-sponsored by The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design.

Architect Francis Kéré will present a lecture entitled “Bridging the Gap.”  Kéré is increasingly known for  his philosophy of “self-building,” in which he works with communities to develop capacity to monitor climactic circumstances and use local materials.  In a discussion of his recent and current projects, which have won both Aga Khan and Holcim Awards,  Kéré will consider new ways architects can exchange knowledge with communities and propose new models for practice.  In Kéré’s words, “only people who take part in the building process can maintain and spread the word about these architectural projects.”

Diébédo Francis Kéré, from Burkina Faso, studied architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin, where he is now based. As an architect he defines himself as “a bridge between cultures, between the technically and economically developed countries of ‘the north’ and the less developed African countries (of the south)” His projects have focused on education as “the developing concept for his country.” While a student, he founded the association Schulbausteine für Gando e. V, for the funding of his first project, a Primary School in his native village. The building, completed in 2001, received the Aga Khan Award. The school’s construction is “the result of a vision, initially verbalized by the architect and realized by the community.”

Subsequently, Kéré has built teachers’ housing for the school in Gando, as well as another school building and a library, enabling 900 children to go to school in the village. He has also completed work on Mali’s National Park in Bamako and the Museum for Earth Architecture in Mopti. In all of his projects, Kéré notes that workers trained through the construction have found work far beyond the region.

Since 2005, Kéré has worked internationally, with projects completed or under construction in Spain, China, Switzerland, and Yemen, among others. Kéré has lectured or taught at a variety of institutions, including the Berlin University of Technology, the Harvard GSD, the Oslo National Academy of Arts, and the University of Venice. Recognized internationally, Kéré has most recently received the 2011 Regional Holcim Award for Africa and Middle East, for his work in Morocco.

Tickets
Tickets are free for League members; $15 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, beginning February 2nd.

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.

First Friday
Architecture Research Office
Friday, February 3, 2012
6:30-8:00 p.m.
Architecture Research Office
160-170 Varick Street aka 10 Hudson Square (between Charlton and Vandam Streets), 7th Floor
Please note: a photo ID is required to enter the building.

This program is sold out.  If you would like to be added to the wait list, please email rsvp@archleague.org.  We will contact you if a ticket becomes available. 

Founded in 1993, Architecture Research Office (ARO) is led by Stephen Cassell, Adam Yarinsky, and Kim Yao. ARO’s project portfolio spans strategic planning, architecture, and urban design.  The office through its projects — from a 1,000 sf, low-income, sustainable housing prototype to private homes to a proposal to reinvent the role of ecology and infrastructure in New York City — seeks “to create the greatest aesthetic impact using the fewest natural and financial resources.”

ARO has worked with universities, cultural institutions, global corporations, government agencies, private residential clients, and international fashion labels. Current projects include the Donald Judd Home + Studio Museum at 101 Spring Street in New York City; a dormitory for Tulane University; a private residence in Minnesota; a new performing arts complex in Lower Manhattan for the Flea Theater; and a synagogue for Congregation Beit Simchat Torah.

Architecture Research Office received the 2011 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Architecture, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored founding principals Cassell and Yarinsky with their 2010 Academy Award for Architecture. The firm’s work on the impact of climate change on New York City appeared as part of the Museum of Modern Art’s Rising Currents exhibition and was featured at the U.S. Pavilion of the 2010 Venice Biennale.

This program is free and open to League members. Members may bring one guest. RSVP required to rsvp@archleague.org. To become a member, join here.

Tyler Caruso and Erik Facteau explain their scientific study of the value of urban farms, an effort to produce hard data that can challenge nay-sayers and inform policies and regulations that support agriculture in the city. Read more…