Nader Tehrani MAUD ’91 with his firm NADAAA announces his work with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to redesign their Ancient Near East and Cypriot galleries. NADAAA is working in collaboration with Moody Nolan on the $40 million, 15,000 square foot project. The design team is working closely with Museum construction leadership and curators Kim Benzel and Seán Hemingway to develop the design.
It’s an honor to be selected for this project, which will address the need for more diverse narratives in the displays of art from the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean regions. In bringing disparate layers of the Museum’s architectural history into dialogue, the proposed design hopes to bring the formal, spatial, and material properties of these galleries into alignment with The Museum’s mission. By working in collaboration with The Met’s curatorial and construction teams, we’ll be able to recondition these spaces while facilitating the connection between cultures, civilizations, and geographies to tell a whole new story.
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COLLECTIVE ( collective studio), a Hong Kong, Madrid and San Francisco-based firm founded by Betty Ng MArch ’09, co-directed by Chi Yan Chan MArch ’08, Juan Minguez MArch ’09 and Katja Lam, was awarded Silver for the Best Futura Project at MIPIM Asia Awards 2021, one of the largest real estate awards in Asia. The podium architectural design of the King Lam Street Commercial Development forms the base for a new set of commercial twin towers situated in Lai Chi Kok, an old industrial district in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The design is made up of three levels and comprises four main program components: retail and F&B shops; two main office lobby entrances providing access to the two towers; a reconfigurable and multifunction auditorium; and finally, a large outdoor gathering area composed of a continuous parametric green landscape of steps which extends from the second floor down to the ground level.
Learn more about the project at COLLECTIVE’s website.
Find COLLECTIVE on Instagram @collective_studio
The GSD remembers David Raphael MLA ’77 who passed away on January 12, 2021. Raphael was a landscape architect, planner, and graphic designer. He founded the award-winning interdisciplinary firm, Landworks in 1986.
You can read more about David Raphael’s life and legacy here.
Guy Nordenson Loeb Fellow ’94 has been elected as a new member of The National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He currently serves as a professor of architecture and structural engineering, Princeton University.
Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.” Election of new NAE members is the culmination of a yearlong process. The ballot is set in December and the final vote for membership occurs during January.
Individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting on Oct. 2, 2022. A list of the new members and international members follows, with their primary affiliations at the time of election and a brief statement of their principal engineering accomplishments.
View the 2022 New Member list here.
Three Alumni have been named in The Architectural League’s annual Emerging Voices Awards. This 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 and considers accomplishments within design and academia.
The work of each Emerging Voice represents the best of its kind and addresses larger issues within architecture, landscape, and the built environment.
Congratulations to:
Alumni Council Member Paola Aguirre Serrano MAUD ’11 , Borderless Studio
Alumni Council Member Sekou Cooke MArch ’14 , sekou cooke STUDIO
Daniel Adams MAR ’05, Landing Studio
Visit here for the full list of 2022 Awardees.
Anthony Poon, MArch ’92 has authored his third book, Death by Design at Alcatraz, published by Goff Books. This novel examines the architect’s ego, arrogance, and redemption within the design process. Taking place in San Francisco, architects are being murdered as they compete for a new museum of art at the notorious Alcatraz Island.
“The Fountainhead meets Squid Game in this mystery of obsession and murder set in the fancy but cut-throat world of contemporary architecture… With lofty ideals succumbing to greed and ambition, this allegory of the world of modern architecture is written by an insider of the trade…” – Shana Nys Dambrot, Arts Editor, LA Weekly
Available at local bookstores and Amazon.
Follow Anthony Poon on Instagram @anthonypoondesign
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the appointment of Edith Hsu-Chen MUP ’97 as Executive Director of the NYC Department of City Planning. Edith served as the Manhattan Borough Director for City Planning since 2008. In her new role, she will oversee and implement the Mayor’s development agenda, promoting inclusive, equitable growth throughout the five boroughs and putting the city on a path toward robust recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Edith currently serves as a member of the GSD Alumni Council.
“I am incredibly honored to be named Executive Director for the Department of City Planning. I have spent my career at DCP – a community where extraordinary professionals work side by side with the public to help build New York City’s brightest future. I am thrilled to work alongside incoming City Planning Commissioner Dan Garodnick, and I thank him, Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer, and Mayor Adams for the faith they have placed in me and for the service to this city we will forge in the coming years,” said incoming Department of City Planning Executive Director Edith Hsu-Chen.
Read more on Edith’s appointment.
Atelier Cho Thompson, a New Haven and San Francisco-based firm founded by Ming Thompson MArch ’10 and Christina Cho Yoo MArch ’11, was selected as the winner of the 2021 Flatiron Public Plaza Holiday Design Competition. Inspired by New York’s tapestry of cultures and people, the project, entitled Interwoven, celebrates the joys of reconnecting in public space. The project is on view through January 2, 2022 and will then move to a new downtown public park in New Haven.
Follow Atelier Cho Thompson on Instagram
Gandong Cai MLA ’17 has won the first prize of the NE[O]ASIS Design Idea Challenge organized by Dubai EXPO, UN-Habitat, Ingenious Women Initiatives, and other academic institutes. After two rounds of judging, Cai and partner Mingjie Cai were selected out of 140 international teams to be the first prize winners, with their proposal PALM-OASIS: Reimagining A More-than-human Dubai Waterfront.
NE[O]ASIS is a design idea challenge directed towards combatting desertification through sustainable urban and architectural development. The challenge aims to contribute urban/architectural/landscape solutions for the self-resilience of climatically challenged regions in deserts and drylands and encourages participants to contribute with ingenious design ideas to new interpretations of traditional oasis systems. The challenge sites are set in locations across Australia, the Arabian Peninsula and Africa. A video detailing the project can be found here.
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For more information and photos please visit https://www.caigandong.com/
The College of Environmental Design at UC Berkley (CED) has named Lisa Iwamoto MArch ’93 as the new Chair of the Department of Architecture, effective in December of 2021. She has been a full-time faculty member at UC Berkley for nearly two decades and serves as a founding member of the award-winning San-Francisco-based practice, IwamotoScott Architecture, with partner Craig Scott MArch ’94.
“I am pleased to appoint Lisa Iwamoto as the next chair of the department. She has dedicated her career to balancing practice with academia and enters the position with a well-rounded approach to architectural education that can meet the contemporary environmental challenges and opportunities we face” says Renee Y. Chow, Dean of the College of Environmental Design.
Learn more about Iwamoto’s appointment.
“On Rigor” is the newly released monograph of the work of Johnsen Schmaling Architects, the Milwaukee-based design studio founded by Sebastian Schmaling MAUD ’02. Published by ORO, the book includes an introduction by architectural critic and longtime editor at Architectural Record, Clifford Pearson.
From the publisher: “In a world that fetishizes aesthetic frivolity and iconographic bombast at the expense of substance and nuance, the critically acclaimed work of Johnsen Schmaling Architects stands out for its conceptual rigor, profound simplicity, and quiet repose. Formally restrained and informed by innovative tectonic and material experimentations, Johnsen Schmaling’s precisely crafted architecture creates poetic atmospheres of enduring clarity.”
Follow Johnsen Schmaling Architects: @johnsenschmaling
AGi architects, the design firm led by Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea MArch ’02 and Nasser B. Abulhasan MArch ’02/DDes ’07, has designed the Mission Possible: The Opportunity Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. This thematic pavilion encapsulates the concept of ‘Opportunity’: the idea that any action we take can create an impact; that anything is possible with a small step. It is conceived as a large plaza, providing continuity to the Opportunity District in which it is situated. The design builds on the rich urban history of the plaza throughout millennia, from Roman times to the modern-day – the concept of a plaza is universal and lends itself to multiple cultures, whether it is a piazza, Saha, common, or the town square. This universal urban language is important because the pavilion aims to be a platform for social and cross-cultural engagement.
Follow AGi Architects: @agi_architects
Honghao Deng MDes ’18, with partner Jiani Zeng, was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for their startup Butlr in the Manufacturing & Industry category. Butlr designs and manufactures smart building sensors to make architecture more responsive and understand users’ needs.
“Butlr’s patented technology is now being deployed for fall detection in senior living facilities and to help people age in place.” – Forbes
AGi architects, the international design firm led by Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea MArch ’02 and Nasser B. Abulhasan MArch ’02/DDes ’07, completed Wafra Living in Kuwait. This residential project proposes an innovative housing organization, a new type of multi-family living as a social response to housing needs in the country. The complex combines at different levels domestic and collective scales that are both private and public. It is composed of 16 types of living typologies distributed across five cores to cater to a variety of tenants. Wafra Living is socially driven, environmentally responsive, and behavior-conscious. This development has set an example of how to approach urban issues and redefining areas; thereby becoming a catalyst for the city’s future growth.
Follow AGi Architects: @agi_architects
Steven Bloomfield MArch ’72/MCP ’73 and his firm, Bloomfield/Schon, were recognized by the State of Ohio for their renovation and repurposing of the Peters Cartridge Factory into a mixed-use community. This is the firm’s fifth major historic renovation project. The Peters Cartridge Factory was built in 1918 with the original purpose being to make cartridges and armaments but is now a unique apartment building with 134 units “that offer urban living in the suburbs with lifestyle amenities.”
Visit the Peter Cartridge Factory Website for more.
Gregory Haley MAUD ’98, Associate Principal with Henning Larsen participated in the Panel Debate: Building the Irresistible Circular Society, Brick by Brick sponsored by the AIA New York, Creative Denmark, the Danish General Consulate in New York City, & NYCxDESIGN on November 17th in New York City.
Watch the panel debate.
Follow Henning Larsen: @henninglarsenarchitects
Ruderal, a design firm founded by Sarah Cowles MLA ’05, with landscape architect Ben Hackenberger MLA ’20, has won the Landezine International Landscape Awards Special Jury Award for their project “Arsenal Oasis”. This is a public landscape in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. The jury recognized the project for its “newfound and unique roughness reflects a relevant dialogue between what was, what is, and the suggestion of what ought to be. The project addresses wider spatial issues in Tbilisi and will hopefully act as a catalyst to spark positive change regarding neglected areas in the city.” Ruderal was founded by Cowles in 2019 to support a new generation of landscape architects in the Caucasus. Based in Tbilisi, the firm pursues a wide variety of projects in the Black Sea region and Central Asia as well as in Europe and the United States.
Follow RUDERAL: @_ruderal_
Follow Sarah Cowles: @ditch_daily
Follow Ben Hackenberger: @bhackenberger
Nashid Nabian DDES ’06 and her practice [Shift] Process Practice has been assigned as the architectural designer of Iran’s Pavilion in the Dubai Expo 2020. The pavilion has been officially inaugurated after completion on October 1st, 2021 with the opening of the Dubai 2020 Expo. The project has been identified as one among “the eight architecturally significant pavilions of Dubai 2020 expo,” by Architectural Digest.
“Inspired by 1001 nights of Shahrzad, which is a seminal piece of literature in Persian culture, narrating the story of Shahrzad, who decides to go for 1001 nights of storytelling for the king to postpone his violent verdict against those who did not deserve it, the Iran pavilion in Dubai Expo 2020, is designed as a field condition as opposed to a monolithic building, consisting of several spatial pockets, each functioning as an agent to deliver a part of the story of contemporary Iran. Each pocket is a blue box, inspired by the metaphor of the sky, and wrapped in a curtain out of beads that implies the contrast between the heavens and the earth. This duality adds to the sensational aspects of the spatial experience of visitors. The architecture transforms to an operate-able apparatus, with which the spectator is allowed to interact. The pavilion is not a building but a rhizomatic network of connections between different narratives of contemporary Iran. Each visitor is allowed to have her own course within this architecturally configured landscape. Each visitor can tell a different story of Iran based on the numbers of the spatial pockets she visits and the sequence in which she interacts with this field of possibilities. The duality of the resulting space in the pavilion, is not limited to the differing material condition of the blue cubes and their brownish bead curtains. The contrast between the discreet interiors of the cubic spaces and the networked exterior condition of the in-between spaces in open-air also contributes to this duality. It is as if the in-between spaces create an exterior condition that is interiorized within the boundary of the pavilion. It is the in-between space that transforms the project to an architectural stage for the ‘informal’ to occur, while the interior, admits the formal narratives that are housed within the boxes. The resulting space is welcoming the curiosity of the spectator with negotiable boundaries hinted upon by the malleability of the bead curtains. The spatial narrative offered by Iranian pavilion is not linear in a Hegelian sense with predefined sequences. It is more theorized in the sense of hyper-temporality, allowing for leaps from one story to the other.”
Follow [Shift] Process Practice @shift.studio.architects
Follow Nashid Nabian @nashidnabian
Michael Lehrer MArch ’78 and his firm, Lehrer Architects, will collaborate with the City of Los Angeles on their award-winning transitional housing design for a project to combat homelessness in Los Angeles. The Tiny Homes Transitional Housing Project at the Whitsett West site will be the firms fourth collaboration with the city.
Sofia Koutsenko MArch ’15 and her practice DROM were selected by Wallpaper* as one of 20 Architects’ Directory 2021 practices from across the globe. Together with two other partners, Timur Karimullin and Timur Shabaev, they launched their practice in 2017 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Since this time, they have been fortunate to build a number of projects. Among them is an award-winning public space, Azatlyk Square in Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. Current projects under construction include an expansion of a factory campus in Zulte, Belgium, a new park in Derbent, Russia, and affordable housing in cities across Russia.
Find DROM on Instagram @drom_rotterdam
Cultured Magazine named Kate Orff MLA ’97 and Martha Schwartz GSD ’77 to their list of Landscape Living Legends.
- Kate Orff is the Founding Principal of SCAPE. She focuses on retooling the practice of landscape architecture relative to the uncertainty of climate change and creating spaces to foster social life, which she has explored through publications, activism, research, and projects.
- Martha Schwartz is Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at the GSD. For more than 40 years, she and the firm, Martha Schwartz Partners, have completed projects around the globe, from site-specific art installations to public spaces, parks, master-planning and reclamation.
According to Cultured: “In recent decades, landscape architects and designers have played an increasingly significant role in shaping our communities and developing urban spaces that are more hospitable to pedestrians, bicyclists, pet owners and people who want to gather or just need some fresh air. But these professionals generally remain less lauded than the high-profile architects who design our buildings. While perhaps they’ve yet to achieve starchitect status, we believe these five designers—all of whom think deeply about our relationship with the natural world—deserve a prominent place in any good design pantheon.”
Read the full article.
Image below: In Chongqing, China, the 2019 hot pot master garden at the upper Yangtze River City flower art expo was designed by Martha Schwartz Partners.
David De Celis MArch ’98 and his firm, DCVL Design, have been honored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) with a 2021 Housing Innovation Award for their Zero-Energy Home, in collaboration with Energy Vision Homes, Hollis, NH.
According to the website: “Since 2013, the DOE Housing Innovation Awards have honored the very best in innovation on the path to zero energy ready homes by recognizing forward-thinking builders delivering American homebuyers with a better homeowner experience.
Wendy W Fok DDes ’17 is one of 500 New York City-based artists to receive $5,000 through the City Artist Corps Grants program, presented by The New York Foundation for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment as well as Queens Theatre. Fok was recognized for “Things Left Unsaid” and their research on “digitalSTRUCTURES”, which will bring the exhibition and talk-series to a physical exhibition at NEW Inc. incubator venue organized by the New Museum in New York, and at the Italian Pavilion in the Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy. The two-city exhibition, along with the digital exhibition is to allow a larger network of creatives who could be reviewing the materials locally and internationally. Events will be from August 27, 2021, to November 21, 2021.
The two-part project will include the exhibition of the “Things Left Unsaid” talk-series, and digital objects of everyday objects that will be partnered with a marketplace digital auction, research published in a post-exhibition book within the larger research umbrella of digitalSTRUCTURES. All the pre-recorded (audio/visual) videos are processed and edited to 30-minute formats. They are available to the public on social media (see below) and virtually at the CityX Venice website and digitalSTRUCTURES.cc.
Instagram: @WendyWFok
Twitter: @W_W_F
Message for Dr. Shoichi Kajima’s Memorial delivered by Professor Peter G. Rowe on July 14, 2021.
“Well after his passing in 2020, Dr. Shoichi Kajima is and will be gratefully and respectfully remembered by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. where he received his Master of Architecture degree in 1957 prior to his PhD in architecture at Tokyo University and his assumption of the directorship of the Kajima Corporation. The great, great grandson of the corporation’s founder, Dr. Kajima oversaw the company’s flourishing as one of the oldest and largest construction companies in Japan, providing services in design, engineering, construction, and real estate. Indeed, during an untimely downturn in the 1990s, he expanded operations into the fledgling yet important environmental sector. Throughout this activity he was particularly involved in the design and construction of the headquarter office buildings, consistently creating spaces that were rational, functional, and restrained without special attachment to style. In addition to receipt of his professional architecture degree from Harvard, Dr. Kajima established the Kajima Chair in Architectural Design in 1989, the fourteenth endowed professorship at the school and occupied since its inception by B. Mack Scogin, the former Chairman of the Department of Architecture. Kajima also served as a member of the Visiting Committee to the Graduate School of Design between 1986 and 1992, contributing to the School’s excellence. Today he is well remembered as a dignified and constant inspiration for generations of architects to come.”
Peter G. Rowe
Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Former Dean of the Faculty of Design, 1992-2004
The Climate Boot Camp is a training initiative created by the Harvard Alumni for Climate and the Environment (HACE) shared interest group and Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s The Climate Reality Project. HACE, an official Harvard Alumni Association shared interest group, developed the Climate Boot Camp, which launches in October. The program is designed for leaders who are deeply concerned about the climate crisis and want to know more about proven strategies, approaches, and tools that support win-win action plans and help drive organizational change.
The Climate Boot Camp is a five-session online program that starts October 14th – see registration for the full schedule. Register Now.
The GSD remembers Cornelia Hahn Oberlander BLA ’47 who passed away at age 99 on May 22, 2021. Oberlander was a pioneer in the field of sustainable design, an early proponent of green roofs, and a champion of collaboration. She once said that her dream is “green cities with green buildings where rural and urban activities live in harmony.”
A member of the class of 1947, Oberlander was one of the first women admitted to the GSD. She described herself as “elated” upon receiving her acceptance letter from Dean Joseph Hudnut and recalls sharing desk space with Lawrence Halprin BLA ’44, who became a good friend. She was taught by Walter Gropius, a leader of the Bauhaus movement. While at the GSD, she met her late husband H. Peter Oberlander MCP ’47, PhD ’57 at a picnic.
Oberlander shared with the Harvard Alumni Association in 2014, “Landscape architecture is a fabulous field that is more in demand than ever,” she says. “We need to take care of our environment. We have to have places to play for children. We have to have places for recreation. It means having a corner in the city, and a bench, and a tree to sit and contemplate away from a very busy world.”
~Anita Berrizbeitia, FAAR, MLA ’87, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture
You can read more about Cornelia Hahn Oberlander’s life and legacy as published by the New York Times.
Photo below: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander BLA ’47 (center) at a GSD event in 2014 with Peter Walker MLA ’57 (second from the right) and Gary Hilderbrand MLA ’85 (far right).
Acelab, an information marketplace of building products for architects, manufacturers, contractors, and clients founded in 2019 by Vardhan Mehta MAUD ’21 and MIT alumnus Dries Carmeliet, recently announced it had raised $3.5 million in investment from institutional investors and industry angels. Among participating investors in its first round of funding were Pillar VC, Alpaca, Draper Associates, MIT MET fund, Emily Fairbairn, and Erik Jarnryd.
As architectural designers, Mehta and Carmeliet recognized the vast numbers of hours architects spend gathering information on building products—“from sifting through manufacturing brochures and spec sheets to contacting salespeople with questions about product specs, pricing, and availability,” says Mehta. He notes that Acelab allows architects to “spend more time designing, and less time on the busy work involved in product sourcing and specifying” and manufacturers to “increase visibility and get in the spec.”
Acelab is currently running pilot partnerships with a select group of architecture and manufacturing firms in the US to prepare for its general availability launch.
Daniel Fetner, principal at investing firm Alpaca VC, explained the need for a tool like Acelab, describing it as a way to automate the “manual and time-consuming process of sourcing building materials and drafting spec sheets.” Pillar VC’s Russ Wilcox elaborated, saying, “It’s challenging for architects and building products manufacturers to coordinate, especially in this time of supply chain interruptions. Acelab’s platform makes it easy for everyone to stay on the same page. Architects can select and specify exactly the right products, manufacturers can sell more efficiently, and builders waste less time returning wrong orders.”
Last year, Acelab won the Harvard Real Estate Venture competition, received grants from MIT DesignX and MIT Sandbox, and was a finalist in Harvard Innovation Lab’s President’s Innovation Challenge. Currently, Acelab is running pilot partnerships with a select group of architecture and manufacturing firms in the US to prepare for its general availability launch.
When Yoni Angelo Carnice MLA ’20 first visited Cayuga Playground in San Francisco, he was struck by a wooden sculpture of a woman dressed in the traditional Filipino Maria Clara gown, with a graceful elegance that reminded him of his grandmother. The distinctively personal atmosphere of the park stayed with Carnice, and later became the basis of his year-long research project, “Eden of the Hinterlands: Reclaiming Asian-American Garden History,” under the Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design, sponsored by the Garden Club of America and the Landscape Architecture Foundation.
Before coming to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Carnice worked in ecological restoration and climate-based policy work. “I was doing very regimented invasive plant removal, and planting native plants, in a more binary way.” He sought a more fluid, holistic approach to landscape architecture. His time at the GSD and his experience at Cayuga Playground, which “weaves landscape narratives, plants, and architecture together in a beautiful way,” was a revelation. Located in the Outer Mission district, it is an unexpected, idiosyncratic gem in a city dominated by “mow and blow” parks. And it is largely the work of one man, Demetrio Braceros, a Filipino immigrant who became Cayuga’s gardener in 1986.
Read the full story on the GSD website.
Arielle Assouline-Lichten MArch ’13 is featured on HBO Max’s new design competition TV show Ellen’s Next Great Designer. Her furniture designs received accolades throughout the 6 weeks of challenges, landing her a finalist in Los Angeles to design a full collection in just four days. Arielle plans to introduce some of the pieces into her current body of work, under her brand name Slash Objects.
Read more about the show and her new work in Surface Magazine: “Undeterred by her second-place finish on Ellen’s Next Great Designer, the Brooklyn-based founder of Slash Objects is heralding a promising new chapter by dialing into her newfound flow state to fine-tune her most well-received pieces.”
Follow on social media @slashobjects @arielleassouline-lichten
Seven GSD alumni have been elevated by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as fellows for their exceptional contributions to the landscape architecture profession and society at large. Election to the ASLA Council of Fellows is among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and is based on their “works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service.” ASLA will formally recognize its 2021 Class of Fellows during the annual conference in Nashville on Sunday, November 21.
Congratulations to the GSD alumni in the 2021 Class of Fellows (pictured below left to right).
- Juan Antonio Bueno MLA ’86
- Claude Cormier MDes ’94
- Shauna Gillies-Smith MAUD ’95
- Eric F. Kramer MLA ’98
- Allan Webster Shearer MLA ’94
- Glenn LaRue Smith LF ’97
- Roderick R. Wyllie MLA ’98
For the full list of 2021 Fellows, click here.
Hou de Sousa has been named a 2021 Design Vanguard by Architectural Record magazine. The studio is headed by Nancy Hou MArch ’08 and Josh de Sousa MArch ’08.
Architectural Record annually “honors 10 emerging practices advancing issues of form, construction, sustainability, and community engagement.”
“Architecture is a constant struggle,” says Josh de Sousa, 39, partner with his wife, Nancy Hou, 39, in the Manhattan firm Hou de Sousa. Adds Hou: “We like the process of finding the answer that solves all the competing forces in a project. It’s sort of an experiment every time.” This explains why Hou de Sousa enters so many competitions—it won nine in the past three years (mostly for installations in public spaces), including one during the pandemic, a welcome opportunity in a time when many architects have lost work.” Click here to read the full article.
You can find Hou de Sousa on Instagram.
Architect, urban designer, and academic Quilian Riano MArch ’09 has been appointed the new assistant dean within Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture. He will assume the role on July 12, 2021. Reporting to School of Architecture Dean, Dr. Harriet Harriss, Riano will work across all four of the school’s departments to help develop and amplify the research-driven, spatial outcomes with real-world impact that have come to distinguish the school’s ambitions and resulted in growing recognition from independent ranking systems. Riano will also assist in the advancement of the school’s established partnerships with city and government agencies, community groups, academic and cultural institutions, and construction industry leaders to ensure that the school continues to be positioned to powerfully advance pedagogy, public policy, and professional practice.
You can find Quilian Riano @quilian
Each year, the Kohn Pedersen Fox Foundation sponsors a series of fellowships to support emerging designers and advance international research. Two recent Harvard Graduate School of Design graduates and one current student are recipients of 2021 fellowships. Cynthia Deng MArch/MUP ’21 and Kofi Akakpo MArch ’21 were awarded the Paul Katz Fellowship, an internationally recognized award that honors the life and work of former KPF principal Paul Katz, while De Qian Huang MArch ’22 received the Kohn Pedersen Fox Traveling Fellowship, established to broaden the education of a design student in their last year of school through a summer of travel and exploration.
The Paul Katz Fellowship is awarded to international students studying issues of global urbanism and is open to students enrolled in a masters of architecture program at five East Coast universities at which Katz studied or taught: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania. KPF focuses each annual iteration of the Paul Katz Fellowship on a different global city. This year’s fellowship is tied to Cape Town; previous cities include Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Sydney, London, and Tokyo. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, KPF has announced that they will pause any travel requirements, and will distribute $15,000 of the $25,000 travel stipend as a financial award to each of the winners.
The Traveling Fellowship is given to students from one of the 27 design schools with which KPF has partnered to fund summer research on “far-reaching topics that push the boundaries of critical thinking and architectural design.” KPF has paused travel for the Traveling Fellowship also, and has awarded a scholarship to each winner to fund a “Journey of the Mind.” Huang is one of five winners of the 2021 cycle. Tiange Wang MArch I ’22 received an Honorable Mention.
For the Paul Katz Fellowship, Deng submitted a research proposal—“Joints, Junctions, Patches, and Sutures: Spatial Repair of Past and Future”—that connects spatial reparations and adaptive reuse in the context of Cape Town’s legacies of apartheid. “The proposal was influenced by some of the research that went into by my joint thesis, ‘Care Agency: a 10-Year Choreography of Architectural Repair,’ completed with Elif Erez MArch I/MDes HPDM ’22 and advised by Lisa Haber-Thomson and Lily Song,” says Deng. “I also spent time thinking about what Mabel Wilson has said and written about the idea of radical repair and found inspiration from the work of Euneika Rogers-Sipp Loeb ’16, including her Digging Du Bois project journey and her thinking on reparations ecologies.”
In her proposal Deng asks, “Can the physical repair joints paired with oral histories speak to larger and more transformative repairing forward—such as repairing a Eurocentric architectural discourse in which African ingenuity is largely missing; repairing persistent segregation and lingering trauma bourne of apartheid; repairing ecological relationships ‘where clouds gather’ (the indigenous Khoe translation for the area known as Cape Town)?”
Akakpo’s research proposal, “Reclaiming Beauty in African Architecture,” addresses the need to recover and properly define an African architecture that is independent of Eurocentric standards and colonialism. “Born in Ghana, West Africa, I am intrigued by the way in which people imagine and dream beyond their means,” Akakpo writes in his project brief. “I will focus my documentation and analysis on how public and private spaces are created, how spatial territories are navigated, and how difficult spaces are humanized, personalized and made livable through design.”
This year’s recipients follow a legacy of GSD students who have been honored with KPF fellowships, including Paul Katz Fellowship winners Yotam Ben Hur MArch ’20 in 2020, Miriam Alexandroff MArch ’19 and Peteris Lazovskis MArch ’20 in 2019, and Sonny Xu MArch/MLA ’18 in 2018, and KPF Traveling Fellowship winner Eduardo Martínez-Mediero Rubio MArch ’19 in 2018.
Learn more about the fellowships, lectureships, and education-focused programs the KPF Foundation organizes each year.
Below: Image from Kofi Akakpo’s thesis “‘Functional Follies’ for an Urban Slum,” which proposes the erection of a series of “functional follies” in Agbogbloshie, an urban slum in Accra, Ghana.
The LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction awarded Soledad Patiño’s MAUD ’20 project “Transitioning infrastructures for sanitation equity” as the first prize in the Next Generation category for Asia Pacific. The proposal was developed as part of a studio and research led by Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87, Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization. It was conducted at the GSD during 2019 and aims to bring social and economic legitimacy to waterfront settlements of Mumbai through a new network of sanitation and community infrastructure.
The international LafargeHolcim Awards recognize exemplary sustainable construction projects and visionary ideas from nearly five thousand submissions by applicants around the world in 2020. “The project suggests new multipurpose infrastructures,” said the jury. “These give rise to new dynamics of water, waste, and energy management within the community, that offer a high potential in generating sustainable businesses and a strong basis for circular economy models”. Read the full press release.
You can find Soledad Patiño on Instagram @solepatino_
The third edition of Andrew Pressman’s MDes ’94 book, Professional Practice 101: A Compendium of Effective Business Strategies in Architecture, was published by Routledge in June 2021.
According to the publisher’s website: “With its unique focus on links between design thinking and practice, this third edition brings an inspiring and fresh perspective to the myriad issues involved in successful architectural practice. The process of providing architectural services in today’s constantly evolving practice environment must be just as creative, intellectually rigorous, and compelling as wrestling with design problems.” You can find more information here.
Gandong Cai’s MLA ’17 post-pandemic public space renewal proposal “Big Apple, Small Plug-in” will be exhibited in the Media Architecture Biennale 2020 from June 28 to July 2. The proposal is the first prize award-winning scheme for the Pandemic Architecture International Competition, aiming to provide new social distancing guidance and DIY infrastructure for using the public space in New York City in the new normal period. Read more information here and here.
You can find Gandong Cai on Instagram at donchoi0702.
DAAM has been recognized as one of Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard winners for 2021. The annual award series by Architectural Record showcases the best emerging architecture firms from around the world. DAAM is a Chicago-based architecture and design practice led by Elyse Agnello MArch ’14 and Alex Shelly MArch ’13. Recent projects encompass a variety of scales, from objects and material investigations to residential, commercial, and community-based projects. Read the full press release.
Find DAAM on Instagram.
Sekou Cooke MArch ’14 has been named a W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellow at The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University as part of its 2021-2022 class of Fellows. Cooke is Assistant Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture and a member of the GSD’s Alumni Council. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the 2021-2022 academic year, Cooke will be at work on 3D Turntables Remix: The Architectural Technology of Hip-Hop.
Find Sekou Cooke on Instagram at sekou21.
Masamichi Ueta MDes ’18, a first-class registered architect in Japan, and Takafumi Inoue, AICP, MUP ’18 co-founded KUROFUNE Design Holdings upon their graduation from GSD in 2018 with the aim of implementing socially meaningful designs and products that contribute to the public. U Share is one of the key businesses that the company has been developing since its foundation.
U Share, an international student dormitory in Japan, attempts to design an optimal living environment that integrates living space and learning space, in which students, the next generation of global talents, can live together.
In the long run, U Share contributes to building a society where diverse people thrive, through nurturing global talents who have a global perspective, respect diversity, and work on solving social problems. These goals will be accomplished by designing an environment where residents can come into contact with diverse people and values, and have the opportunity to “share” their dreams and initiatives on a daily basis.
Design Studio YEN TING CHO, founded by Yen-Ting Cho MDes ’09, won Gold at the International Design Awards (IDA) for its 2021 New York City scarf collection. YEN TING CHO uses its own digital technology that responds to body movement to manipulate images and create unique patterns. Full of colour and movement, YEN TING CHO patterns are digitally-printed onto the finest materials for fashion accessories and interior design products.
With submissions from over 80 countries, the 14th annual IDA awards recognize, celebrate, and promote exceptional design visionaries worldwide. “The jury recognized its highly innovative and experimental creative processes; YEN TING CHO dares to combine digital technology and art to explore complex pattern and color combinations, leading to the creation of unique and beautiful designs.”
YEN TING CHO Studio was founded by lead designer Yen-Ting Cho in London in 2016. A designer and artist, Yen-Ting Cho is a graduate of Harvard University Graduate School of Design (MDes) and the Royal College of Art, London (PhD). He worked as a designer in America, Asia and Europe prior to establishing YEN TING CHO Studio. Based in London, the Studio also has a design team in Tainan City, Taiwan, where Yen-Ting is also Associate Professor of Design at National Cheng Kung University. Recent commissions and exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre (London), Manchester Science Festival, and curation of ‘Movement – Pattern – Object’ exhibition for the Taiwan Design Expo.
For more information, please see the press release.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Dwayne Oyler MArch ’01 and Jenny Wu MArch ’01 the 2021 Architecture Award. Dwayne and Jenny are the founders of Oyler Wu Collaborative, an experimental architecture and design firm in Los Angeles, CA. The firm approaches architecture and design with a critical and rigorous intent that challenges the typical vision of the built environment. Recent works encompass a variety of scales, from products and installations to residential and institutional buildings.
Read the full press release.
James A. Lord, FASLA, MLA ’96 was recognized with a 2020 American Architecture Award in the Urban Planning/Landscape Architecture category for his firm Surfacedesign‘s work at Auckland International Airport. San Francisco-based Surfacedesign, co-founded by Lord and Roderick Wyllie, ASLA, MLA ’98, designed ongoing landscape improvements through 2044 for six square miles in and around Auckland International Airport. As lead project designer, Lord said, “Our ecological landscape design is culturally rooted, informed by New Zealand’s centuries-old agrarian traditions from its indigenous Maori settlers and European immigrants in the 1800s. This is our most intricate project to date, and we are honored to win the prestigious American Architecture Award.”
Read the full press release.
In 2020, Esther Choi MDes ’08 began Office Hours, a socially-engaged art project that facilitates group conversations between emerging and notable architecture and design practitioners that identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). In its 75-minute bimonthly sessions, the series offers free information, mentorship, and professional advice that address the barriers to entry and success for BIPOC practitioners in an intimate format. The series has been attended by over two thousand BIPOC designers in thirteen countries. Office Hours operates as an independently-led project under the fiscal sponsorship of The Architectural League of New York. It has received media coverage in Architizer, Architectural Digest, Dezeen, Architect, and the Architect’s Newspaper. (www.office-hours.design)
Diane Lipovsky MLA ’10 and Stacy Passmore MLA ’18 have joined forces to start the Colorado-based landscape architecture practice, Superbloom. As friends and colleagues at Civitas in Denver, Diane and Stacy discovered they shared a similar passion for the future of landscape architecture in the American West. They founded Superbloom as a commitment to crafting meaningful connections between people and the land through the practice of transformative design. The name of their practice refers to the desert superbloom, and the latent potential for design to create spectacular future natures. Working across scales and on sites from urban landscapes to the dramatic prairie and high alpine forests, their work focuses on collaborative designs for cultural and ecological landscapes.
Follow on Instagram @studiosuperbloom
Cincinnati University Press published “Exploring the Architecture of Place in America’s Farmers Markets” authored by Kathryn Clarke Albright MDes ’94. The book explores the elusive architectural space of beloved community-gathering places. Architect, teacher, and founder of the Friends of the Farmers Market, Kathryn Clarke Albright combines historically informed architectural observation with interview material and images drawn from conversations with farmers, vendors, market managers and shoppers. Albright presents in-depth case studies to demonstrate how architectural elements and spatial conditions foster social and economic exchange between vendors, shoppers, and the community at large. Albright looks ahead to an emerging typology—the mobile market—bringing local farmers and healthy foods to underserved neighborhoods. The impact farmers markets make on their local communities inspires place-making, improves the local economy, and preserves rural livelihoods. Developed organically and distinctively out of the space they occupy, these markets create and revitalize communities as rich as the produce they sell.
Sarah Holton, AIA, LEED AP, MArch ‘06 has been promoted to Senior Associate at CO Architects in Los Angeles, CA. Sarah is an emerging leader at CO, specializing in K-12 education design. She joined the firm in 2015 and brings wide-ranging experience in residential and retail projects. Her recent projects include the state-of-the-art Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, which is the first new school of medicine in New Jersey in more than 50 years, and the award-winning University of Arizona Health Sciences Innovation Building in Tucson. CO Architects has been nationally and internationally recognized with more than 175 awards for innovative design and project delivery, including the American Institute of Architects California’s Architecture Firm of the Year Award.
Yujia Wang MLA ’17, professor and founding principal of Yi-Chang Landscape and Planning, has recently been named on the Forbes China 30 Under 30 List, becoming the first landscape architect to be given such recognition. This year’s list includes young and outstanding individuals across China in 10 categories, with Yujia named in “Art, Fashion, Lifestyle, and Food.” Forbes publishes the 30 Under 30 List every year to recognize people under the age of 30 who have been impactful in their practice and have shown the potential to become leaders in their fields. The list includes entrepreneurs, executives, and professionals in the performing arts, sports, technology, and cultural circles. Prof. Wang and his firm, Yi-Chang Landscape and Planning have been making an impact in high-profile urban public spaces. The firm has designed and delivered several important linear parks, including a riverfront park and a greenline park in Dongguan, China, with a combined length of over 20 km. Besides being an academic and a practitioner, Wang serves on committees at the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), including his appointment on the Committee on Education, Climate Action Committee, and leadership on the International Professional Practice Networks. Recently he has been leading the effort on a national virtual lecturer database aimed at promoting connection and contribution between the professional and educational realms.
“I am honored to be named on the Forbes 30U30 List as the first landscape architect,” Said Wang in a previous interview, “It has been an amazing journey.” He credits his achievement on the decision to “embrace…risks.” He said that “Working with governments to envision and realize key city public space projects, and then witnessing the positive energy it injects into the city and the environment is just incredible.” He also emphasizes the importance of being able to contribute to larger disciplinary initiatives and represent communities. Wang recently traveled to Shanghai to attend the Forbes Conference and Award Ceremony.
Read the full press release in Chinese.
Follow Wang on Linkedin
Nader Tehrani MAUD ’91, Meejin Yoon MAUD ’97, and Theaster Gates LF ’11 will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters during its virtual award ceremony on May 19 at 7 p.m. EST.
Membership in the Academy is limited to 300 architects, visual artists, composers, and writers who are elected for life. The honor of election is considered the highest form of recognition of artistic merit in the United States.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers.
A recent exhibition with the West Vancouver Art Museum (WAM) showcased work across the seventy-plus-year career of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander BLA ’47. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Genius Loci explored how the theme of environmental stewardship weaves throughout her work, drawing on four distinct areas. The WAM described the exhibition thus:
“Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is among the most eminent landscape architects in the world, known for many projects in Canada and abroad. Genius loci, meaning the protective spirit of a place, is embodied in the seven decade span of her work. Her landscape designs demonstrate her desire to create terrains that are less an interruption and more an amplification of what already exists on a site. At a time when our relationship to the earth is of paramount importance, Oberlander’s projects reveal consistent and significant stewardship of the natural environment. This bilingual (French and English) exhibition introduces projects by Oberlander, which are presented in four sections devoted to playgrounds, social housing, public and residential projects, showing photography of the places alongside her sketches, plans and research proposals.”
A team of Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni is selected as one of the three finalists in the Urban Confluence Silicon Valley Design Competition held by the San José Light Tower Corporation. The design team named CO-MILIEU includes Qinrong Liu MArch ’20, Ruize Li MArch ’20, Yuting Zhang MAUD ’17, Evelyn Cheng Zeng MArch ’18, Vincent Zishen Wen MLA ’19 and Qiaoqi Dai MLA ’19 along with a lighting design group led by Yutong Jiang MDes ’21 and Sijia Zhong MLA ’21. The goal of the competition is to build an innovative iconic world-class landmark for San Jose and Silicon Valley. With an inverted void tower and blurred pixelated matrix, the team’s proposal, “Nebula Tower,” envisions a soft, dynamic, and adaptive contemporary landmark that works as a nebula incubator for new artistic possibilities and celebrates Silicon Valley’s history of technology innovation. Through the medium of light, Nebula Tower recalls the collective memory of its home to build a bridge between past and future. Inspired by the diverse geographical characters along the bay area, the proposal reimagines the Arena Green as a common ground where the natural realm and urban fabric are enriched by their interaction to embrace the co-living of diversities and utilizes innovative adaptability that can secure a sustainable future for San Jose – culturally, environmentally, and economically.
More information about the “Nebula Tower” proposal and the upcoming public meetings of Urban Confluence Competition are available on the competition website.
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