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.
The Kibera Public Space Project (KPSP) has been named a finalist in the WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities. Convened by the World Resources Institute, The Prize for Cities is the premier global award celebrating and spotlighting transformative urban change. KPSP was selected as one of 5 finalists among 262 submissions from 54 countries. KPSP is designed and planned by Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), a non-profit design and community development firm co-founded and led by Chelina Odbert MUP ’07. A network of 11 public spaces across the informal settlement of Kibera, in Kenya, KPSP creates much-needed public space linked with other benefits, including economic development, public health, and water management.
More information on the project is available on the KDI website.
Konstantina Tzemou MAUD’18 and DEPÓLIS received 1st Prize in the International Competition for the design of Independence Square in Podgorica, Montenegro. The project consists of 40,000 square meters of public and retail space and a parking garage in the center of Montenegro’s capital and is managed by Capital City Podgorica. This prize marks the first international recognition for the firm DEPÓLIS which was launched in September 2020 by Konstantina Tzemou and Tommaso Bernabò Silorata. The team currently operates between Rome, Italy and Athens, Greece.
You can find more information on the proposal for Independence Square and current work at DEPÓLIS on their website.
Six GSD alumni have been elevated by the 2021 Jury of Fellows from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to its prestigious College of Fellows. The honor recognizes architects who have “achieved a standard of excellence in the profession and made a significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.”
The GSD congratulates:
- Rocco J. Ceo MArch ’86
- Mina M. Chow MArch ’93
- Billie J. Faircloth MArch ’01
- John H. Martin MArch ’89
- David S. Parker MArch ’85
- Gregory C. Wiedemann MArch ’77
For the full list of 2021 Fellows, visit the AIA website.
This past fall, David Buckley Borden MLA ’11 joined the faculty of the College of Design’s School of Architecture and Environment at the University of Oregon as a visiting professor.
In addition to teaching studio and environmental-communication coursework through the lens of his practice, David will spearhead a new design-ecology initiative between the Department and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, a 16,000-acre Long-Term Ecological Research site in Oregon’s western Cascades Mountains. As a Harvard Forest Associate Fellow David will continue to collaborate with Harvard researchers to champion a cultural ecology supported by interdisciplinary environmental-communication. David also continues to work with landscape architecture firms as a consultant, including recent collaborations with Agency Landscape + Planning, Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architects, Sasaki, and Rios.
Projecting Fellows, a symposium which brings together fellows from American architecture schools to explore the emergent interests of a new generation of architects and academics, launches on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. Co-organized by Katie MacDonald MArch ‘16, the free, virtual, five-evening series ran on Tuesday evenings from January 5 to February 2, 2021 and included presentations by Zannah Matson MLA ‘15, Eduardo Mediero MArch ‘19, and Zahra Safaverdi MArch ’17. The events roster of moderators includes Sekou Cooke MArch ’14 and Felipe Correa MAUD ’03.
Videos of all of the symposium events can be viewed for free on demand from the Projecting Fellows website.
Ryn Burns, RA, LEED GA, MDes ’13 was highlighted in an Architect Spotlight by NCARB. Ryn is the Design Director at MG2 Design and a board member of Black Land Ownership, a grassroots organization based in Brooklyn, New York.
To see the full interview with Ryn, where he highlights the importance of diverse narratives in improving the built environment and shares some of his experiences, visit the NCARB site.
Jennifer Ly MArch ’14 and James Leng MArch ’13 were recipients of a Graham Foundation grant for their project “Veil Craft,” an architectural installation that reimagines Los Angeles’ Craft Contemporary courtyard.
According to the Graham Foundation website, the project utilizes, “construction scaffolding textiles [to explore] untapped aesthetic potentials of this utilitarian material and activate the public’s interest in the overlooked materiality of our built environment.”
For a full description of the project and Jennifer and James’ work together, visit the Graham Foundation’s site.
L. Renee Blount MLA ’17 was interviewed by and featured on the cover of Outside Magazine this past fall. Since her graduation from the GSD, L has become a strategy consultant and photographer. L is well-known for her Instagram account, @ubranclimbr, where she shares photos and stories of her outdoor adventures and career.
She shares that Black joy is central to her work, saying, “My smile is very integral to who I am, and I want to share the things that make me smile in that way. There is so much negative imagery of people who look like me, and it can get really tiring and overwhelming to see our bodies portrayed that way. People need to see Black people being joyous. More importantly, we need to see ourselves being happy and joyfully reclaiming spaces.”
Although he’s been teaching design in Rome for years, Tom Rankin MArch ’91 shared with us that “this year was a bit different” and reached out with some examples of 2020 summer courses he helped to coordinate. Tom commented that he was “especially lucky to get many classmates and colleagues to join remote conversations through Zoom,” and has shared these conversations as well. “It’s exciting to hear how so many of us are pushing the limits of remote learning and practice,” Tom said in his update.
You can view a video for a Rome course here and a video from the Abruzzo course here. His remote conversations are also available on YouTube in this playlist.
For more information on Tom’s practice, visit his website.
On Friday, December 11, 2020, pioneering landscape architect Carol Johnson MLA ’57 passed away at age 91. She is widely remembered as a trailblazer in landscape architecture and one of the first women to reach prominence in her field. She founded her firm, Carole R. Johnson Associates, in 1959 and operated the business out of her apartment for the first 11 years of its existence. Carol was the first American woman to receive the American Society for Landscape Architecture (ASLA) Medal, in 1988.
In a memorial article dedicated to Carol’s extraordinary life and career, The Architect’s Newspaper says:
“After establishing a landscape architecture practice in an era when licensed women landscape architects were virtually nonexistent in the United States, Johnson went on to dramatically expand her eponymous firm while overseeing the design of numerous public parks, waterfront revitalization projects, and college campuses in and around—but not exclusively to—Boston. This includes the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, a five-acre green space nestled along the Charles River in Cambridge that opened to the public in May 1987. The park is currently in need of various forms of maintenance and was included in Landslide 2020: Women Take the Lead, the latest edition of TCLF’s comprehensive annual report spotlighting imperiled landscapes. In 2006, Charles A. Birnbaum, president and CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, interviewed Johnson for an extensive oral history of her life and career. … Her legacy is indelible.”
George Ranalli MArch ’74 and his partner, Anne Valentino, were interviewed for FLOORNATURE about their longstanding practice together. The interview is hosted by architectural Virginia Cucchi, host of All Good Vibes, a podcast that “redefines sustainable architecture, projects, and space according to an augmented concept of beauty.” You can listen to the podcast in its entirety here.
Patty Heyda MArch ’00 has published an essay with The Conversation about the crises faced by the USPS in 2020 and its consequences. In her essay, Patty assesses the threats posed to democratic ideals and social cohesion in the American City.
The article, “A dismantled post office destroys more than mail service,” is available to read on The Conversation’s website.
David De Celis MArch ’98 was published in the July 2020 volume of the peer-review journal Interiority. The issue was specially dedicated to design thinking in the COVID era. Mr. De Celis’ article, “The Charms of an American Queen Anne,” explores how COVID-19 impacts the way we consider the architecture of interior space through the lens of the 1886 Queen Anne in which David and his family reside and work. The article examines how and why the Queen Anne became ubiquitous in New England and proposes that its innate flexibility may be especially helpful today.
You can read David’s article in a digital download from the Interiority site.
On October 8, 2020, International Federation of Landscape Architects President James Hayter announced that Kongjian Yu DDes ’95 would be the winner of the 2020 Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, the highest honor bestowed by the IFLA.
The award, named after British landscape architect and founding president of IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, celebrates a living landscape architect “whose achievements and contributions have had a unique and lasting impact on the welfare of society and the environment and on the promotion of the profession of landscape architecture.”
In a release, the IFLA highlights Mr. Yu’s work as founder of Turenscape, one of the first and largest private architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism practices in China:
“For over 20 years Yu has spent his academic career fighting against deteriorating urban ecologies and the environment. His pioneering research on Ecological Security Pattern (1995) and Ecological Infrastructure, Negative Planning and Sponge Cities (2003) has been adopted by the Chinese government as a framework for nationwide ecological protection and restoration campaigns.
“Yu defines landscape architecture as the art of survival. A native of China’s Zhejiang Province, he drew on inspiration from his childhood farming experience and the ancient wisdom of water and waste management to design and test a series of nature-based solutions.”
For more information on Mr. Yu’s accomplishments and commentary from the Jellicoe Award jury, visit the IFLA site.
In a course co-taught by Lane Duncan MDes ’87 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, students from all majors and graduate areas learn the foundations of design through creative expressions of the natural world. The course, entitled “Drawing on Design,” focuses on five tenets of Design Behavior, encouraging students to explore them in a way related to their primary area of study while drawing on natural subjects. This is the second year that the course has been offered and an article from the school notes that it “is a welcome change of pace” for many students that allows them to “tap into their creativity while exploring design principles of the world around them.” For more details about the course, see the full article published on the Georgia Tech news website.
GSD Alumni Robert Pietrusko MArch ’12 and Katy Barkan MArch ’10 are among the recipients of the 2020 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships granted by the American Academy in Rome. These highly competitive fellowships support advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities.
Robert was awarded in Landscape Architecture and Katy in Architecture.
More information about the Rome Prize and this year’s recipients is available through their press release.
Catherine Murray MLA ’86 has been appointed as a Principal at Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects (SNHA).
Of the appointment, Timothy Conner, AIA LEED AP, SNHA Principal said: “We are excited to welcome Catherine Murray as our newest Principal at SNHA. In recent years, a new sort of design work has emerged with our large technology clients. With this work comes advanced forward-thinking and next-level strategic planning, analyzing, and researching new ways to create. Catherine joins us to help lead these new initiatives while bringing a new voice and a new perspective to the broader leadership of the firm.”
The firm celebrates “her ability to creatively tackle complex design challenges” and notes that her appointment “offers our team forward-thinking and next-level strategic planning, analyzing, and researching new ways to design and create. Catherine brings a new voice and a new perspective to the broader leadership of the firm.”
We offer our congratulations to Catherine and the Sheehan Nagle Hartray firm.
American pharmaceutical group Merck (known as MSD in Europe) has announced that it intends to build a new UK headquarters across from the King’s Cross station in collaboration with Precis Advisory, Architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and AKT II engineering consultancy. GSD community-members are represented across the project at all three collaborative partners, most prominently Faaiza Lalji MDes ’13 who is the Planning and Development Director of Precis Advisory.
The project would put special focus on creating a structure that acknowledges and complements the history of the area while also sitting at the forefront of sustainability. A press release from Precis Advisory shares the following details of the project: “The proposed building, ten stories on Euston Road and four stories (with a fifth story set back) on Argyle Square, will deliver c 180,000 sq ft of net lettable space for MSD, would use sustainable materials and has been designed to reduce carbon emissions generated through construction, operation and future fit-out refurbishment. An innovative double-skin façade would reduce solar gain and the energy required to cool the office spaces, and includes a biophilic zone which gives visibility of plants from every workspace and from outside the building.”
An article in the Financial Times notes that “Merck’s UK hub will be its first set of labs outside the US that carry out early-stage research to discover new medicines.”
The project has not yet been finalized and is still subject to planning permission and approval.
Among this year’s recipients of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2020 Architecture Awards, the practices of three GSD Alumni were honored.
Nader Tehrani MAUD ’91 was awarded the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize for his significant contribution to architecture as an art. Nader is principal of the firm NADAAA in Boston and dean of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. The Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize began in 1955 as the first architecture award given by the American Academy of Awards and Letters.
Bade Stageberg Cox, a firm co-founded by Jane Stageberg MArch ’89, and the individual practice of Jonathan Tate MDes ’08 were both honored with an Arts and Letters Award in Architecture for their works, which are “characterized by a strong personal direction.”
A full press release for the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2020 Architecture Awards is available on their website.
AGi Architects, the firm of Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea MArch ’02 and Nasser B. Abulhasan MArch ’02, DDes ’07, was recently awarded second prize in a public competition to restore and expand the Railway Museum in the former Madrid-Delicias Station.
Their project, “Machine Gallery,” envisions a space that goes beyond history by acting as a center of discussion, participation, and social communication. The project is available to view on the AGi website.
As of May 2020, Derek Ham MArch ’03, PhD has been appointed as the Head of the Department of Art + Design at North Carolina State University’s College of Design.
In an article announcing the appointment, dean of the college Michael Hoversten said, “I am thrilled to announce that Derek Ham has been chosen as our next Art + Design Department Head. Derek’s background and approach to multi- and inter-disciplinary work makes him a strong candidate in an already competitive candidate pool. I am excited to see the direction he brings to the Art + Design program moving forward.”
In addition to his appointment, Derek has also been selected as a 2020 University Fauculty Scholar and serves as the principal investigator of the MX Reality Lab.
A full press release on Derek’s appointment is available on the NCU College of Design website.
David Rubin MLA ’90, founding principal of the design studio Land Collective, has been recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects as a Featured Diverse Practitioner.
In the announcement, the ASLA highlights that “David’s visionary contribution to the field in ’empathy-driven design’ is a hallmark of the studio, earning increasing renown for fusing issues of social justice in cities with excellence in the design of public spaces. His work has received awards and honors from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects.”
David was also interviewed during the ASLA’s first LGBTQIA Pride Happy Hour by Landscape Architecture Magazine editor Brad McKee.
Land Collective team members shared statements about their experiences and work in an article on the studio’s website.
On Saturday, June 27, 2020, Jennifer Carroll Wilson MLA ’99 passed away at the age of 51. Jennifer headed her own landscape design practice in the San Francisco Bay area and served as a board member for Ethical Metalsmiths in 2016 and 2017.
Her family shared a message of remembrance in the Los Angeles Times:
Our beautiful Jennifer left us way too soon. She was a vibrant, radiant being with an unparalleled zest for life. Her dazzling smile lit up a room. Jennifer grew up in Los Angeles. She attended The Westlake School for Girls and Colorado College, where she majored in English. Colorado opened her eyes to nature, which became her passion. In her young adventures, she climbed Mt. Kenya hiked the Masai Mara and spent a summer releasing endangered peregrine falcons into the wild. She began her professional career in the environmental field in San Francisco, working at Esprit and the Resource Renewal Institute. These experiences led her to the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, where she taught children about sustainable agriculture. The next step was the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and there she earned a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture. She met her future husband, Marcel, at Harvard. After Cambridge, they moved to San Francisco, where their daughters Lena and Zoe were born. Jennifer was still most at home in nature which inspired her many artistic endeavors, including the sculptural jewelry she created and sold. She loved the mountains where she skied, hiked, bicycled, and camped, and passed those passions along to her children. Every year she looked forward to spending time with her family at Lake Almanor, California. In recent years, her focus returned to designing gardens and she opened her own residential landscape design practice. She had recently completed a new studio office in her garden, giving her the opportunity to do what she loved – create, design, draw, and cultivate. It was her happy place. Jennifer passed away suddenly from natural causes. Her large family is devastated. She leaves husband Marcel, daughters Lena and Zoe, mother Judy Carroll, sisters Carey and Abbe, brothers Tom and John, and countless nieces, nephews, in-laws, and close friends who will cherish the precious memories she left us. Jennifer was predeceased by her father, Dick Carroll. She was our perennial ray of sunshine.
Below is an excerpt from Portman Architects’ website.
Son of famed Atlanta architect John Calvin Portman Jr. and Jan Portman, John C. “Jack” Portman III MArch ’73 was born November 3, 1948 in Atlanta, Georgia. Jack graduated from The Lovett School in Atlanta, then earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He began practicing architecture in 1973 at John Portman & Associates, rising from an Apprentice Architect to become Chairman of the firm, now known as Portman Architects.
Jack took over leadership of Portman Architects following the death of his father, John C. Portman Jr., in 2017. While exceedingly successful as a real estate developer, Jack was passionate about being an architect, particularly the creation of meaningful architecture with a focus on culturally sensitive design. He once said, “The challenge of the architect is to do something that seems to belong where it is situated.” Throughout his nearly 50-year career with the Portman Companies, Jack pioneered their international expansion, helping to transform the enterprises into the globe-spanning real estate design and development firms that they are today.
Link to the full text.
Katharine V. Martin MLA ’95 has been elevated by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) as a fellow for her 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/management, knowledge, and service.
ASLA Fellows will be elevated during a special Investiture Ceremony later this year. Additional information about the 2020 Class of Fellows, as well as previous ASLA Fellows, is available on the ASLA Council of Fellows webpage.
Congratulations to Katharine. For the full list of 2020 Fellows, click here.
A team including five GSD alumni have been selected as finalists in a competition held by the New York City Council and the Van Alen Institute to reimagine New York’s Brooklyn Bridge as a friendlier experience for cyclists and pedestrians. The design team includes Wendy Wang MLA ’14, Cy Zhang MLA/MLAUD ’20, Vita Wang MArch ’19, Jeremy Pi MUP ’19, and Minzi Long MAUD/MDes ’20 along with designers Shannon Hasenfratz and Andrew Nash.
The team’s proposal, “Bridge X,” reimagines the upper and lower decks for greater pedestrian and cyclist access, to make room for vendors and small businesses, and to offer new modes of engagement with the bridge. The proposal uses digital tools and design interventions that enable visitors to engage with the bridge in new ways, while the bridge itself evolves in response to public feedback and adapts over time. The team submitted their proposal via Wang’s ScenesLab, which she founded as a platform for experimentation and research.
More information about the competition and the “Bridge X” proposal are available in an article on the GSD website.
Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA MArch ’78 has been awarded the highest honor of the AIALA, the Gold Medal Presidential Honor.
2020 AIALA President Gerg Verabian, AIA, stated that, “To Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, the practice of architecture includes the rigorous investigation of strategies that deliver the benefits of design excellence to some of the region’s most vulnerable: individuals with mental illness, and those with little financial means to access housing. His devotion to fellow humans is matched by his mastery of craft.”
The announcement of the award further acknowledged Mr. Lehrer’s accomplishment with the following: “Lehrer embodies the high level of achievement loosely covering four areas that characterize this year’s AIALA Presidential Honorees class: design excellence, service to the region and country, the fostering of next generation designers, and support of the field. The twelve recipients were chosen by the Chapter’s Board of Directors in its entirety, with the president selecting the Gold Medal recipient.”
The full press release is available on the AIALA website.
John C. Haro MArch ’55 has passed away at the age of 91. John was elected FAIA and the former Senior Vice President and Director of Design and Planning for Albert Kahn Associates. Before his time at the Harvard GSD, he studied under Walter Saunders at the University of Michigan.
The Albert Kahn Associates firm shared the following announcement:
John Calvin Haro, FAIA, a Detroit architect who designed multiple buildings for the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor as well as many corporate headquarters projects, died April 9 in Phoenix, Arizona, at age 91.
Mr. Haro spent most of his career with Albert Kahn Associates in Detroit, where he was a Senior Vice President, Corporate Director, Stockholder, and Director of Design and Planning.
Among his many projects, he oversaw while with the Kahn firm were several for the University of Michigan, including UM’s Physics and Astronomy Building, the Modern Languages Building, the Adult General Hospital, the Graduate Library addition, and the Duderstadt Center North Campus Information Technology Center and Library.
Mr. Haro also oversaw the creation of the National Bank of Detroit headquarters in downtown Detroit, the Avon corporate headquarters, Eli Lilly’s Engineering Technology Center, and the Washington Post headquarters.
“John was a valued and willing mentor to many architects around the country, and in his own firm. He led an incredible list of Kahn projects for a diverse collection of appreciative clients,” said Alan H. Cobb, FAIA, President & CEO of the Kahn firm.
Born in Gary, Indiana, and raised in the Baraga, Michigan area, the son of John H. and Lydia Haro, he was a longtime resident of Birmingham and Houghton, Michigan and Scottsdale, Arizona. John was a graduate of L’Anse High School, Michigan Technological University, and the University of Michigan. After serving in the U.S. Navy as an Ensign on the U.S Tawasa AFT92 during the Korean War, he went on to earn a Master of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Mr. Haro began work as an architect in the Detroit area with Yamasaki & Associates and Smith, Hinchman & Grylls before moving to Albert Kahn Associates. He was awarded a Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship by Harvard University and was a Fellow with the American Institute of Architects. He also received the Gold Medal from the Detroit Chapter of the AIA and Michigan Society of Architects for design and urban planning.
Mr. Haro was preceded in death by his loving wife of 65 years, Elizabeth, (Betty Smith), Haro. He is survived by his children; John S., Alex, and Alison; and five grandchildren.
After his retirement, John designed private homes, churches, and additions to schools in the Houghton and Hancock area of Michigan. In later years John and Betty lived in Houghton, Michigan, and Scottsdale, Arizona, where John continued his architectural work but also producing many original paintings and drawings. He also was fluent in the Finnish language, having learned it as a child, and enjoyed researching his heritage and visiting with relatives in Finland.
On May 29, in Stamford, Connecticut, Nancy Ai-Tseng Miao Twitchell MArch ’60 passed away at the age of 92. Nancy was one of the first women architects to be elected FAIA by the American Institute of Architects. She held a Professorship at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture for 30 years and was a Partner at two of her own firms, Architects Design Group and Twitchell & Miao, Architects, which she founded with her husband, Terry Twitchell.
Please find an obituary published in the New York Times below:
Nancy Ai-Tseng Miao Twitchell, FAIA, Architect and Professor, passed away peacefully in Stamford, Connecticut on May 29, 2020 at age 92.
Nancy was born on March 13, 1928, the daughter of Miao Chien-Chou and Zhou Chi-Fung. As a child in China, her family was forced to move frequently due to her father’s political career during the tumultuous period before and during World War II. She lived in Beijing, Tianjin and Hong Kong before attending Nankai High School in Chongqing as a boarding student. Following the Second World War, the family moved to Tokyo, where her father held a diplomatic position for Chiang Kai-Shek’s government.
Soon after, Nancy came to the U.S. as a student in Boston, earning a BA from Tufts in 1951, an MS from Boston University in 1953, and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 1960. She achieved early success as an architectural designer, serving on the design staff of Hugh Stubbins & Associates, The Architects Collaborative (TAC), Edward Larabee Barnes Associates, and Mitchell Giurgola. Nancy went on to be a Partner of two firms based in New York City along with her Architect husband, Terry Twitchell, whom she married in 1966 – Architects Design Group and Twitchell & Miao, Architects.
She was a prolific designer with a tremendously varied portfolio of work. Nancy designed residential skyscrapers including Carnegie Hill Tower in Manhattan; multi-block urban college campuses like Manhattan Community College in New York City; large suburban healthcare campuses notably Broome Developmental Center in Binghamton, New York; private residences that won “Architectural Record House” awards, including the New York home of the former Corning CEO; and laboratory buildings such as the Coykendall Science Building at SUNY New Paltz.
The American Institute of Architects recognized her professional achievements by electing her to the College of Fellows and awarding the FAIA title, a distinction that only 3% of AIA members have received and even fewer women architects. Nancy was also a Professor of Architecture at Pratt Institute School of Architecture for thirty years.
Nancy and Terry retired in 1999 and moved to Boston, where they enjoyed reconnecting with old friends from their Cambridge days. They spent many summers at their Chilmark home on Martha’s Vineyard, and recently moved to Darien, Connecticut to be closer to family.
Nancy was predeceased by her brother, Dazue, who died at age 4, and her parents, who passed away in Taiwan. She is survived by her husband Terry Twitchell, her son Daryl Twitchell and his wife Peggy Bell Twitchell, and her two grandchildren Emily and Brian, as well as countless generations of architecture students who studied with her in the U.S. and Taiwan.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in her memory to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or The Glass House of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in New Canaan, Connecticut. A private burial will be held at a later date in Chilmark, Massachusetts.
Rituparna Simlai MLA ’15 was honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects Florida Chapter as the 2020 recipient of the Exceptional Emerging Professional Award.
She was recognized for the breadth of her work as the founding principal of Studio Arth. In their announcement, the ASLA Florida Chapter noted how, “within two years of inception, under her direction, the portfolio of the studio extends beyond landscape design for high-end residences…to working on research and analysis for ecologically restorative and social-justice projects in geographically diverse regions like Vietnam, China, Nepal and Timor-Leste.”
A forthcoming book by Sara Hendren MDes ’13 questions the ways we interact with the things and spaces around us and asks us to rethink what we live with. What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World is set to be published by Penguin & Random House on August 18, 2020.
From the publisher:
“A fascinating and provocative new way of looking at the things we use and the spaces we inhabit, and a call to imagine a better-designed world for us all.
Furniture and tools, kitchens and campuses and city streets—nearly everything human beings make and use is assistive technology, meant to bridge the gap between body and world. Yet unless, or until, a misfit between our own body and the world is acute enough to be considered disability, we may never stop to consider—or reconsider—the hidden assumptions on which our everyday environment is built.
In a series of vivid stories drawn from the lived experience of disability and the ideas and innovations that have emerged from it—from cyborg arms to customizable cardboard chairs to deaf architecture —Sara Hendren invites us to rethink the things and settings we live with. What might assistance based on the body’s stunning capacity for adaptation—rather than a rigid insistence on “normalcy”—look like? Can we foster interdependent, not just independent, living? How do we creatively engineer public spaces that allow us all to navigate our common terrain? By rendering familiar objects and environments newly strange and wondrous, What Can a Body Do? helps us imagine a future that will better meet the extraordinary range of our collective needs and desires.”
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