Fall 2011 GSAPP Lectures

T?F, or, The Why Factory, is collaboration between MVRDV and Delft University of Technology dedicated to envisioning the future of cities while giving "argumentation back to the architectural and urbanistic world." From a study of the spatial consequences of food consumption and production in Manhattan to the orchestration of a series of public debates on contemporary urban life, MVRDV Principal and T?F Founder Winy Maas' work highlights the importance of asking why

A People's Plan for the East River Waterfront co-authors Jason Chan, Projects Coordinator, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities Anne Frederick, Executive Director, Hester Street Collaborative Damaris Reyes, Executive Director and winner of Jane Jacobs Medal, GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side)

"Bangkok; content; commercial; developing world; entertainment; exhibition; fashion; hiso; la-ka-pid la-ka-perd; nontent; public voids; pretties" are the keywords provided by thingsmatter partners Savinee Buranasilapin and Tom Dannecker to describe their work -- suggesting no shortage of content, even if the user is unclear. For thingsmatter, architectural production means engaging with Bangkok's kaleidoscopic commercial culture; they use traditional hard surfaces and electronic media to create environments, exhibitions, free-standing buildings, and more. When asked to describe thingmatter, a GSAPP faculty member came up with another set of keywords, calling their work a combination of "OMA, the Wooster Group, and Seventeen magazine."

Ecogram IV: China is curated by Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Parsons The New School for Design and Jeffrey Johnson, GSAPP, in collaboration with Saskia Sassen, Committee on Global Thought and Sociology. It is co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought.

Craig Buckley, Beatriz Colomina, Peter Eisenman, Carlos Labarta, Jeffrey Schnapp, Felicity Scott, Bernard Tschumi, Anthony Vidler, Enrique Walker, and Mark Wigley Followed by a reception for Architects' Journeys: Building Traveling Thinking, Craig Buckley and Pollyanna Rhee, Eds. (GSAPP Books and T6 Ediciones, 2011). #wood111811

Tom Angotti, Hunter College Sarah Crean, New York Industrial Retention Network Neil Kittredge, Beyer Blinder Belle Thomas McKnight, New York City Economic Development Corporation Moderated by Richard Plunz, GSAPP Organized by the Architecture and Urban Design Program and moderated by Richard Plunz, this is the second installment of the monthly series "Where is New York?*"

Hsieh Ying-Chun, Hsieh Ying-Chun Atelier Jiang Jun, Amazing Design Doris Naisbitt, Naisbitt China Institute John Naisbitt, Naisbitt China Institute Xiaobo Lü, Columbia University #wood111411

3-4:30pm Private Data, Public Good: Issues of Copyright, Contract, and Content Matthew Daus, University Transportation Research Center, City College of New York Francisca Rojas, Transparency Policy Project; Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Bibiana McHugh, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) moderated by Kenneth Crews, Columbia Law School; Munich Intellectual Property Law Center

4:00-5:00 p.m. The Economics of Green Moderator: Craig Schwitter, Managing Principal, North America, Buro Happold Meghan McDermott, Partner, Robert A.M. Stern Architects Sukanya Paciorek, Vice President of Corporate Sustainability, Vornado Realty Trust Richard Dattner, Principal, Dattner Architects

"I have given up on fantasizing on the future of cities. My work is not about the past and it is certainly not about the future," says Bernard Khoury of his Beirut-based practice DW5, which he views as grounded in "very specific experiences in the present." What is this present, and how is it materialized within the social, spatial, and political complexities of the Middle East? #wood11211

10:45am-12:15pm "Start-Up" Transportation Planning: Entrepreneurial Approaches to Transport Problems Candace Brakewood & Michael Frumin Engineering Systems Division, MIT; MTA Bus Customer Information Systems Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze Rachel Sterne, New York City Media moderated by Benjamin de la Pea, Rockefeller Foundation

By divvying space into its constituent parts and highlighting the "wavelengths, humidity rate, light intensity, and heat transfer coefficient" used to measure it, the recent work of architect Philippe Rahm explores microclimates and the environmental thresholds at which architecture vaporizes. #wood11911

Since her previous appearance in Wood Auditorium in 2008, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid has added several projects to her international portfolio: the Guangzhou Opera House in China, the Evelyn Grace Academy and the London Aquatics Centre in the UK, and MAXXI: National Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, which possesses a sense of newness that according to the New York Times "jolts th[e] city back to the present like a thunderclap." What else is new? #wood111611

Inaugural Kenneth Frampton Endowed Lecture Juhani Pallasmaa, Helsinki Inthe Inaugural Kenneth Frampton Endowed Lecture at Columbia University GSAPP,Helsinki-based architect Juhani Pallasmaa will present thoughts on theheightened sense of materiality that often accompanies atmosphericarchitecture, of which he states: "Architectureis usually understood and taught in terms of focused perception, and thesignificance of the overarching peripheric and atmospheric perception isneglected. Yet, we have an amazing capacity to instantly grasp the overallambience or atmosphere of a landscape, urban setting, space and place.Altogether, unconscious peripheral and unfocused perception has a crucial rolein our grasp of our existential situation and feeling of being part of 'theflesh of the world,' to use a notion of Merleau-Ponty. The overall atmosphereis also a unifying characteristic in architecture, and there are architects andartists whose work is based more on qualities of an embracing haptic ambiencethan focused formal qualities." #wood101911

Post Parametric 5: Automation Futures of Computing and Design IBM DeepQA and Watson researcher John Prager and Area/Code and Starling co-founder Kevin Slavin. Moderated by David Benjamin, GSAPP, and Michael Reed, Columbia Computer Science. In February 2011, following six years of cutting-edge research on artificial intelligence by the DeepQA Project at IBM, a computing system named Watson defeated two human champions in the game show Jeopardy! In May 2010, after thirty years of steady growth in algorithmic trading, hundreds of unnamed computers ordered a flurry of trades without human input and caused the United States stock market to lose 9% of its value in five minutes. Autonomous algorithms now influence many aspects of our lives, including our built environment. In the fifth installment of the Post Parametric series, this pair of presentations and the following discussion will explore current examples of automated algorithms at work and potential futures of computing and design. #wood101711

Moderated by Enrique Walker, Director Advanced Architectural Design program Organized by the Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University.

When do cities recover from disaster? Conference: Injured Cities/Urban Afterlives 10.14.11 - 10.15.11 9:00AM - 6:00PM FRIDAY EVENTS IN MILLER THEATRESATURDAY EVENTS IN WOOD AUDITORIUM, AVERY HALL Gerry Albarelli, Ariella Azoulay, Carol Becker, Nina Bernstein, Hazel Carby, Mary Marshall Clark, Teddy Cruz, Roberta Galler, Saidiya Hartman, Dinh Le, Ann Jones, Anne McClintock, Rosalind Morris, Shirin Neshat, Walid Ra'ad, Somi Roy, Saskia Sassen, Diana Taylor, Karen Till, Clive van den Berg, Eyal Weizman, and Mabel Wilson #wood101511

When do cities recover from disaster? Conference: Injured Cities/Urban Afterlives 10.14.11 - 10.15.11 9:00AM - 6:00PM FRIDAY EVENTS IN MILLER THEATRESATURDAY EVENTS IN WOOD AUDITORIUM, AVERY HALL Gerry Albarelli, Ariella Azoulay, Carol Becker, Nina Bernstein, Hazel Carby, Mary Marshall Clark, Teddy Cruz, Roberta Galler, Saidiya Hartman, Dinh Le, Ann Jones, Anne McClintock, Rosalind Morris, Shirin Neshat, Walid Ra'ad, Somi Roy, Saskia Sassen, Diana Taylor, Karen Till, Clive van den Berg, Eyal Weizman, and Mabel Wilson #wood101511

When do cities recover from disaster? Conference: Injured Cities/Urban Afterlives 10.14.11 - 10.15.11 9:00AM - 6:00PM FRIDAY EVENTS IN MILLER THEATRESATURDAY EVENTS IN WOOD AUDITORIUM, AVERY HALL Gerry Albarelli, Ariella Azoulay, Carol Becker, Nina Bernstein, Hazel Carby, Mary Marshall Clark, Teddy Cruz, Roberta Galler, Saidiya Hartman, Dinh Le, Ann Jones, Anne McClintock, Rosalind Morris, Shirin Neshat, Walid Ra'ad, Somi Roy, Saskia Sassen, Diana Taylor, Karen Till, Clive van den Berg, Eyal Weizman, and Mabel Wilson #wood101511

Looking back at (or is it looking forward to?) Utopie: Sociologie de l'urbain (1967-1978) with editors Isabelle Auricoste and Hubert Tonka, and historians Jean-Louis Cohen, Craig Buckley, Jean-Louis Violeau in this first installment of a two-part launch for Utopie: Texts and Projects, 1967-1978. This event is co-sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and Maison Francaise, Columbia University. Books available for purchase by Mobile Libris

MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President, Commercial & Residential Development, Forest City Ratner Having spearheaded some of the most publicized projects in New York of recent memory, Forest City Ratner's MaryAnne Gilmartin has encountered a range of stakeholders -- from small-business owners and community activists to the Paper of Record and the New Jersey Nets. Her projects include Renzo Piano's Midtown-Manhattan New York Times Building, SHoP's under-construction Barclays Arena in Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, and the subject of this conversation, New York by Gehry, aka 8 Spruce Street, which the Nicolai Ouroussoff deemed "the finest skyscraper to rise in New York since Eero Saarinen's CBS building." With 76 stories and one million square feet, it is the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere. But is it a building of tomorrow? #wood10511

Solano Benitez, Asuncion, Paraguay Asuncion, Paraguay-based architect Solano Benitez presents the work of his Gabinete de Arquitectura to build upon Louis Kahn's famous question "What does a building want to be?" By critically addressing the parts that create the whole, Benitez tests the limits and motives of his choice material: brick. #wood101211

Rania Ghosn, University of Michigan Christopher Marcinkoski, PennDesign Matthew Wald, New York Times moderated by Erik Carver and Janette Kim, GSAPP

A conversation with Michel Abboud, Amale Andraos, Robert Beauregard, Andrew Bernheimer, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Karen Fairbanks, Laurie Hawkinson, Florian Idenburg, Laura Kurgan, David Lewis, Scott Marble, Gregg Pasquarelli, Susan Rodriguez, Leopoldo Sguera, David Smiley, David Stark, Bernard Tschumi, Marc Tsurumaki, Henry Smith-Miller, and Dan Wood. Moderated by Reinhold Martin, GSAPP, and organized by The Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture

In summer 2011, acclaimed performance artist Tania Brugera relocated to Corona, Queens, where she operates the non-profit Immigrant Movement International at Corona Studio, a space at 108-59 Roosevelt Avenue that is jointly sponsored by Creative Time and the Queens Museum of Art to organize classes, workshops, and public actions that address and highlight the needs of those who live nearby. This conversation on institutions and immigration in New York's famously diverse borough will be joined by Queens Museum of Art Curator Larissa Harris and Director of Events Prerana Reddy, who have advocated for change in nearby Corona Plaza as part of the museum's extraordinary array of community-based public programming. Find out more at #wood92611

Phoenix, Arizona: a "horizontal hymn to unsustainable development" that is host to less than eight inches of rainfall per year, the hottest temperatures of any city in the Northern Hemisphere, and the dirtiest zip code in the country. In his new book Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City, cultural critic Andrew Ross examines the sprawling metropolis's ecological challenges alongside its social and political ones -- namely, widespread disenfranchisement from high rates foreclosure and unemployment, and strident anti-immigrant legislation. If efforts toward sustainability in Phoenix are not "directed by and toward principles of equity," Ross contends, "then they will almost certainly end up reinforcing patterns of eco-apartheid." Find out more at #wood92711

"I think my desire to imagine a future for this site came out of trying to come to terms with the emotions that day aroused," said Handel Architects Partner and World Trade Center Memorial designer Michael Arad of witnessing the collapse of the World Trade Center. Four days after the opening of the memorial to that event, Arad will give an account of the long and sometimes-contentious road to its creation, and discuss how this new space of remembrance interacts with other elements of the 16-acre Ground Zero site: four towers, a public plaza, complex transportation infrastructure, and an underground museum. Find out more at #wood91411

Tobias Armborst, Daniel D'Oca, and Georgeen Theodore, Interboro Partners. Part-lecture, part-live interview, designers and YAP 10th Anniversary Review curators Th--ey will situate Holding Pattern within the program's lineage of architectural experimentation, as well as its accompanying Warm Up summer series. Find out more at #wood91911

Amale Andraos, David Benjamin, Lise Anne Couture, Juan Herreros, Laura Kurgan, Hilary Sample, and Enrique Walker moderated by Laurie Hawkinson. GSAPP faculty members will contemplate the future of the architectural studio through the lens of recent work. Find out more at #wood9911