Architecture

The GSD was well represented among the P/A (Progressive Architecture) Award winners this year. Architect and Aga Khan Visiting Fellow Aziza Chaouni received an award for "Hybrid Urban Sutures: Filling in the Gaps in the Medina of Fez," her research on how to repair the crumbling yet vital Medina of Fez, Morocco. Aziza is featured on the cover of the current issue of Architect magazine, which includes a profile and a review of her project in Fez. Office dA, the firm of Professor of Architecture Monica Ponce de Leon and Adjunct Professor of Architecture Nader Tehrani, received an award for "Villa Moda: New Kuwait Sports Shooting Club," a project that expands the existing Club into a community with residential units and public spaces. Their project is also featured in the January issue of Architect magazine. Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies, Hashim Sarkis was honored with a citation for his Bab Tebbaneh School for Working Children and for Women in an impoverished neighborhood in North Tripoli, Lebanon—also featured in Architect magazine. The awards will be presented on January 24 at the Center for Architecture in New York City. The award: GSD alumni Hadrian Predock (MArch ’93) and Jose Castillo (MArch ’95, DDes ’00) served on the P/A Awards jury. P/A awards recognize unbuilt projects that demonstrate overall design excellence and innovation. Over time, they have served as bellwethers of emerging architectural design trends and talents. Architect magazine articles (Adobe pdf): Aziza Chaouni Office dA (Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader Tehrani) Hashim Sarkis Cover and articles reproduced from Architect magazine: © 2007 Hanley Wood.

The works of several GSD faculty members are featured in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s National Design Triennial 2006 "Design Life Now." The exhibition, which features the work of 87 designers and firms who are leaders, innovators, or emerging figures in the world of design, runs through July 29, 2007. Please see the following faculty exhibits at the Design Life Now website: Preston Scott Cohen Gerald M. McCue Professor in Architecture Rem Koolhaas Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design Michael Meredith Assistant Professor of Architecture Toshiko Mori Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture and Chair, Department of Architecture Michael Van Valkenburgh Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture

Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s new financial exchange building designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA GSD Professor in Practice of Architecture Rem Koolhaas has won the competition to design the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s new financial exchange building located in Shenzhen’s new financial district. More than 800 feet high, the building features a floating base that creates a covered urban plaza between the raised platform and the ground that can be used to stage public events or to hang digital banners that stream down financial information. "Lifting the base in the air vastly increases its exposure; in its elevated position, it can ‘broadcast’ the activities of the stock market to the entire city," says Koolhaas, founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). "The essence of the stock market is speculation," he continues. "It is based on capital, not gravity. In the case of Shenzhen’s almost virtual stock market, the role of symbolism exceeds that of the program. It is a building that has to represent the stock market, more than physically accommodate it. It is not a trading arena with offices, but an office with virtual organs that suggest and illustrate the process of the market." [Office for Metropolitan Architecture media release]

The China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing designed by Rem Koolhaas/OMA, is the subject of the exhibition OMA in Beijing being held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through February 26.

Toshiko Mori, Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture, Chair of the Department of Architecture and principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, presented a lecture on January 16 on her recent projects in the Uncommon Ground lecture series sponsored by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

Susan Fainstein, Professor of Urban Planning, presented "Globalization and Urban Politics" on January 5, 2007 at the Conference to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

An "Oracle of Aqua" By Christopher Reed "Ours is a society of sensual eunuchs, impotent to the callings of the wildness within and as a result, the pull of that which resides outside," writes Robert Lawrence France in his book Deep Immersion: The Experience of Water. "Transcending our minds, we must recognize that our bodies are the most concrete example of the natural world within our lives." France is adjunct associate professor of landscape ecology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a celebrant of water. Water is in such a bad way, he believes, that it has become impossible to celebrate it as an art form without also worrying about protecting it as a threatened element" [Harvard Magazine, January–February 2007] Full article...

The installation designed by GSD students Kiduck Kim and Christian Staynor, one of two Katrina student exhibits at the Venice Architecture Biennial, is featured in the February 2007 issue of Dwell magazine. See Adobe pdf version of magazine article. © 2007, Dwell magazine.

Assistant Professor of Architecture Michael Meredith was recently selected as one of five finalists in the MOMA/P.S. 1 Young Architects competition, now in its eighth year, to design an installation in the P.S. l’s courtyard. The winner will be announced in March.

Harvard GSD Department of Architecture and Department of Landscape Architecture ranked Number One . . . Selected findings from the 2007 DesignIntelligence® Survey of America’s Best Architecture and Design Schools.

It's Not Schools vs. Scones, By Jerold Kayden Democracy, Issue #3, Winter 2007 "There is much to like in Joel Kotkin’s well-written polemic against the latest fashion in urban revitalization circles ["Urban Legend," Issue #2]. Dismayed by what he pejoratively deems the "rise of the boutique city," Kotkin criticizes its promoters for focusing on art galleries, coffee-houses, museums, and other "yuppie accoutrements" as vehicles for urban salvation. Although he soft-pedals the origin of this advice, he is really taking aim at George Mason University professor and über-consultant Richard Florida and his best-selling book of four years ago, The Rise of the Creative Class" Jerold Kayden is co-chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Full article...

Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Andrea Leers’ firm, Leers Winzapfel Associates, received the prestigious 2007 AIA Architecture Firm Award based on its proven, consistent ability to accept complex challenges and envision design of elegant distinction. It is the highest honor the AIA bestows on an architecture firm and recognizes a practice that consistently has produced distinguished architecture for at least ten years.