B/a+p Magazine Spring 2012 by University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Buffalo school of architecture+planning

SPR ING 2012 CONTENTS 3 4 10 16 18 21 22 24 26 30 32

Welcome from the Dean Hayes and Crosby Project – Part One Buffalo: This Place Matters to B/a+p Editorial Studios School News Research Spotlight From Our Centers Honor Roll Class Notes Student Profiles

Buffalo school of architecture+planning

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning University at Buffalo, The State University of New York 114 Diefendorf Hall Buffalo, NY 14214-8032 USA 716 829-3485 716 829-2297 fax

Visit us online www.ap.buffalo.edu

Email us ap-infosap@buffalo.edu

School Leadership

Robert G. Shibley, FAIA, AICP Dean

Beth Tauke Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Omar Khan Chair, Architecture

Keep in touch with the school:

Find us on Facebook facebook.com/ buffaloarchitectureandplanning Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/#!/buffaloarchplan

Ernest Sternberg Chair, Urban and Regional Planning

View our photos on Flickr flickr.com/photos/74242453@N05/

Administrative Staff

View videos at YouTube youtube.com/buffaloarchplanning

Bruce Majkowski Associate Dean

William J. McDonnell Associate Dean Subbiah Mantharam Assistant Dean

R.J. Multari III Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education Shannon Phillips Assistant Dean for Graduate Education Timoleon Siderakis Assistant Dean for Development Barbara Carlson Assistant to the Dean

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TELL US WHAT YOU’RE UP TO. Visit us online to sign up for news and updates. While you’re there, tell us what you’re up to. ap.buffalo.edu/signup.asp

Email us: ap-alumni@buffalo.edu

Dean Robert G. Shibley welcomes students, faculty and staff as the new academic year gets under way.

Welcome from the Dean Robert G. Shibley, FAIA, AICP

Cover image of Computer Numerically Controlled Construction Exhibit— Lindsay Romano, MArch ’05, Architecture BS ‘03

I am pleased to introduce an exciting new publication of the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning (B/a+p). Twice a year, in the fall and spring, this “mini-magazine” will tell our story, celebrate what we have accomplished and anticipate where we are headed. As we embark on this journey, I’d like to call your attention to the “+” sign in our new word mark – it says a lot about who we are. We are “architecture + planning” on purpose. And together, across the disciplines, with the engagement and support of our alumni and friends, and in collaboration with our partners in the community, we achieve, create and rebuild in ways that would otherwise be impossible. In the following pages, you’ll read about many of the exciting developments and evolutions at B/a+p that result from the dedication and commitment of our entire B/a+p community. As we head into our fifth decade as a school, and I begin my second year as dean, we are maturing and advancing in all of our mission areas. Our focus as a school for professional education remains, but is strengthened by an emerging research infrastructure. We have two new graduate degree programs – a Master of Science in Architecture and an Urban and Regional Planning PhD – which will invite students from disciplines across the university in the pursuit of new knowledge and advanced research. The alignment of The Urban Design Project with the UB Regional Institute, acquired by the school last summer, has vastly increased our capacity to engage faculty and students in research and public scholarship on architecture, planning, policy and urban design. In this issue of the B/a+p magazine, we spotlight our research on food systems planning, the unique studios that continue to set B/a+p apart, and the latest work coming from our research centers, including a pamphlet series on situated

technologies and our work on an award-winning regional economic development plan for Western New York. We also take you inside our reimagined spaces in Hayes Hall, as the first phase of a $50 million restoration of our facilities moves ahead in service to preservation, sustainability and quality design. You’ll see that we’re repositioning the importance of design and place-making across our university and community in other ways, as well. The “Building UB” master plan, which I have had the privilege of leading as UB’s campus architect, is transforming our three campuses with signature projects, including a new medical school building downtown – the largest new building project in the city in decades. We also celebrate here something that I’ve experienced first-hand since I joined the school 30 years ago, and that’s the passion our faculty, students and alumni have for the people and places of Buffalo – our living laboratory. These contributions will be featured in a series of articles entitled, “Buffalo: This Place Matters to B/a+p,” with the first article chronicling three decades of inspired work for Buffalo’s grain elevators. Going forward, we’ll pay tribute to our partners in the community, from developers to public officials, who provide the vision and support that translate plans and ideas into buildings, projects and policies. Lastly, we offer profiles and news on the people who define B/a+p – bright students, dedicated faculty, accomplished alumni and generous friends. When we tell your stories, we bring to life the story of B/a+p. I encourage you to share yours and to engage with us as we grow and evolve B/a+p. I hope your reading of this publication leaves you proud to be a part of B/a+p, excited about our future and inspired to help in ways big and small – send us applicants, make a small contribution, consider joining the Eberhard Society or imagine being named in the spaces of our restored buildings. I am extremely excited about where we’re headed together, and I welcome your energy in the adventure.

hayes and crosby project PART ONE

hayes hall restoration A Physical Reimagining of B/a+p that Pays Homage to Place, History and Community Story by Rachel Teaman

Inscribed on one of the bells in the Clock Tower of Hayes Hall is this quote by Cuthbert W. Pound:

Hayes Hall Clock Tower—Robert Garlow, MArch ’12, Environmental Design BA ‘08

“I am the voice of life; I call you: Come and learn.”

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning would approach the restoration of Hayes and Crosby Halls, two of the university’s most historic buildings and home to the school for nearly 40 years, with the highest of standards, and even a bit of introspection. The result is a project that at once demonstrates leadership in historic preservation, sustainable building practices and creative space design, and thoughtfully expresses the school’s appreciation for where it’s been, what it values and where it’s headed as a 21st century school of architecture and planning.

Indeed, the $50 million project will preserve the exteriors of these iconic structures and make them more efficient and sustainable, with the expectation of LEED Gold certification. Reimagined interior spaces, with walls literally and figuratively torn down, create openings for interactive learning and flexibility in programming, while symbolizing a renewed commitment to engagement across the school, university and community. “The restoration of Hayes and Crosby is a rare opportunity to make a bold physical statement about our place in time, our connection to the community, our responsibility as citizens of this planet and our commitment to top-notch education and research in architecture and planning,” said Dean Robert G. Shibley, who has overseen the project as dean since January 2011 and, prior to that, as campus architect for UB. The Hayes phase of restoration has already broken ground on UB’s South Campus and is slated for completion in August 2013. The makeover of Crosby Hall, housing studios, labs, critique spaces and additional office space, is currently in the design phase, with a 2015 target for full build-out. Both projects are part of the “Building UB” master plan for the university, developed by Shibley as the physical piece of the UB 2020 strategic plan. The project will also bring the buildings up to code, install state-of-the-art building and environmental systems, advance accessibility features and, primarily through the reclamation of the buildings’ fourth floors, allow the school to consolidate its studio spaces into Hayes and Crosby Halls while giving students more work space.

In fall 2003, the Hayes Hall Clock Tower underwent a significant restoration. This striking feature of the building is considered by many the most significant landmark of UB. The tower houses four bells, ranging in weight from 400 to 1,800 pounds.

“Our reimagined and renewed facilities can now accommodate our vision to become still more competitive with the top schools of architecture and planning, to grow our faculty and student base, and to become an even more robust research center,” said Shibley, noting Crosby Hall is currently in the B/a+p’s current enrollment design phase, with completion of 800 students will grow targeted for 2015. by way of two new degree programs, a Master of Science in Architecture and a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning. For now, the school’s administrative offices have relocated to Diefendorf Hall, and other faculty and staff have decamped to the infamous annexes, where they will be some of the last occupants. Once Hayes and Crosby are restored, these 5

Hayes Hall interior renderings were created by Brian Podleski (MArch ‘10, Architecture BS ‘08), manager of faculty/staff support for the school’s Digital Media Group. The “Gallery,” a two-story atrium and entryway to the building’s core, serves as a “front door” for the school (left). The reclaimed attic spaces on the fourth floor will be renovated to provide usable program space for studios (bottom left). A large auditorium-style classroom on the fourth floor will provide space for lectures and events (bottom right).

“These buildings are hugely important symbolically to the school, university and community,” said Brian Carter, professor of architecture and former dean, who oversaw the project during most of its planning and design phase. “This restoration is an exciting project that combines elements of old and new, and serves as a flagship for practices in preservation and design.” As the Hayes project moves from demolition to build-out, and the design phase of Crosby becomes more tangible, excitement at the school is palpable. “We have been talking about this for over 30 years – we can now say it’s finally happening. And it’s going to be great,” said Bruce Majkowski, associate dean and school liaison to the Hayes/Crosby project (MArch ‘86, Architecture Technology BPS ‘84).

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

This first installment of the Hayes/Crosby project provides a glimpse inside a reimagined Hayes Hall. Look to future issues of this magazine for “Part Two” of the Hayes/Crosby project and a closer look at the restoration of Crosby Hall, the school’s primary studio space. That project is now in its design phase with Chaintreuil | Jenson | Stark Architects.

A Look Inside Hayes Hall Getting Started With its signature bell tower reaching for the sky, Hayes Hall is one of the university’s most iconic buildings and the face of the South Campus. Its history is also deeply tied to the community. A local landmark, it was built in 1874 as an insane asylum in what was then known as the Erie County Almshouse complex. In 1909, the university, then just a medical school in downtown Buffalo, purchased the complex

“temporary” buildings will be removed and the gracious quadrangles and lawns of E.B. Green’s 1930 campus plan reopened.

to support its expansion plans. A major restoration in 1927 converted the building for use as the university’s main administrative offices. Since 1977, Hayes has been home to the school, holding its administrative and faculty offices, classrooms, research centers, library, visual resources center, digital laboratories and exhibition galleries. The Hayes project has been overseen by the school under the direction of the State University Construction Fund and University Facilities. Rochester-based Bergmann Associates has served as design consultant, while SLR Contracting & Service Company, Inc., a minority- and woman-owned firm, is general contractor. The entire Hayes/Crosby project is being financed by New York State’s critical maintenance fund. An Appreciation for History From day one, the project team has approached the largest restoration of Hayes Hall in 80 years with a deep appreciation for its history. “From design to implementation, we have approached this project with a reverence for the history of the building, its past and its architectural details,” said William J. McDonnell, associate dean and school liaison for the project, adding that the team worked closely with the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation every step of the way due to Hayes Hall’s landmark status.

For the exterior, which has remained largely intact since the 1927 restoration, the resulting design includes several small but not insignificant improvements – replacing 40 blocked or altered windows, installing five sets of bronze doors in place of aluminum storefront doors, replacing the roof, and thoughtfully integrating ADA “access paths,” designed by the school’s very own Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access, to flank the building’s front entrance. On the inside, extensive alterations over the years have removed most historic features. While this left Hayes with a patchwork of styles, it also presented the school with essentially a blank canvas for space design. Historic features are preserved where possible, but modern elements dominate. The result is a playful balance of 19th and 21st century details in a vibrant, daylit space ideal for gathering, exhibiting and discovering. Creating a “Front Door” for the School The most dynamic of these spaces is the “Gallery,” a twostory atrium and entryway to the building’s core. As the school’s “front door,” it serves as an obvious point of entry and sets the tone for spaces and academic programs within. Maintaining a reverence for the building’s origins, the marble and wood-trimmed entry will remain. And while a hole punched into the second floor of the central corridor introduces volume and verticality through a two-story atrium, flooring materials were chosen to outline the boundaries of the original hallway. The space will be immediately activated by exhibits of student work, seating areas and a computing lab that offers a glimpse of state-of-the-art technologies found throughout the

Part of a Bigger Vision: Building UB

The Hayes/Crosby project is just one of many capital improvement projects under way today across UB’s three campuses as the university implements its “Building UB” master plan. Major developments slated for South Campus include the relocation of the medical school to downtown’s Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and the addition of the schools of law, education and social work. Steps will also be taken to restore the pastoral character of the E.B. Green campus plan of 1930. Parking lots along Main Street will be replaced with trees and park-like lawns, water features and an amphitheater, all open to public use. The campus will be made more walkable, while judicious demolitions, including the “temporary” annexes, will restore intimate quadrangles and reopen expansive lawns.

SLR Contracting is the Largest MWBE Engagement at UB and Just One Example of B/a+p’s Commitment to Diversity SLR Contracting & Service Company, Inc., heads the list of certified minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) doing business with UB on major construction projects on the university’s three campuses. Its $20 million contract as general contractor for the Hayes Hall restoration is one of the largest for MWBE’s at the university. Shibley says these engagements Sundra L. Ryce, founder are an important part of the and president of SLR Contracting, in front of university’s and school’s Hayes Hall. SLR is the commitment to supporting general contractor for the diversity in the workforce and $20 million Hayes restoration. investing in the community. At B/a+p, it’s also just one of many endeavors aiming to increase diversity in the profession. Among these are two major programs with Buffalo Public Schools – the Architecture + Education program and the Architecture and Design Academy at the International Preparatory School – that expose inner city youth to careers in architecture, teach skills in design and prepare students for college. The school also participates in Tech Savvy, a program to steer teen girls toward careers in technical professions like architecture. Every year, B/a+p sponsors scholarships for minority students.

building. Open spaces for gathering can host lectures and events for the school and community. These design elements are then carried throughout the building, as interior walls and drop ceilings are removed and glass and aluminum partitions – along with the original transoms – allow daylight to pour into the corridors. “We are opening up Hayes’ long and dimly lit hallways to make the space more inviting,” says Robert K. McCubbin, principal, Bergmann Associates, adding that exposing the building’s “systems” promotes its use as a teaching tool for the school. “It will be a totally different feeling,” added Charlene Finn, interior design principal at Bergmann, referring to the view of Hayes Lawn that will be accessible through glass walls along the hallways of the building’s wings. Despite the flexibility and freedom for design and space programming on the interior, original features are preserved where possible. The building’s grand open stairwells, curvilinear interior window moldings and terrazzo flooring are some of the retained elements. In recognition of the original building floorplan, brass inlays demarcate where walls once stood. Minimalistic accents and finishes keep with the theme of the building as a student gallery. “Our approach is not to compete with the great products being generated by the students, but to provide more of a background or canvas,” said Finn.

“We’ve created a design approach that is about how we can do things better together than we can by ourselves,” said Shibley. On the fourth floor, the reclaimed attics are among the building’s most inviting spaces, featuring exposed wood trusses and skylights for natural light. The design also supports display and critiques within these spaces, with a large auditorium-style classroom for lectures and events. Stewardship in Sustainability The Hayes restoration also breaks new ground for the university in green building design and adaptive reuse, and is on track for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. Sustainable design solutions include energy-efficient windows and mechanical systems, natural ventilation, extensive use of daylighting, and the selection of durable materials and finishes, including reclaimed wood and products made within a 500-mile radius. SLR Contracting, just now completing phase one of demolition and abatement, has recycled the bulk of debris, from radiators and glass to wood and metals.

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Finishing Touches The school is now looking to put the finishing touches on the building’s interior, and we need your support. Help us complete the transformation of Hayes Hall into space befitting a 21st century school of architecture and planning. giving.buffalo.edu/schools/architecture

According to Shibley, achieving LEED Gold is an important statement about the school’s commitment to living creatively and responsibly on this planet, while the process has served as a powerful teaching tool for students and faculty alike. “The pedagogical use of these buildings as examples of sustainable and preservation practices, or ecological practices, is really the theme,” he said, adding that the school is looking to add specializations in these disciplines to both the MSArch and Planning PhD. Meanwhile, the school’s continuing education program, coming in April, will use the Hayes and Crosby restorations to explore these issues with professional architects and planners. With Hayes Hall nearly gutted, academic leaders at the school are eagerly anticipating the new space. Said Ernest Sternberg, professor and chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning: “This project preserves and improves a wonderful building for future generations of students. Yes, it will be great to teach and study in so fine a building. More than that, it will be an honor to work in a place that has played so large a role in Buffalo’s and UB’s history.”

Associate Deans Bruce Majkowski and William J. McDonnell contributed to this article.

Open and flexible spaces and “living-learning landscapes” promote commingling, collaboration and open dialogue across the departments and other disciplines, particularly important for the school’s new research-intensive graduate degree programs.

The UB construction budget pays for the renovation; generous donors help create the learning spaces inside.

Hayes Hall over the years

1874

South Wing constructed.

1877

North Wing constructed.

1879

Building converted to 400-bed Erie County Hospital.

1893

Almshouse site acquired by the University of Buffalo.

1909

General Edmund Hayes bequests $389,000 to the university.

1916

Renovations convert building to academic use.

1927

Hayes Hall is dedicated.

1928

FEB 22nd

Clock Tower and Westminster Chimes are installed. The tower houses four bells, ranging in weight from 400 to 1,800 pounds.

1928

JULY

Hayes Hall is the focus of student protests in the late 1960s. Militants occupied the building for two days in 1969. A group of faculty members, arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave the building, were dubbed the Hayes Hall 45.

Center core of what is now Hayes Hall built as the Insane Department of the Erie County Almshouse.

1960s

Hayes Hall Complex, including Wende, Beck and Townsend Halls, is designated a local landmark by the Buffalo Preservation Board.

1988

Hayes Hall is dedicated as a historic landmark by the Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier.

1988

Clock Tower undergoes a significant restoration.

2003

Hayes Hall restoration begins.

2011

Hayes Hall restoration to be completed, with B/a+p slated to move in by fall 2013.

2013

1927-1977 Hayes Hall housed Administrative Offices of the University, The School of Business Administration and The College of Arts and Sciences.

FALL

DEC 12

1977- present Hayes Hall houses “School of Architecture and Environmental Design,” now Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning.

1. Erie County Almshouse before being remodeled into Hayes Hall 2. Erie County Hospital, 1896 3. UB President Samuel Capen at his desk in Hayes Hall 4. Hayes Hall takeover, 1965 5. Restoring the Historic Clock Tower at Hayes Hall 6. Renovation begins with the demolition of the old gallery/classroom in the third floor of the building’s core 7. Hayes Hall at night

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National Trust Event Casts Spotlight on B/a+pâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Long Relationship with Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grain Elevators

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Last fall, the National Trust for Historic Preservation held its annual conference in Buffalo, galvanizing local, national and even international attention around the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architectural landmarks. The Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning, closely involved in many aspects of the conference, took the opportunity to direct the spotlight on some of its most beloved Buffalo buildings â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the grain elevators along the Buffalo River.

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Story by Rachel Teaman

On October 21, 2011, B/a+p welcomed conference-goers, alumni and friends to a close encounter with the colossal concrete silos, once the lynchpin of Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s booming grain transshipment industry. The event featured three elevators â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Marine A, Perot and American â&#x20AC;&#x201C; generously opened by their owner, Rick Smith of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Silo Cityâ&#x20AC;? and Rigidized Metals. Hundreds showed up to the sold-out event, eager to experience the height, mass and gritty beauty of these typically off-limits structures. They were treated to a complete sensory experience, with tours of their cavernous interiors, presentations on their history and construction, reverberating musical and vocal performances, photographic exhibits and plays of light on malting kilns and grain bins. Yet these urban explorers are hardly the first to be enchanted by Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grain elevators. Jutting in massive scale along the shorelines of the Buffalo River and Lake Erie, the elevators

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

passion preservation

for

Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Romano leads a guided tour of the grain elevators at an event sponsored by the school in conjunction with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference in Buffalo last fall.

have captivated observers since their invention and initial construction here in the mid-19th century. Their monolithic form and sheer size have provoked comparisons to “cathedrals” and “monuments.”

history, used their spaces as a setting and subject of design, celebrated their significance, and creatively considered how to reuse them so that they might endure in the architectural, historical and cultural fabric of the region.

The grain elevators are internationally noted as a precedent for modernist architecture. Their simplistic form and unadorned functionality were cited in the early 20th century treatises of European modernists such as Gropius, LeCorbusier and Mendelsohn.

Peter Reyner Banham, the English architectural historian and critic who taught at B/a+p in the late 1970s, was so inspired by Buffalo’s industrial landscape that he wrote “A Concrete Atlantis,” a pivotal text documenting the modernist influence of American factories and grain elevators. Since then, a generation of faculty, students and alumni have been similarly moved, their insights and imaginings captured in an impressive collection of writings, design work, artistic creations, policy actions and public service. Presently, the school is working closely with Rick Smith, a Buffalo businessman who bought the three elevators comprising Silo City, to explore a permanent architectural studio presence there and support the development of the grain elevator district as a cultural destination.

As the conduit for the region’s prosperity as a hub for grain storage, processing and transfer – and a place where Buffalo’s working class toiled for the better part of a century – they are a tangible connection to the region’s rich industrial heritage. During the first half of the 20th century, Buffalo had 30 concrete grain elevators along its harbors, making it the largest in the nation for grain storage capacity. They also suggest Buffalo’s tradition of innovation, with the elevator and “marine leg” for scooping grain from the hulls of lake freighters invented here by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar in 1842. Other innovations include the 1906 American elevator, Buffalo’s first concrete elevator and among the first in the nation to use the continuous concrete pour in slip form. And the quarter-mile long Concrete Central elevator was the largest in the world when it was built in 1918. Perhaps no one has been as influenced and inspired by these structures as the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning. For nearly 30 years, the school has documented their

What is it about these spaces that so move the people of B/a+p? Why do they matter to the future of our region? The following pages take a look back over the past three decades of grain-elevator-inspired work at B/a+p. Here we celebrate and chronicle the grain elevators as places that “matter” to the people of B/a+p, to the degree they have furthered the study and pedagogy of architecture and urban design while generating some of the school’s most important contributions to place-making and preservation in Buffalo.

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Since Peter Reyner Banhamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Concrete Atlantisâ&#x20AC;? in 1986, B/a+p faculty, alumni, students and community partners have been celebrating and reimagining the grain elevators. Today, their contributions include landmark designations, publications, tours, studios and ongoing efforts to creatively adapt and reuse these spaces.

CONT EDUCINU AT CRED IO ITS Se e pa 58â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6 ges 0

The Grain Elevator Project

Peter Reyner Banham Professor, Department of Architecture (1976-80) Publishes â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Building and European Modern Architecture,â&#x20AC;? documenting the history of the elevators and their importance to European Modernism. Banham describes the grain elevators as having â&#x20AC;&#x153;an almost Egyptian monumentality.â&#x20AC;?

Sponsored by The Urban Design Project and Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier to bring the elevators back into the public consciousness to be understood, celebrated and reused.

Patricia Layman Bazelon Adjunct Faculty, Department of Architecture (late 1980s) and former chief photographer for the Brooklyn Museum Photographs elevators for â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Concrete Atlantis.â&#x20AC;? Her photographs of the elevators and Bethlehem Steel are now in many collections in Buffalo and across the nation.

National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference, A Special Tour and Reception at the Buffalo Grain Elevators preservationnation.org/resources/training/ npc/2011-buffalo/archive.html Hosted by the school and UB in partnership with Rick Smith, event offers conference participants and UB alumni and friends a rare look inside the silos, with guided tours, presentations on their construction and history, photographic exhibits and grain â&#x20AC;&#x153;elevator music.â&#x20AC;?

Hosts series of community conversations, including International Symposium in 2002. Secures National Register landmark designation for Concrete Central and Wollenberg elevators, as well as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Multiple Listingâ&#x20AC;? designation for the elevator district, facilitating individual registrations going forward. Publishes â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis,â&#x20AC;? a collection of essays and writings on the history and potential uses of the grain elevators.

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Lynda Schneekloth Professor Emerita, Department of Architecture and The Urban Design Project The schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading advocate for the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Grand Ladies of the Lake,â&#x20AC;? Schneekloth directed the Grain Elevator Project, edited â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis,â&#x20AC;? led numerous studios, including one to design a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buffalo Grain Elevator Heritage Trail,â&#x20AC;? and organized the National Trust event.

Beth Tauke Kerry Traynor Omar Khan

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spatial possibilities from re-inhabiting Connecting Terminal and are featured in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis.â&#x20AC;? Thomas Yots MArch â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;02 Co-directed Grain Elevator Project while head of Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier, did masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis on preservation of Wollenberg elevator, contributed to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis.â&#x20AC;? Today, he heads Preservation Studios, a consultancy in preservation and adaptive reuse, and is executive director of Preservation Buffalo Niagara.

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Christopher Romano

Hadas Steiner wrote an essay, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Silo Dreams: The Grain Elevator and Modern Architecture,â&#x20AC;? in â&#x20AC;&#x153;Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis.â&#x20AC;?

Grain Elevator Event, Omar Khan, Christopher Romanoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Douglas Levere, Design Studies BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;89 | ÂŠ 2011 University at Buffalo; Lynda Schneekloth, Kerry Traynorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; ÂŠ 2011 Bruce Jackson; Hadas Steinerâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; ÂŠ 2011 Nancy J. Parisi

Peter Reyner Banham publishes â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Concrete Atlantisâ&#x20AC;?

Rick Smith Owner of Silo City and Rigidized Metals Since purchasing several elevators in 2006, this Buffalo businessman has dedicated himself to their creative reuse. A musician and patron of the arts, he views the elevator district as Buffalo’s “second skyline” and has opened Silo City (Perot, American and Marine A elevators) to the community for art exhibits, musical performances, light displays and architectural studios, in addition to the National Trust event.

Grain Elevator Tour, top and below—Scott Schild; Jim Watkins, Grain Elevator Interior, Dean Shibley—Douglas Levere, Design Studies BA ‘89 | © 2011 University at Buffalo; Music in the Grain Elevator—Lynda Schneekloth; Seth Amman—Seth Amman, MArch ‘06, Architecture BS ‘04

“Swannie” Jim Watkins Silo City resident Curator and expert in residence, leads tours for the event.

Dean Robert Shibley Led school’s effort to open the elevators to attendees of the National Trust conference in October 2011. Shibley also used the event to introduce a preservation agenda for the school, including a new continuing education program, degree specializations in preservation and The Urban Design Project’s current efforts to draft a preservation plan for the City of Buffalo. As founder and director of The Urban Design Project, Shibley also played a major role in the Grain Elevator Project and contributed to its culminating publication, “Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis.”

“In collaboration with Rick Smith, owner of these elevators, we at UB thought it an excellent opportunity to display some of our historic industrial landscape.”

Buffalo’s grain elevators were the site of a reception hosted by the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning.

B/a+p Student Volunteers Students across both departments conducted research on the Marine A, Perot and American elevators, helped plan the event and assisted with guided tours: Dimah Ajeeb, Greg Andriano, Ozlem Atalay, Stacy Brisbane, Geoffrey Butler, Patrick Connolly, Andrew Connorton, Natalie Cook, Darren Cotton, Courtney Creenan, Todd Graci, Xiyu Huang, Michael Lempert, Anika Lindquist, Zhaoyu Luo, Lauren Massari, Kyle Mastalinski, Julian Merchant, Michael Moch, Richard Mrugala, Daniel Nead, Kevin Pereira, Niranjan Prabhu, Sampada Pulekar, Matthew Ryberg, Michael Sakalauskas, Seungjin Shin, Prashant Verma, Sarah Weishaupt, Cheng Yan, Meng Yu

Event Sponsors Rick Smith, Cannon Design, Kideney Architects, Foit-Albert Associates, Lauer-Manguso & Associates Architects, Flying Bison Brewing Company, UB Parking and Transportation Services

Seth Amman MArch ‘06, Architecture BS ‘04 His “Cargill Grain Animator,” released in fall 2011, presents a stop-frame interpretation of the Cargill Superior elevator. Through the video, Amman hopes to “reintegrate them into our lives more constructively.” Amman also attended the National Trust event.

vimeo.com/21324950

Other departments at UB The event featured an interdisciplinary cast. UB Music Department’s contemporary CUBE Music Ensemble and its experimental Babel vocal ensemble performed John Cage’s Four6, revealing the potential of the 125-foot elevators as concert venues. Michael Frisch, UB professor of history and American studies (who also contributed to “Reconsidering Concrete Atlantis”) gave tours and presentations. Photographs of the grain elevators by Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture in the Department of English, were also on display. The Department of Visual Arts designed colorful light exhibits of the elevators’ machinery and cavernous spaces.

Studio reviews took place in office buildings next to the grain elevators last fall.

The two finalist teams of the Hive City design competition HIVE CITY Team 3/TOWER: Courtney Creenan, MArch/MUP ’12, Environmental Design BA ‘08; Lisa Stern, MArch ‘12; Kyle Mastalinski, MArch/MUP ’12, Environmental Design BA ’08; Daniel Nead, MArch/MUP ‘12; Scott Selin, MArch ‘13

HIVE CITY Team 10/ARCH: Andrew Delle Bovi, Juan Andres DeRisio, Nate Heckman, Vincent Ribeiro, Sergio Taveras (all in Architecture BS program, class of ‘13)

Studios inside elevators explore possibilities in inclusive design

Silo City and Rigidized Metals sponsor “Hive City” design competition

Exploring a permanent studio presence

Kerry Traynor Adjunct Assistant Professor Department of Urban and Regional Planning Through studios and countless hours of pro bono work in her preservation consulting business, submits several successful National Register nominations for grain elevators, including in 2011 the Buffalo Industrial Transshipment Preservation District nomination, coauthored by planning students Geoffrey Butler and Michael Zimmerman. Traynor is now working on a nomination for the Marine A, American and Perot elevators.

Beth Tauke Associate Professor Department of Architecture Stages two studios in inclusive design in Marine A elevator, imagined first as a first-response disaster site and then as an arts and cultural events venue.

Rick Smith Owner of Silo City

Jean LaMarche Associate Professor Department of Architecture Leads material culture studio on vertical/horizontal constructions in Silo City, with 4-5 installations to be open to public viewing during spring 2012.

Michael Zimmerman MUP ‘11, Environmental Design BA ‘08 Geoffrey Butler MUP ‘12

Patrick Connolly MArch ‘12, Architecture BS ‘10 Todd Graci MArch ‘12, Architecture BS ‘10 Out of a shipping container, they build an eco-friendly public bathroom for potential grain elevator event attendees. Courtney Creenan MArch/MUP ‘12, Environmental Design BA ‘08 Designs digital art gallery for Marine A and documents entire studio in Archinect blog.

Joyce Hwang Assistant Professor Department of Architecture with Adjunct Assistant Professor Martha Bohm, Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Romano and Assistant Professor Laura Garofalo Rick Smith is sponsoring and several B/a+p architecture faculty are organizing "Hive City,” a design competition to create a new home for a massive hive found in the Silo City office building. Student teams participated in a design charette and consulted with a beekeeper, structural engineer and faculty to hone their proposals. The winning design will be constructed at Silo City this summer.

Department of Architecture to fund material culture studio for next three years, with possibility of a permanent academic presence in the grain elevator district.

Parasite by Connolly and Graci

Inspiring future architects Paul Dudkowski MArch ‘09, Architecture BS ‘07 As part of the Buffalo Architecture Foundation’s Architecture + Education program, works with fourth grade class in Buffalo to design and build a model of Connecting Terminal as a family entertainment venue.

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

The beehive found in the Silo City office building that inspired the “Hive City” competition

National Register District nomination submission

They remind us of where we have been. They should inspire us to keep pushing technological and design envelopes as we keep moving forward as a region.

They will be the genesis of new economies in heritage tourism, arts and culture, and innovative fabrication. Besides, they are beautiful structures, as powerfully elegant as the cathedrals and pyramids of other places and eras. - Lynda Schneekloth

- Courtney Creenan

The grain elevators embody what it is to “be” in Buffalo – they are our fountainhead, our history...our “Roman Forum,” our “Colosseum,” the iconography, age and period in history too close to be fully appreciated...yet. - Kerry Traynor The elevators and surrounding landscape represent a collective resource for Buffalo. How we choose to manage that resource will define the path we set Buffalo on for generations to come. - Michael Zimmerman

I see this as Buffalo’s 2nd skyline. - Rick Smith

Much like our culturally bestowed monuments, the grain elevators are a physical recording of Buffalo’s history ...you just have to get inside to understand [feel] their defiant impressiveness. - Seth Amman

Grain elevators represent an industry that transformed Western New York from a sleepy frontier outpost to a bustling metropolitan area. They are a critical component of Buffalo’s unique image as the Queen City of the Great Lakes. - Geoffrey Butler

The grain elevators are unique buildings designed for specific function. The resulting structures rose as monolithic monuments admired by architects worldwide, offering a multitude of spatial experiences found nowhere else. - Todd Graci

Buffalo’s unique collection of grain elevators reminds us of a flourishing industrial era, and strengthens the region’s identity as an icon rich in both architectural and industrial heritage.

Imagine experimenting with materials in a space 125’ tall and 35’ in diameter! Imagine hosting a summer symposium on innovative practices in the open space under the silos. Imagine listening to alternative music in the echoing concrete chambers! The list goes on and on. The grain elevators could form the heart of an exciting new cultural district in Buffalo that would attract not only our local communities, but national and international visitors as well. - Beth Tauke

- Paul Dudkowski We would like to acknowledge the faculty, students and alumni who contributed their stories and perspectives to this article.

editorial by Robert G. Shibley, Dean and Professor

Buffalo is Still the Best Planned City in America Buffalo owes much of its history as a city with exceptional architecture, great city planning and industrial innovation to its very location at the western end of Lake Erie above Niagara Falls. But that advantage didn’t ensure a great city in perpetuity. It needs more. Some have argued that our greatest inspirational asset has always been the waterfronts of the Buffalo River, Lake Erie and the Niagara River. Others argue for the formative nature of the 1804 radial street plan defined by Joseph Ellicott of the Holland Land Company. Still others believe our coherence and beauty grew from the genius of our Olmsted park and parkway system. I suggest that Buffalo’s character is directly attributable to the fundamental relationships among our waters, our radial and grid plan and our park system, the combination resulting in what Olmsted called “the best planned city in America.”

Certainly we have challenged the basic ideas of city-making in Buffalo through less thoughtful periods in our history. The magnificent industry that brought great wealth and significant architecture to the city took over the waterfront, followed by planning decisions that separated the city from its water with freeways. The vistas and access radials were broken in service of an urban mall, hotel atrium and a convention center. And some of our parkways and parkland have been lost to neglect or a failure to achieve their full potential. But we seem back on track now with an aggressive return to a respect for the planning ideas and power of good urban infrastructure, parks and access to the water. Buffalo has a very good armature and is building on its greatness. Downtown Buffalo sunset from the roof of Buffalo General Hospital.

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Witness the new investments in our parks, new restorations of the architecture on our radials, revitalized commercial areas in our neighborhoods and residential units in our warehouses and in our Class C and B office buildings. We also have the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin house

Map—From "Queen City in the 21st Century: Buffalo’s Comprehensive Plan," prepared for the City of Buffalo by The Urban Design Project Downtown Buffalo at Sunset—Douglas Levere, Design Studies BA ‘89 | © 2012 University at Buffalo

The City of Buffalo is built on the structure of the Olmsted parks, Ellicott’s radial street plan and its location on the water.

Buffalo is one of three radial plan cities in the U.S. Modeled after L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C., Ellicott used the radials to reconcile settlement patterns coming up from the waterfronts, with streets from all directions ending at Niagara Square. Olmsted identified great parks and then used parkways to intersect both the grid and radial streets. These moves still serve the city well, making it coherent and filled with dynamic views as well as variable parcel geometries that invite strong architectural responses. Our legible and walkable city links neighborhood to neighborhood through the parks and parkway, neighborhoods to downtown through the radials, and neighborhoods to the water through the grid.

complex, Louis Sullivanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guaranty building and the Saarinen brothersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Kleinhanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Music Hall, and progress on H.H. Richardsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Frederick Law Olmstedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landmark Buffalo Psychiatric Center. We have a newly minted Larkin District, as well, that is still building on the seminal history of that period of business innovation in the city. And while we continue to be challenged with serious unemployment and poverty, we are building a new scaffold for our economic development. An award-winning regional economic development plan, created by the WNY Regional Economic Development Council with the support of the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s UB Regional Institute and The Urban Design Project, puts a premium on smart growth and investment in the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s downtowns, neighborhoods and brownfields. Consider also the UB 2020 plan. It recognizes the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in generating wealth for the region through infrastructure, building and, more importantly, program improvements on the North and South Campus. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reinforcing downtown with over $1 billion in planned, ongoing or recently completed capital construction projects on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, including a new UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the largest new building project in the City of Buffalo in decades. This rebuilding is occurring within the context of a collaborative planning framework developed over the last few decades through three mayors. This series of plans developed by UB has organized a competition to The Urban Design select the best talent possible for Project has received the design and construction of its significant awards, new UB School of Medicine and including top honors Biomedical Sciences downtown. from The Congress As campus architect, Shibley is of New Urbanism and directing the competition. Five the national, state short-listed design firms will now and local American vye for the chance to design a Planning Association world-class building for the new recognition programs. medical school. Read the full story The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Queen City at UB Reporter: Hubâ&#x20AC;? (2003) envisions buffalo.edu/ubreporter/2012_02_23/ downtown as a med_design_contest place where citizens of the city and the surrounding region choose to live, work and play. It calls for a strong urban core as a regional center for culture and entertainment, heritage, education, health care and life sciences research, commerce and residences. Downtown is the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s center for government, finance, banking and legal services. Since its adoption, billions of public and private sector dollars have

supported the proposition that downtown is the backbone of the regional economy. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Queen City Waterfrontâ&#x20AC;? (2007) recognizes the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tie to the waterfront and how to redefine our relationship to it by making it accessible, ecologically sound and in service of water-dependent uses. The transformation has already begun with over 50% of the proposed projects completed or in process, and millions of dollars spent in $ JURXS RI YLVLRQDU\ cleaning up the legacy HQWUHSUHQHXULDO GHYHORSHUV contamination. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Olmsted Plan,â&#x20AC;? completed in 2008, offers a blueprint for the future of this unique â&#x20AC;&#x153;cultural landscape.â&#x20AC;? The Olmsted Parks Conservancy, charged with the management and operations of these parks since 2004, is restoring the system, enhancing the parks and parkways in ways that respect their status as important neighborhood, regional, national and international resources.

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All these plans cohere to â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Queen City of the 21st Century: Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Comprehensive Plan.â&#x20AC;? Formally adopted in 2006, the plan envisions the Queen City of the Great Lakes as a stable urban center possessing the conditions that favor smart growth while building on its historic foundation. The planning is guided by the fundamental principles that connect the environment, our economy and our community equitably and accountably.

All of this planning and action will do for the Buffalo today what we saw it do in its history. It inspires us to be more creative citizens, to insist on beauty and to reposition ourselves in the regional, national and international economies. The plans also call on us to address contemporary challenges to live sustainably and well on a fragile planet.

studios

Reconfigurable Model, Yellowstone, by Kristin Deiure, MArch ‘12, Architecture BS ’10

PUBLIC · private

Assistant Professor Laura Garofalo

Associate Professor Beth Tauke

Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group

Inclusive Design Graduate Research Group

ARC607- Fall 2011

ARC605 – Fall 2011

This studio explored concepts, systems and tectonics of “lightness” through a site-specific prefab architecture for an ecologically sensitive site in Yellowstone National Park and the Everglades National Park. Students were asked to develop proposals that considered the total process of construction: from its off-site manufacturing, to transporting the structure to the site, to its final erection in the park. The design problems raised by the studio addressed the preservation and regeneration of the natural environment while also providing for human inhabitation. These diverse biomes require distinct spatial and material responses that consider the function of ecosystems and their indigenous organism while also addressing the burdens of architecture as they relate to shelter, comfort, energy and waste. The architectural design could not rely on traditional infrastructures and had to develop a typology of an active building that could develop a symbiotic relationship with its environment.

Although public toilets are critical components of urban environments, more often than not they are marginal spaces used only as a last resort. Public lavatories, which juxtapose private bodily functions with streetscapes, challenge architects to consider criteria that are often overlooked in the design process: sensory experience, equity, identity, socio/ cultural appropriateness, psychological/behavioral issues, gender and age issues, timing, flexibility, safety, security, cleanliness, convenience and comfort. The goal of the studio was to experiment with new notions about this typeform and, in so doing, to change attitudes about public facilities that resonate with the broader population. The Buffalo grain elevators, considered as a new public space, was the site for the two projects.

Contributed by Assistant Professor Laura Garofalo

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Given that the grain elevators are among the strongest structures in Buffalo, the introductory project for the Inclusive Design Graduate Research Group was to design and build portable toilets for the Marine A elevator as a first-response disaster site.

Read about it on the Archinect blog: http://archinect.com/blog/ article/38895877/publicprivate-ub-inclusive-designresearch-group

In the second project, students regarded the same elevator as a cultural/arts event space, and designed permanent toilets for a widely diverse crowd of 1,000. The proposals were presented to Rick Smith, president of Rigidized Metals and owner of the Marine A elevator. Smith subsidized the full-scale construction of one of the proposals by providing sheet metal for the bathroom interiors. Contributed by Associate Professor Beth Tauke

Morphologies of Lightness—Kristin Deiure, MArch '12, Architecture BS ’10; Public Private—Robert Garlow, MArch ’12, Environmental Design BA ‘08

Morphologies of Lightness

The studio’s research developed out of an exploration of each site’s distinct organizational factors and ecosystem processes. Historically, it is a combination of research and management practices at Natural Heritage Sites that has led us to understand the interdependence of ecosystem relationships. We recognize that no ecology stands alone, and that systems, from woodland to urban, are all linked through varied physical and temporal scales. This first studio in the Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group proposes architecture’s role as a productive component of its biome through passive and active engagement with the environment by developing an attitude to building on heritage sites that can be transferred to other less apparently “delicate” contexts.

Studio Review for PUBLIC · private was held inside the Marine A grain elevator.

Taxonomy of the Post-Industrial House Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Romano Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group

Building skin detail study: Microclimate-Urbanization Research Center for SUNY Korea Songdo

ARC607 – Fall 2011 Buffalo is one of many U.S. cities that has experienced an extreme decline in population since the mid-20th century. Migration out of the city has been crippling, the population declining by nearly 50 percent from 1950 to 2000. Buffalo faces the challenge of an outdated infrastructure that is much too large for its 21st century needs. Mass exodus has left the city ravaged with vacant and abandoned properties that contribute to the cyclical decay on the city.

Building skin detail study—John Geisler, MArch ‘12

This Ecological Practices Graduate Research Group studio explored the possibility to reconceptualize, reuse or repurpose the estimated 12,000 vacant houses in Buffalo. The site of our investigations was 14th Street between Massachusetts Avenue and Rhode Island Street on the west side of the city. Design projects sought to develop regenerative housing solutions that were not purely based on economics but posed questions and critiques about issues of domesticity, density, demolition and material use. As a case study, the studio visited Rust Belt cities facing similar issues, namely Detroit, Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio. While exploring these cities we had the opportunity to meet with architects, planners, artists, academics and community organizers who are proactively researching, questioning and implementing projects that critically engage and challenge typical responses to shrinking cities. At the end of the semester, the work of the studio was presented to community organizers and architects who are working parallel to the issue of housing abandonment in the city. As a conclusion to the investigation, the work will be presented at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center this spring as part of the Sustainable Series Talks, sponsored by the Western New York Sustainable Energy Association. Contributed by Clinical Assistant Professor Christopher Romano

Surface Tension Assistant Professor Jordan Geiger Situated Technologies Graduate Research Group ARC 605 – Fall 2011 This graduate research studio studies various forms of surface tension to develop scenarios for their architectural application in the near future. Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that causes it to behave as an elastic sheet. It allows insects, such as the water strider, to walk on water. Our use of the phrase builds relations between architectural skins and the organization of space and circulation with structure and interaction. The Surface Tension studio proposes models of new sensate, responsive and sentient architectures based on existing and future interiorand exterior-skin systems with increasingly embedded intelligence. What sort of physical and structural properties might these hold? This studio introduces “Sudden City,” a new theme for this year’s work in the Situated Technologies Graduate Research Group that focuses on Songdo, a new city in South Korea that has been planned – conceived with a complex set of environmental, social and technical considerations – built and inhabited during the past few years. Songdo is intended as a full city to serve as a hub of business travel between nearby Seoul and other urban nodes of business and technology in Asia: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. This summer, the State University of New York announced plans to create a new satellite branch in Songdo: SUNY Korea. Contributed by Assistant Professor Jordan Geiger

Old First Ward Conservation District $ J D L Q V W W K H * U D L Q $ 1 H Z ' L U H F W L R Q I R U W K H 2 O G ) L U V W :D U G 6 8 1 < 8 Q L Y H U V L W \ D W % X I I D O R 6 F K R R O R I $ U F K L W H F W X U H D Q G 3 O D Q Q L Q J ' H F H P E H U

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Design process, students: Wesley Lam, MArch '13 (pictured) and Paikwin Leung, MArch '12

Generous Architecture: Continual House

Against the Grain

Assistant Professor Georgios Rafailidis

Adjunct Assistant Professor Kerry Traynor

Material Culture Graduate Research Group

PD581 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Fall 2011

ARC605/7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Fall 2011

As part of the fall 2011 Preservation Planning Studio, a group of 11 MUP students developed a conservation district plan for Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Old First Ward, a historic neighborhood located along the Buffalo River, next to the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industrial sector. A transitioning neighborhood, the Old First Ward has significant development potential due to its proximity to downtown Buffalo and its sizeable swaths of undeveloped waterfront property. Indeed, developers have already begun to buy up parcels in and around the Old First Ward.

If we look closely at our built environment, we discover that its form is a conglomerate that has evolved over time, triggered by unforeseeable events and produced by various authors. These formal evolutions are processes where buildings are fine-tuned in response to ever-changing cultural and economic realities. Our contemporary building culture, however, and the fee structure that we use for architectural services, both understand buildings as finished objects, designed and built at once. The dream of building oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own house is therefore tied to the heavy burden of interest rates which are spread over decades. In contrast, Steward Brand, in his book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;How Buildings Learn,â&#x20AC;? suggests an alternative approach, aligned with our thesis above:

In combination with the uniquely low costs for vacant lots in Buffalo, an alternative possibility for an affordable, continuously built architecture arises. This approach would radically transform the role of the architect, whose scope of engagement would extend far beyond the typical service stages. With a continually built house, the architect would become a strategist who, rather than specifying materials and designing fixed forms, would develop specific material cultures and organize processes of formal growth.

Contributed by Assistant Professor Georgios Rafailidis Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

In developing the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Old First Ward Conservation District,â&#x20AC;? this studio sought to use the neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing historic character to guide, but not impede, new development. Specifically, the plan includes a set of design guidelines to support infill development in the Old First Ward that is sensitive to the neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rich history, its connection to the waterfront and Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industrial heritage, and its unique sense of place. The link between water and this neighborhood is inextricable. At the height of Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transshipment industry, most residents either worked in the grain elevators, which remain part of their landscape, or on the docks. Throughout the semester, students examined the nature of buildings, distinctive streetscapes, the dynamic people who live there and, essentially, what makes up the fabric of the community. They then developed an array of planning tools and guidelines that maintain existing physical characteristics of the Old First Ward, from setbacks to roof pitches. These guidelines are intended to aid developers and residents in building their visions in accordance with what already exists in the fabric of the Old First Ward. The district plan also arms the community with a tool that can be used to preserve the historical significance of the Old First Ward in a nonobstructionist manner by promoting future development. Students presented the final plan at the Old First Ward Community Center in December. Contributed by Adjunct Assistant Professor Kerry Traynor

Generous Architecture: Continual Houseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Wesley Lam, MArch '13 and Paikwin Leung, MArch '12

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sixty percent of the final cost of a mortgaged building disappears as interest to the bank instead of going into the building. What if the usual down payment money were spent instead to complete a small core building or a large rudimentary building? Then the usual interest money, instead of going away to the bank, would go into prolonged, attentive growth and improvement of the original building.â&#x20AC;?

MUP students presented the conservation district plan they developed with Adjunct Assistant Professor Kerry Traynor to Old First Ward residents last December.

Richardson Model Close-Up—Douglas Levere, Design Studies BA ‘89 | © 2011 University at Buffalo; Lindsay Romano, MArch '05, Architecture BS '03, and Richard Stora, MArch '13, Architecture BS '10—Brenda Stynes

school news

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Launches New Historic Preservation Continuing Education Program Sustainability & Preservation, Buffalo - HP01 Sustainability & Preservation: Rethinking Historic Buildings Through a Green Lens April 27-28, 2012

This two-day workshop offers a unique opportunity to learn from national experts steeped in the knowledge of sustainability and preservation. It will be held in Buffalo, a place known for its great architecture and flourishing preservation efforts. Our renowned speakers will share their experience and work developing national sustainability policies, integrating cultural and preservation metrics into the LEED rating systems, and discussing past and current sustainable preservation projects. The workshop will be held in historic Crosby Hall, a building soon to be rehabilitated to LEED Gold standards. Sustainability & Preservation, NYC - HP02 Sustainability & Preservation: From House Museums to the Empire State Building – Greening What’s Already Here with LEED EB:O&M June 11, 2012

This one-day workshop offers a special opportunity to spend a day in the most famous building in the world – the Empire State Building – to learn from leading experts how to integrate LEED and sustainability approaches into the operations and maintenance of historic buildings. Join us in June for a private day on the 61st floor of the Empire State Building – network and earn continuing education credits with a 360-degree view of New York City. COURSE CREDITS

Up to 14 continuing education credits will be offered. Visit us online for details.

ap.buffalo.edu/continuingeducation Questions? Email us at ap-continuingeducation@buffalo.edu, or call 716-829-3485.

Lindsay Romano (right), manager of B/a+p's Digital Workshop, and architecture student Richard Stora worked tirelessly over two weeks to create a mahogany model of the H.H. Richardson Towers.

Historic H.H. Richardson Towers Emerge in Miniature Form through Digital Fabrication This past fall, the school was abuzz about a particularly unique project unfolding in the basement of Crosby Hall, as Digital Workshop staff created a mahogany model of the iconic twin towers of Buffalo’s historic Richardson Olmsted Complex. The model was developed for the Richardson Center Corporation as a special display for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference held in Buffalo last October. Lindsay Romano (MArch ‘05, Architecture BS ‘03), Digital Workshop manager, and student Richard Stora (MArch ‘13, Architecture BS ‘10) created the miniature version of the 19th century landmark using the school’s AXYZ CNC router, a computer numerically controlled, three-dimensional cutting tool for model-making and fabrication. The Materials and Richardson model comes to Methods Shop was also engaged in life in miniature form. the project. Romano says the project was labor intensive but extremely rewarding. “Once we got started, we were eager to see the building emerge.” Stora, who has experience using these tools from a previous job as a machinist, says it took at least eight passes through the router for each building face, and over 120 hours of milling, to complete the model. Large drill bits cleared out big chunks of wood, while details such as window mullions and cornices required bits as small as 1/16th inch. The model is on display in the dean’s office.

research spotlight Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Little Lab with a Big Plan Story by Shannon Phillips Assistant Dean for Graduate Education Samina Raja, associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, directs the Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab at B/a+p. The Food Lab, as it is colloquially known, is the only research laboratory in the country dedicated to food systems planning.

Neighborhood youth conduct an on-the-ground assessment as part of the Food Labâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work with the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities-Buffalo partnership.

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Buffalo Food Policy Summit, Sept. 2011 The summit included a public forum featuring three of the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading experts on food policy; tours of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s community gardens, urban farms, rural farms; and a research roundtable.

The Food Lab seeks to train planners to allow them to bring knowledge of food systems to their practice. Raja offers training to planners and policy makers nationally: she will be speaking at the American Planning Association conference in Los Angeles in April and conducting a two-day workshop in Charlotte, N.C., in November 2012.

Collaboration as a Means to Effect Change Changing policy structures to improve health requires collaboration with partners who share the ultimate goal of healthier communities. The Food Lab collaborates with a number of local and national partners, including the Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities-Buffalo partnership, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Food Labâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role is to provide research and assessment support, including documenting food disparities in Buffalo, examining access to healthy food, writing policy briefs, and making them publicly available so community partners can use this information to advocate for policy change. The Food Lab first partnered with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) in 2003 when Rajaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s graduate studio

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Samina Rajaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Douglas Levere, Design Studies BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;89 | ÂŠ 2011 University at Buffalo; Growing Green Youthâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ÂŠ 2011 Massachusetts Avenue Project; Food Policy Summitâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ÂŠ 2011 University at Buffalo

Associate Professor Samina Raja leads the way in research as head of the food systems planning lab, the only one of its kind in the nation.

Along with Raja, the Food Lab team includes Himanshu Grover, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, research associate Kailee Neuner (MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2122;10), and student collaborators Cristina Delgado (MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13), Jessica Hall (MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13), Subhashni Raj (MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13), Patrick Gooch (MUP/JD â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;14), Solhyon Baek, a PhD candidate in the UB Department of Geography, and Eliza Feero, a local high school student. Together they examine the role of planning and design in peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s access to food and in their ability to live a healthy lifestyle. The Food Lab seeks to influence professional practice in urban planning by translating scholarly research into sources, tools and information and working in partnership with practicing planners nationally. Raja will speak at the APA Raja explains â&#x20AC;&#x153;food Conference in Los Angeles in systems planning is April and conduct a two-day an emerging field and workshop in Charlotte, N.C., there is a shortage of in November 2012. trained planners with the knowledge and expertise to engage meaningfully in food systems planning.â&#x20AC;?

in planning drafted a food systems assessment for the nonprofit group. Since then, the Food Lab has been tracking the impact of urban agriculture on children’s health and their awareness of the food system and their environment. With nearly 10 years of data collected, the Food Lab is now assessing whether MAP’s urban agriculture initiative has had a long-term impact on participating youth’s behavior related to food. Another of the Food Lab’s partnerships engages Raja and colleagues from the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (Leonard Epstein, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Social and Preventive Medicine; and James Roemmich, now with the U.S. Department of Agriculture), in examining the collective impact of food and the built environment on obesity. The Food Lab undertakes the GIS analysis of the built environment, while the health colleagues analyze health outcomes.

Along with Raja (far right), the Food Lab team includes (left to right) Himanshu Grover, assistant professor of urban and regional planning, student collaborators Patrick Gooch, Subhashni Raj, Cristina Delgado, Jessica Hall, Solhyon Baek and Eliza Feero, and research associate Kailee Neuner.

Published Books

food systems planning & healthy communities lab university at buffalo

Food Lab Group photo— Alexander Wasilewski, MUP ‘13

Food systems planning and the MUP curriculum at the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning

In addition to directing the Food Lab and conducting research related to food systems, Raja infuses food systems planning into the MUP curriculum by teaching innovative studios and seminars that examine food systems and the built environment. Raja’s MUP food systems studios are among the most unique in the country; the first food systems studio she taught won the 2003 AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners) award for best studio. More recently, the fall 2011 studio performed a food system assessment to inform the Erie County Farmland Preservation Plan. What’s Next Raja and the Food Lab are working with the American Farmland Trust, the American Planning Association, Ohio State University and Cultivating Healthy Places to build a national coalition and solicit funding to deliver the tools of food system planning to the bottom 5th percentile of areas least served by the food system in the United States.

“Fair and Affordable Housing in the U.S.: Trends, Outcomes, Future Directions,” by Robert Mark Silverman, examines such issues as affordable housing finance and equity in land use. “Olmsted in Buffalo Niagara,” by Lynda Schneekloth, Robert G. Shibley and Thomas Yots (MArch ‘02), presents the history of and serves as a guidebook for Frederick Law Olmsted’s visionary park and parkway system for WNY. Brian Carter reveals Minoru Yamasaki’s design of One M&T Plaza in “M&T Bank,” released last fall as part of the school’s buffaloBOOKS series. “A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City,” by Despina Stratigakos, explores women’s architectural and cultural influence on modern Berlin during the early 20th century.

from our centers

Founded in 1987 by Professor Henry Louis Taylor, the Center for Urban Studies conducts action-based research on community and economic development, focusing on the needs and issues of traditionally marginalized groups.

Center for Architecture and Situated Technology cast.ap.buffalo.edu/site/

Center for Urban Studies

Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series

situatedtechnologies.net/?q=node/75

Center for Architecture and Situated Technology (CAST) directors Omar Khan and Mark Shepard will host a symposium on April 28, 2012, at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City to celebrate the publication of the 9th issue of the Situated Technologies Pamphlet Series. The symposium is a collaboration between the Architectural League of New York and the editors of the series: Omar Khan, associate professor and chair of the Department of Architecture, Mark Shepard, assistant professor of architecture, and Trebor Scholz of The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City. The event will address issues of privacy and publicity as it pertains to networked socialities, data gathering and interactive environments. CAST presents at ACSA Conference in Boston Khan and Shepard, along with Jordan Geiger, assistant professor of architecture and CAST member, organized a special session focused on Situated Technologies for “Digital Aptitudes,” the 100th Annual Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Conference in Boston on March 3, 2012. Exploring New Partnerships with Local Companies who Specialize in Building Materials CAST has launched new research projects with Buffalo manufacturers Rigidized Metals and Boston Valley Terra Cotta to explore the potential of “digital craft” for facilitating communication, design development and fabrication of architectural products. 24

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

centerforurbanstudies.com/

The Center for Urban Studies has joined itself to a massive effort: a proposal by the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority to restructure, redevelop and rehabilitate downtown Buffalo’s seriously declining Commodore Perry neighborhood and turn it into the vibrant, sustainable community it once was. The effort is part of the BMHA Perry Choice Neighborhood Initiative, or BMHA-PCN, now in its assessment/strategic planning stage, funded by a $250,000 planning grant awarded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhood Initiative. The grants went to 17 proposals nationwide out of a pool of 119 applications. The strategic plan is being produced by Henry Louis Taylor, professor of urban and regional planning and director of the center. It will be submitted by the BMHA to HUD to compete for a $30 million implementation grant. “If the BMHA receives the implementation grant,” Taylor says, “the $30 million will be used to leverage $200 million or more from local businesses, foundations and other resources with which to accomplish our aims.”

contributed by Patricia Donovan Read the Full Story at UB Reporter: buffalo.edu/ubreporter/2012_01_26/perry_choice

The Situated Technologies Pamphlet series, published by the Architectural League of New York, explores the implications of ubiquitous computing for architecture and urbanism.

Dean Robert G. Shibley, who is also interim director of UBRI and the UDP, alongside HUD Regional Administrator Adolfo Carrión, Congressman Brian Higgins, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and members of the Buffalo Niagara Consortium, at the award announcement of the 2011 Sustainable Communities Grant for Buffalo Niagara.

With support from the UDP, this Buffalo Green Code public workshop held at Lafayette High School attracted an overflow crowd. ‘Patriot Home’ is one of two houses designed with features that address a variety of physical and emotional challenges a veteran might face.

UB Regional Institute & The Urban Design Project Support for WNY Regional Economic Development Council – UBRI and the UDP were proud to provide support for the WNY Regional Economic Development Council’s strategic plan submitted to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo last November, which won “Best Plan Award” and brought home $100.3 million for the WNY region. Now that same team will play a role in developing a “Buffalo Investment Plan” for Cuomo’s pledge to invest $1 billion in Buffalo. UBRI and the UDP will work with the Council, co-chaired by UB President Satish K. Tripathi and Buffalo developer Howard Zemsky, as well as the Brookings Institution, to provide research, public engagement and production support in developing the plan. UBRI & UDP Partner with Buffalo Niagara Consortium on HUD Grant – In one of the most significant steps forward for regional planning in Buffalo Niagara in decades, a $2 million HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant was awarded to Erie and Niagara Counties to develop a plan that supports affordable, economically vital and sustainable communities. Over the next three years, UBRI and the UDP will work with such regional entities as the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and the Greater Buffalo Niagara Regional Transportation Council to develop planning, communications and technical assistance tools related to housing, food systems and climate action.

IDeA Center Danise Levine (MArch, '96), assistant director Danise Levine, assistant director of of the Center for Inclusive the IDeA Center, has been part of the Design and Environmental expert team working on the Wounded Access (IDeA Center), Warrior Home Project since it began in February 2010. has completed design work with the Wounded Warrior Home Project, which finished ap.buffalo.edu/idea/ construction on two houses for wounded veterans last fall in Fort Belvoir, Va. As an architect with experience in universal and accessible design, she is part of the expert team that designed the homes for veterans and their families. Universally designed to be accessible to people of diverse abilities and ages, the houses will fit the unique physical and emotional needs of the soldiers who will move in. Both new homes – the Freedom Home and the Patriot Home – address a variety of challenges that veterans might face. Exterior lights at entry points provide enhanced security and comfort for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries and vision loss. Glass doors provide visual access to the outside. Automatic entry doors that are wider than usual provide unobstructed accessibility for someone with a limb amputation or to a person who uses a wheelchair.

Levine has been working with the Wounded Warrior Home UDP Guides Buffalo Green Code Initiative – The UDP Project since it began to take shape in February 2010. is providing research and public engagement support to the Buffalo Green Code, a major land use and zoning plan promoting environmental and contributed by Charlotte Hsu regional-institute.buffalo.edu/ economic sustainability. Read the Full Story at UB Reporter: urbandesignproject.org/

buffalo.edu/news/13028

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

The Clarksons at the 2006 UB Scholarship Galaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ÂŠ 2006 Nancy Parisi

Dedicated to the Buffalo community, the Clarksons have spent their lifetime giving back through generous support of causes such as education, church, downtown and neighborhood development, as well as the studio and performing arts.

honor roll

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When civic leaders Will and Nan Clarkson founded the Clarkson Visiting Chair program at B/a+p in 1991, their vision was to engage students, faculty, practitioners and members of the public in knowledge-sharing and scholarship on critical issues in architecture, planning and design. Since then, over 30 Clarkson Visiting Chairs from across the world have joined B/a+p as scholars-inresidence, spurring rich dialogue and debate through a week-long series of public lectures and seminars. Dedicated to the Buffalo community, the Clarksons have spent their lifetime giving back through generous support of causes as diverse as education, church, downtown and neighborhood development, as well as the studio and performing arts. Will Clarkson is former chairman and chief executive officer of Graphic Controls, for many years one of Buffaloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest public, multinational companies, known for its innovative participative management and honored by the UB School of Management. Since 1980, Will has been an adjunct professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Nan Clarkson has been active in the arts and cultural life of the city, serving in many organizations, and for some years as chair of the Buffalo Arts Commission. She is the author of several books, many articles and a play that opened the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Open Housing campaign rally at Kleinhans Music Hall in the early 1970s. The Clarksons have a particularly deep passion for Buffalo architecture. In 2011, they donated a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed art glass window to the Martin House Restoration Corporation for display in the reconstructed carriage house of the Martin House complex. The window was only one of two to survive after the original carriage house was demolished in 1962. Will Clarkson was also instrumental in the 1981 publishing of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buffalo Architecture: A Guide,â&#x20AC;? the first national publication to describe the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s architectural treasures.

The generous support of Will and Nan Clarkson has made possible over 20 years of inspiration at B/a+p. The list of Clarkson Visiting Chairs includes over 30 distinguished scholars and practitioners in architecture, planning and design from around the globe.

Inspiration over 20+ years Thomas Daniels 2011/12

Gerrit-Jan Knaap 2002/03

Antoine Picon

Lars Lerup

Philip Berke

2001/02

Alan Artibise

Teddy Cruz

2000/01

Mark Wigley

2010/11 Yve Alain Bois 2009/10

K. Michael Hayes 1999/00

Donald Shoup

Michael Storper

Michele Addington 2008/09

Andrew Isserman 1997/98

Michael Teitz

Robert Yaro

Kenneth Frampton

1996/97

Sanford Kwinter

Michael Greenberg

1995/96

Patsy Healey

John Batty

1994/95

Daniel Hoffman

Joan Ockman

1993/94

M. Christine Boyer

Lawrence Frank

1992/93

Alberto PĂŠrez-GĂłmez

Anthony Vidler

1991/92

John Forester

Peter Dreier

1990/91

Marco Frascari

2007/08

2006/07

2005/06

2004/05 Glenn Murcutt Michael Kwartler 2003/04 Peter Zumthor

2011-2012 Clarkson Visiting Chair Planning

Thomas L. Daniels

Fall 2011

7KRPDV / 'DQLHOV spent a week in Buffalo last fall as the Department of Urban and Regional Planning’s 2011-12 Clarkson Chair. Daniels is a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches and does research on land use planning, environmental planning, metropolitan growth management and land preservation. Daniels has authored numerous books, chapters, journal articles, conference papers and presentations, and professional reports on the subjects of farmland and open space preservation and planning. He is currently a member of the American Planning Association and the Land Stewardship Committee for the Lancaster County Conservancy. He is also senior contributing editor to “Farmland Preservation Report,” and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Orton Family Foundation. From 1989 to 1998, he directed the Agricultural Preserve Board of Lancaster County, administering a nationally-recognized farmland preservation easement acquisition program that preserved over 16,000 acres in 188 easement projects. The program received the 1993 Outstanding Program Award from the Small Town and Rural Planning Division of the American Planning Association and the 1996 National Achievement Award from the American Farmland Trust. He holds a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in economics from Harvard University, a Master of Science in agricultural and resource economics from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, and a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from Oregon State University. He lives in Lancaster, Pa.

Architecture

Antoine Picon

Spring 2012

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology and co-director of Doctoral Programs (PhD & DDes) at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He teaches courses in the history and theory of architecture and technology. Trained as an engineer, architect and historian, Picon works on the history of architectural and urban technologies from the 18th century to the present. His “French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment” (1988; English translation,1992) is a synthetic study of the disciplinary “deep structures” of architecture, garden design and engineering in the 18th century, and their transformations as new issues of territorial management and infrastructure-systems planning were confronted. Whereas “Claude Perrault (1613-1688) ou la Curiosité d’un classique” (1988) traces the origin of these changes at the end of the 17th century, “L’Invention de l’Ingénieur Moderne, L’Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées 1747-1851” (1992) envisages their full development from the mid18th century to the 1850s. Picon has also worked on the relations between society, technology and utopia. This is in particular the theme of “Les Saint-Simoniens: Raison, Imaginaire, et Utopie” (2002), a detailed study of the Saint-Simonian movement that played a seminal role in the emergence of industrial modernity. Picon’s most recent book, “Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Profession” (2010) offers a comprehensive overview and discussion of the changes brought by the computer to the theory and practice of architecture.

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

scholars and patrons luncheon Generous Donors Meet the Students they Support at the Annual Scholars and Patrons Luncheon by William J. McDonnell Associate Dean

Scholars and Patrons Luncheonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; ÂŠ 2011 Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning

Scholarship recipients and those who provided their scholarships mingle during the annual Scholars and Patrons Luncheon last spring.

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Your Support Makes A Difference. Join the John Eberhard Society. -RKQ (EHUKDUG WKH ÂżUVW GHDQ RI WKH VFKRRO ZDV DSSRLQWHG LQ DQG EHJDQ WR SODQ D FXUULFXOXP DQG DVVHPEOH D IDFXOW\ ZLWK FODVVHV LQ WKH VSULQJ RI We are pleased to announce that John Eberhard will return to B/a+p to present our 40th commencement address and receive the Deanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s medal for his lifetime of achievements. Join us on May 11, 2012, as we celebrate the history of the school while anticipating a future of new programs and facilities.

The annual Scholars and Patrons Luncheon is a time to recognize the generosity and support of loyal alumni, patrons, supporters and friends of the Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning. This event creates a unique opportunity for our donors to meet face to face with the students who benefit from their generosity and to hear how this support has impacted the studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience. We display and celebrate the work of students and faculty with an emphasis on how indebted we are for the support that makes this collaboration and work possible. It is also an excellent opportunity for UBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s senior leadership to see all the school has to offer and the special group of people who help make it all possible.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This scholarship will allow me to focus on my studies, which is the most important aspect of my educational endeavors. Thank you again, and I hope that I have the opportunity to meet you in person.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Elnaz Haj Abotalebi MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The scholarship allowed me to pursue extracurricular activities that promote global awareness, like interviewing minority architects and students in Buffalo, and mentoring an upcoming architecture student who is in the Educational Opportunity Program.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Timothy Ung MArch â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;14

Members of the John Eberhard Society â&#x20AC;&#x201C; those who give $1,000 or more annually â&#x20AC;&#x201C; make critical investments in the continued success of the school, the only accredited school of architecture and planning in the State University of New York system. The society represents distinguished donors who share the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision and commitment to high-quality instruction, innovation in research and community service. giving.buffalo.edu/schools/architecture

class notes

7KH VFKRRO UHFHQWO\ KHDUG IURP PDQ\ DOXPQL HDJHU WR VKDUH WKHLU DFKLHYHPHQWV DQG DFFRPSOLVKPHQWV Neil MacDonald Architecture Technology BPS â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;91

Christ J. Kamages BArch, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;72 Of his company, CJK Design, and its role in designing the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in California: â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is a great joy and honor working with wonderful communities such as St. Sophia, in historic Valley Forge, to achieve results that are multi-dimensional and beyond descriptionâ&#x20AC;Śfor now and the ages to come!â&#x20AC;? Barry Yanku MArch â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;80 â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am presently at Rafael ViĂąoly Architects. I am working on 432 Park Ave., New York Cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new residential tower. I also have a website that will tell you about my work and explorations of dance and architecture. I worked with Charlie Gwathmey prior to his untimely death.â&#x20AC;? David Lapping Environmental Design BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;82 â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am working as a professional transportation planner, senior vice president and director of New York and Connecticut Operations for The RBA Group, Inc., ranked among Engineering News-Recordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Top 500 Design Firms.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since 2008, I, along with fellow alumni Steven Saraniero (Architecture Technology BPS â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;91), have been co-managing partners of WFC Architects, a Long Island firm established in 1986. WFC is a national award winning firm recognized for its work in the commercial sector, notably the historic restoration and modernization of the 32-story, 1.2-million-square-foot Barclay-Vesey Building in Lower Manhattan. Originally built in 1927, the building was severely damaged by the collapse of the adjacent World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.â&#x20AC;?

Kevin Sturges Environmental Design BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;91 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m vice president, operations, at Arbee Associates, a Steelcase office furniture distributor located in New Jersey and Maryland. I manage distribution, project management and facilities services for corporate, government and higher education facilities. Personally, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m married with three schoolaged children. I volunteer with the ARC of New Jersey as an advocate for people with developmental disabilities, and am on the board of education in my local school district.â&#x20AC;?

Rivka Felsher MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;97 Jimmy Mui MArch â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;84, Architecture Technology BPS â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;82 â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am now a registered architect in New York State, operating my own practice from home. Most recently I was a Supervising Architect for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.â&#x20AC;? Andrew M. Proehl Design Studies BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;84 â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m interested in the social dynamics of design and technology. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked as a designer at Yahoo, Motorola, Sony and Edwin Schlossberg, Inc., as well as a couple of start-ups more recently. I have spent time in a range of design disciplines...exhibit, graphic, cartography, product and interaction. I live in San Francisco. When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not working, kayaking or traveling, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m usually working on my maps.â&#x20AC;?

Tell us what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re up to.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;After spending several years working in higher education, in campus housing management, I am now pursuing a PhD in higher education leadership at Florida Atlantic University with a focus on state and federal education policy.â&#x20AC;?

Tanner Leto Environmental Design BA â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;05 â&#x20AC;&#x153;My studies under the Environmental Design degree coupled with the architecture minor opened several doors which led to great stepping stones for me. I enjoy my current position [as construction project manager at Morrisville State College] and truly utilize every aspect of my degree combination and the experience that came after.â&#x20AC;?

9LVLW XV RQOLQH WR VLJQ XS IRU QHZV DQG XSGDWHV :KLOH \RXÂśUH WKHUH WHOO XV ZKDW \RXÂśUH XS WR :H FDQÂśW www.ap.buffalo.edu/signup.asp ZDLW WR KHDU IURP \RX For alumni related questions or information, email us: ap-alumni@buffalo.edu

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Stephanie Simeon MUP ’05 Stephanie Simeon, executive director of Heart of the City Neighborhoods, Inc., was selected for Buffalo Business First's “40 Under Forty” Class of 2011, which recognizes 40 young professionals under age 40 for their business success and civic contributions.

B/a+p Alumni Produce New Worlds with Buffalo Youth through Architecture + Education

Anne (Elrod) Dafchik MArch ‘07, Architecture BS ‘04 “I received my New York State architect license this past summer and am currently working for Kideney Architects. I am helping to design a new large-scale building slated for construction near the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.” Puichee Isabella Lee Environmental Design BA ‘07 “I worked for architectural envelope specialist Josef Gartner, a company who has done the glazing for the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. I’ve recently relocated to London. I’m looking forward to work either on the Pinnacle or the 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London.” Ryan Zegarelli Architecture BS ‘09

“Since graduating I have been working at SWBR Architects in Rochester, N.Y. Most of my work is in the college and university studio, and I have been fortunate to be assigned to some great projects. Current projects include the new Integrated Center for Math and Science at Nazareth College and the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability. Recently I have been studying for the ARE and hope to take my first exam this winter.”

B/a+p Alumni Honored by AIA Buffalo/Western New York 2011 Awards Paul L. Herendeen, MArch ‘78, Architecture Technology BPS ’76, Edward B. Green Distinguished Service Award, for his commitment to the profession and AIA. Robert E. Stark, Architecture Technology BPS ‘80 Pro Bono Publico Award in Distinguished Service, for his design, promotional and development support of the Buffalo Fire Boat Visitors Center/Firehouse Project. Matthew D. Zinski, MArch ‘06, Architecture BS ’04, and Michele Han, MArch ‘10 Pro Bono Publico Award in Design Excellence, for their design of collaborative space for the Capoeira Cultural Arts Center and the Sol Rise Homestead project on Buffalo’s East Side. Inamori Kyocera Museum of Fine Ceramics, Alfred University, Honor Award, Interior, Wendel: David Zielinski, Architecture Technology BPS ‘95, project architect, with Matthew D. Zinski and Jose Chang, MArch ‘05, Architecture BS ‘03; Factory, the Buffalo company that fabricated the steel display cases, is owned by Dan Puff, MArch ‘05, Architecture BS ‘02, and Jon Speilman, MArch ‘04, Architecture Technology BPS ‘02.

B/a+p alumni exposed scores of Buffalo school children to careers in architecture, and helped them design and build unusual projects, ranging from bridges to miniature nature parks, as part of the fall 2011 Architecture + Education program. They worked closely with teachers from several Buffalo elementary schools and were assisted by B/a+p students. An award-winning program launched in 2000 by the Buffalo/Western New York AIA in collaboration with B/a+p, Architecture + Education is now a program of the Buffalo Architecture Foundation. This year’s program was coordinated by Associate Professor Beth Tauke.

Participating B/a+p Alumni Erika Abbondanzieri Penny Armitage Denise Juron Borgese Cesar Cedano Yady DeSantis Paul Dudkowski Ochuko Edema Linsey Graff Michele Han Luke Johnson Kris Kemmis Paul Kinney Wendy Manhardt Paul Murawski Jacqueline Reinhard Audrey Ross Sanders Brian Swartz Stephanie Vito Rhona Vogt David Zielinski

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Mary Jane Carroll conducts an audit for accessibility compliance at Regent Park in Toronto. Photo courtesy of Avrim Katzman.

Mary Jane “MJ” Carroll’s (MArch ‘12) pursuit of universal design grew from witnessing the struggles her own aging parents experienced with everyday activities.

student profile by Rachel Teaman

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Nearly 10 years ago, Carroll, a professor of interior design at Sheridan College in Toronto, was struck by how ill-equipped the built environment was for her aging parents, who struggled with everyday activities from using the bathroom to climbing stairs.

A graduate research assistant at the IDeA Center, Carroll also wrote a chapter for Steinfeldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and IDeA Center outreach and policy studies director Jordana Maiselâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forthcoming book on creating inclusive environments, anticipated as the new â&#x20AC;&#x153;standard textâ&#x20AC;? on universal design.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We just werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t prepared as a society to help them in a way that I could be comfortable with,â&#x20AC;? said Carroll, referring to their ability to â&#x20AC;&#x153;age in place,â&#x20AC;? or in their own home.

For her masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thesis, Carroll is examining the intersection of policy and practice in accessibility for Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Regent Park, the oldest and largest public housing project in Canada, now in the midst of a six-phase, billion-dollar revitalization.

She began to research the topic, and found ways to incorporate it into degree offerings at Sheridan. In 2003, she and a colleague founded Design for an Aging Population, a specialized post-diploma program for designers. Her interest quickly broadened to the architectural discipline of universal design, or human-centered design that considers the needs of not only seniors, but children, people with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, or â&#x20AC;&#x153;anyone who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t fit the norm.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;I began to see how the built environment could positively impact those people who are not often considered by designers,â&#x20AC;? said Carroll, now 51. To make a difference in the field, she knew she needed to go back to school. She set her sights on B/a+p, drawn by Professor Edward A. Steinfeldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research on universal design and his internationally regarded Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDeA Center). To prepare for the program, she took night classes in statistics and mathematics and braced herself for a threehour daily trek across the border. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If I was going to do it, I was just going to do it,â&#x20AC;? said Carroll, also a mother of two. And, boy, has she ever. Now in her last semester of the 3.5year MArch program, Carroll won the 2011 AIA New York State Student Award for her design of a bus shelter for a university campus that is universally accessible, financially viable and attractively designed.

Through policy analysis and site audits, her thesis, entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;[re]forming regent park,â&#x20AC;? explores how the manifestation of housing and urban planning policy in the built environment impacts low-income residents and those with physical disabilities. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had always wanted to explore the possibility of social justice in the built environment,â&#x20AC;? she said, adding that she hopes her findings will inform the next five phases of Regent Parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s redevelopment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we can do it right here, it will be applied across the country.â&#x20AC;? As graduation nears, Carroll is looking forward to returning to Sheridan to teach and advance her research on universal design. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also considering forming an IDeA Center liaison, or affiliated research center, in Canada. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It has been very exciting for me here at UB, exploring what it means to be an architect, and how I can impact those who often donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a voice. I am very excited about the opportunities ahead.â&#x20AC;? Reflecting on the rigors of graduate study in architecture, and her masterful balance of that with caretaking responsibilities at home and a marathon commute, Carroll demonstrates the attitude that has gotten her so far, and will continue to take her in new, promising directions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to stay focused, you have to stay committed, but the rewards are enormous.â&#x20AC;?

Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012

Subhashni Raj at the Tar Sands Action Rally. Photo courtesy of Paria Kia, MUP ‘13.

Subhashni Raj (MUP ‘13) took part in the Tar Sands Rally held in Washington, D.C., last fall to protest a controversial pipeline that would cut through the Nebraska Sandhills.

student profile by Rachel Teaman

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Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no surprise then, that this Fulbright Scholar has quickly found opportunities to channel that passion here at B/a+p. This past fall, thick in her first-semester studies, she didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hesitate to hop on a bus down to the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital to join 12,000 others in protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. The Tar Sands Action rally, which formed a circle three layers deep around the White House, was part of a successful grassroots campaign to convince the Obama administration to reject the permit application for a pipeline that would cut a controversial path through an aquifer in the Nebraska Sandhills.

Group photo at Tar Sands Action Rally. Photo courtesy of Paria Kia, MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13.

For the 26-year-old Raj, there was no question she needed to be there. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In what seemed like America showing leadership for the first time on issues related to climate action? Of course I needed to be there. If we win this, then itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history in the making, and for the first time weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be on the winning side,â&#x20AC;? Raj said, noting that the campaign is far from over. The Canadian company seeking the permit is expected to reapply for a pipeline along an alternate route. Rajâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activism around environmental issues began after a life-changing experience during the summer of 2009 while participating in an environmental leadership development program based in Hawaii. Recalling the vivid evidence of invasive vegetation, rising seawaters and coastline erosion there, Raj says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Hawaii scared me. It opened me up to the levels of environmental degradation that are actually happening.â&#x20AC;? She says the program, sponsored by the U.S. State Department to foster environmental stewardship around the globe, â&#x20AC;&#x153;took me out of my comfort zone, from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;getting by on a day-to-day basisâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;we can actually do something about it.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? After graduating from Bangalore University that year with degrees in microbiology, chemistry and zoology, she went back to her hometown of Suva City, Fiji, and became closely involved with 350.org, a global grassroots movement focused on climate change, and the organizing force behind the Tar Sands Action.

Subhashni Raj, MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13 (third from right), along with Maya Shermer, MUP â&#x20AC;&#x2122;13 (second from right), joined over 12,000 environmental activists from across the country to participate in the Tar Sands Rally in Washington, D.C., last fall.

As a volunteer with 350.org, she organized demonstrations in Copenhagen in front of the United Nations Climate Talks as part of the Global Day of Action. She also took on a leadership role with 350 Pacific, training young environmental leaders and supporting citizen action on climate change across the vulnerable Pacific Islands. Aside from the cooler temperatures of Buffalo, she says she feels right at home here at B/a+p. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They do things here that I believe in. I am working with faculty members that inspire me. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m learning, and when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m learning, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m happy.â&#x20AC;? Raj says a planning degree is â&#x20AC;&#x153;the perfect balance of theory and practiceâ&#x20AC;? and will equip her with the skills she needs to push for climate action in Fiji. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interested in studying the intersection of food systems, water and climate change and would like to help Fiji plan for the inevitable relocation of its coastal settlements. Looking forward, Raj has no doubt she can make a difference at a global scale â&#x20AC;&#x201C; though she knows she canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do it alone. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have 12,000 people that changed the game through Tar Sands Action. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we are striving for â&#x20AC;&#x201C; critical mass.â&#x20AC;?

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Buffalo School of Architecture + Planning Magazine | SPRING 2012