AAP News 10

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Dean’s Message Looking east from as far away as Route 13 it appeared as a full moon glowing with unnatural intensity next to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. From the Arts Quad it appeared as a luminescent disk. In fact, it was the three-dimensional poster for AAP’s exhibition on the Tata Nano—the 25-foot diameter balloon suspended in the museum’s aerial sculpture court depicted the volume of one year’s worth of CO2 emissions from the latest people’s car.

More and more, the college is instigating multidisciplinary collaborations that are evidence both to the currency of our inquiries and the complexity of the subjects we study.

Art students in Professor Gregory Page’s Turf: Invasive Species print media course called Cornell Plantations their academic home for the term while they studied the phenomenon of predator-prey relationships. The renowned Cornell Journal of Architecture, reissued with fanfare after an 8-year hiatus, features an article by Cornell computer scientist Hod Lipson on animate environments and selflearning robotics. Supported by an EPA grant, CRP Professor and Chair Kieran Donaghy is collaborating with colleagues from mechanical and aerospace engineering, earth and atmospheric science, and environmental engineering to research the impact of climate change on regional and urban landscapes. Architecture professors Kevin Pratt and Donald Greenberg are working with mechanical and computer scientists from the College of Engineering on real-time thermal modeling software to bring energy analysis out of the realm of consultants, and into the iterative process of designers. And at the Johnson Museum, AAP students and faculty teamed up with collaborators from more than five disciplines at Cornell and other institutions to devise an exhibition on the cultural, environmental, and infrastructural consequences of a radical development in individual auto-mobility: a car costing under $2,500 that was conceived, produced, and championed by architecture alumnus Ratan Tata.

To engage in such multidisciplinary projects does not mean an abdication of the rigorous training in subjectarea knowledge that is the hallmark of the college’s three departments. On the contrary: disciplinary excellence, coupled with a terminally curious mind, is the prerequisite for interdisciplinary teamwork. As the gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim observed, the larger one’s circle of knowledge, the more its circumference touches on the unknown. In this spirit, this edition of AAP News is dedicated to the edges of our knowledge, the sites of our scholarly and creative work.

Dean Kent Kleinman GALE AND IRA DRUKIER DEAN OF ARCHITECTURE, ART, AND PLANNING

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AAP News

is published twice yearly by the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, through the Office of the Dean.

College of Architecture, Art, and Planning Cornell University 129 Sibley Dome, Ithaca, NY 14853-6701 (607) 255-5317 aap_newsletter@cornell.edu Editor Aaron Goldweber Assistant Editor Rebecca Bowes Contributing Writers Daniel Aloi, Rebecca Bowes, Lily Chi, Lauren Gold, Aaron Goldweber, Anne Ju, Greg Kelley (M.R.P. ’12), Sherrie Negrea, Elena C. Pizarro, Nancy Rowe, and Joe Wilensky Design Studio Vrielink Copy Editor Laura Glenn Photography William Staffeld (unless otherwise noted) Distribution Coordinator Beth Kunz Cover A 25-foot balloon representing the annual emissions of the Tata Nano illuminates the entrance to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art as part of the Unpacking the Nano exhibition.

Opposite Milstein Hall’s freshly stripped concrete bridge under the building’s skylights and dome, in March.

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© May 2011 Cornell University Printed on Lynx Opaque, a Forestry Stewardship Council stock. Printed by Monroe Litho, Rochester, New York. Monroe Litho is certified by the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership and is an EPA Green Power Partner operating on 100 percent wind power.

Corrections from AAP News 09, Fall 2010 Thomas N. Armstrong III (B.F.A. ’54) was inadvertently left off the list of AAP alumni who have served on the Cornell University Board of Trustees in “Stiller Named University Trustee,” appearing in the “News” section (page 3). Armstrong served on the Board from 1980 to 1985.

Alison Nash (B.F.A./B.A. ’98, M.Arch. ’14) was incorrectly listed as a former visiting fellow in the “Student News” column (page 23). Wilka Roig (M.F.A. ’05), also mentioned in the column, is a former visiting fellow.

Table of Contents

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STUDENT PROFILE: Ruth Oppenheim (M.F.A. ’11) NEWS&EVENTS: Unpacking the Nano Exhibition and Symposium

CONVIVIUM: Salon for Architecture Graduate Students

ALUMNI: Niall Atkinson (Ph.D. HAUD ’09); Alumni Artist Tour; Michael Manfredi (M.Arch. ’80); Post-bac Exhibition

FOLIO: What Does the Nano Want?

NEWS&EVENTS: Dadi Appointment; Balder in AAP NYC; Olpadwala Farewell; Isard Death

FACULTY&STAFF: Green Building Design; Faculty Books

WORK: Huang; Siu; Choi; Dragon Day STUDENTS: Mumbai Studio; DesignConnect; CRP Competition Win; Bean Prize

ALUMNI PROFILE: Patrick Fejér (M.Arch. ’97)

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2 News&Events

1 Photo: Ramez Elias.

2 Robert Balder (with arm raised) with workshop participants in front of the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Manhattan. Photo: Anna Brawley (M.R.P. ’11).

3 Participants in the “Moving Forward” symposium prepare for their evening Bike-to-Beer ride.

4 Cornell’s Combined Heat and Power plant.

Christopher Y. Lew (above at right), curator for MOMA/P.S. 1, Art historian and artist Iftikhar Dadi, at left, has speaks with Daren Kendall (M.F.A. ’12) (behind Plexiglas) been appointed chair of the Department of Art, effective July 1, after during a studio critique in serving as the interim chair for the past year.

March. Lew curated the M.F.A. “Iftikhar brings considerable vision and skills to the position,” says exhibition held in the DUMBO Dean Kent Kleinman. “He and I are committed to working collectively and expeditiously with the faculty and students on the many aspects Arts Center from late April to of the undergraduate and graduate programs that have been under early May. The catalog for the discussion and debate in recent months.” exhibition includes essays by “At its best, contemporary art engages with the most salient issues Lew, department chair Iftikhar facing us individually and collectively,” says Dadi. “Located in a leading Dadi, Director of Graduate research university, Cornell’s Department of Art is well placed to address Studies Michael Ashkin, and artistic practice today as truly interdisciplinary and global.” artist introductions by a host of Dadi has authored numerous scholarly works, including the recent critics, artists, and curators.

Dadi Appointed Chair of Art Department

book Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia (2010). (See page 17 for more information on recent awards and accolades the book has received.) He serves on the editorial board of Art Journal and is a contributing editor of the international journal BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies. Dadi’s curatorial projects include Unpacking Europe at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Tarjama/ Translation at the Queens Museum of Art and Cornell’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. As an artist, Dadi works collaboratively with his wife Elizabeth Dadi. Their work investigates urbanism and media in contemporary globalization, and has been exhibited and published internationally.

Dadi is an associate professor in Cornell’s Department of History of Art with broad interests in the relationship between art practice in the contexts of modernity, globalization, urbanization, mediatization, and postcolonialism. He received his Ph.D. in history of art from Cornell.AAP

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Neil Denari (below) lecturing last November in Kaufman Auditorium as part of a rich semester-long speaker series which also welcomed Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Livia Corona, and Michael Maltzan to campus.

New Executive Director Starts at AAP NYC Robert (Bob) Balder (B.S. URS ’89) became the new executive director of AAP NYC in April.

Balder has held several important positions in New York City, including director of the Mayor’s Office of Lower Manhattan Development, and executive vice president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Most recently, he was director of planning and urban design at Gensler, New York.

As the executive director of AAP NYC, Balder’s charge is to help advance and coordinate AAP NYC’s programs, and to ensure that the AAP presence in New York City is optimized for all AAP students, faculty, and alumni.AAP

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Spring 2011 Lectures • Maria Aiolova • Lara Baladi • Regine Basha • Nayland Blake • Andrea Boschetti • Thomas J. Campanella • Gabriella Carolini • Peter Cook • Dennis Crompton • Trenton Doyle Hancock • Elisabeth Fay • Marcela González Rivas • Matthias K. Graf von Ballestrem • Beate Hølmebakk • Jeffrey Hou • Lisa Iwamoto • Daniel Kaplan • Annette Kim • Alice Kimm • Sylvia Lavin • Horace Levy • Trevor Paglen • Paul Pfeiffer • Mirela Pribac • François Roche • Susan Rodriguez • Mark Selden • Tavares Strachan • Despina Stratigakos • Erik Swyngedouw • Murtaza Vali • Pier Vittorio Aureli • Gregory Volk • Chris Webster

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Overflowing Bike Racks: Studentorganized Symposium Explores Transportation Issues With a growing demand

Associate professor of art

Roberto Bertoia exhibited recent work (below) in John Hartell Gallery in March. The small-scale works, all completed within the last 18 months, explore the themes of La Posa and Passages.

for infrastructure that supports active transportation methods like biking and walking, November’s “Moving Forward” symposium predictably attracted a large number of participants from the Cornell and Ithaca communities. Over the course of three days, students, community members, and national leaders engaged in a critical dialogue about bicycle and pedestrian planning, design, research, and advocacy.

Hosted by the Organization of Cornell Planners, and co-organized with Ithaca College students and City of Ithaca transit officials, the symposium featured advocates Mia Birk (Alta Planning and Design), Jennifer Dill (Portland State University), and author Joe Kurmaskie discussing the groundbreaking activetransportation work being implemented in Portland, Oregon. Other activities included networking opportunities; a round-table discussion on women and bicycles; a bicycle ride along the Cayuga Waterfront Trail; and a presentation on neighborhood greenway opportunities in Ithaca by Tom Knipe (M.R.P. ’11) and members of the Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council.AAP See some of the symposium at cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=1083.

Award-winning Combined Heat and Power Project Ends the Coal Era at Cornell Robert Bland, senior director of Cornell’s Department of Energy and Sustainability, called it “the end of an era” as facilities workers cleaned up what was left of Cornell’s coal pile, the site where up to 15,000 tons of coal at a time were stored, waiting to fire boilers at the university’s Central Energy Plant off Maple Avenue. The last lumps of coal were burned at the plant in March, and the boilers were shut down and decommissioned.

The coal plant has been replaced with Cornell’s new 30-megawatt Combined Heat and Power (CHP) cogeneration facility, which burns natural gas to generate electricity and heat. The new CHP plant, which has been operational since December 2009, recently received a 2011 Energy Star CHP Award from the Environmental Protection Agency. Professor George Hascup, architecture, designed the building that houses the new CHP plant.

“Through the recovery of otherwisewasted heat to produce steam for space heating and other campus uses, Cornell has demonstrated exceptional leadership in energy use and management,” the award states.

By generating electricity onsite for campus use, the citation notes, the system displaces grid-supplied power, increasing the reliability of the campus’s energy supply while reducing demands on existing transmission and distribution infrastructure.

The Energy Star CHP award recognizes highly efficient CHP systems that reduce emissions and use at least 5 percent less fuel than comparable, state-of-the-art, separate heat and power generation.

Combined heat and power is part of Cornell’s larger sustainability initiative. In September 2009, President David Skorton announced the release of the university’s Climate Action Plan, which sets a goal of reducing the university’s net greenhousegas emissions to zero by 2050. One of that plan’s goals was the elimination of coal as an energy source at Cornell; a goal that has now been accomplished.AAP

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Cornell Says Farewell to Porus Olpadwala After 40 years at Cornell, former AAP Dean and CRP Professor Porus Olpadwala is retiring. Olpadwala joined the CRP faculty in 1984, served as chair of the department from 1994 to 1998, and then as dean from 1998 to 2004. Olpadwala and his wife Deenaz plan to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In Memoriam Walter Isard, Founder of Regional Science Walter Isard, professor emeritus of city and regional planning and economics, who had founding roles in the fields of regional science and peace science, died on November 6 in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. He was 91.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, Isard was an influential scholar of regional science methodology and theory, regional economics and development, and peace economics and science. His research ranged from interregional constructs and systems of cities and regions to the economic and social consequences of atomic power and industrial complexes, and theories of individual behavior and decision making.

He was the author of more than 300 published articles and 21 books, including Location and Space Economy (1956), Methods of Interregional and Regional Analysis (1960, updated 1998), and General Theory (1969).

Isard taught regional economics at MIT before joining the University of Pennsylvania economics faculty as a professor in 1956. He founded Penn’s Regional Science Department and the Journal of Regional Science in 1958. He came to Cornell in 1979 as a professor of economics and continued his active research after his retirement from teaching in 1989.

He is survived by his wife, Caroline, and several children and grandchildren.

The symposium, “The Legacy of Walter Isard (1919–2010),” was held in late April.

The fall issue of AAP News will include coverage of the event.AAP

Architect Edgar A. Tafel Cornell University benefactor and former visiting instructor in architecture Edgar A. Tafel died in January. From 1932 to 1941, Tafel was an original member and last survivor of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship.

While there, he served as project architect for Fallingwater, Johnson Wax, and Wingspread, among many other buildings.

He was principal of his own highly creative architectural practice in New York City from 1945 to 1986, and produced many churches and synagogues, college buildings, and houses. Known for his sharp wit and acerbic commentary, Tafel authored two books on Frank Lloyd Wright. He was also active in community affairs, serving on his local community planning board as well as being president of the Washington Square Association.

He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and an associate of the National Academy of Design.

Tafel originally became affiliated with Cornell through a close personal friendship with AAP Advisory Council member Robert Silman ’56.AAP

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4 No Small Thing: Unpacking the Nano Exhibition and Symposium Draw Crowds For two months this winter, the sub-$2,500 Tata Nano automobile made a big showing on campus. The Unpacking the Nano exhibition and symposium were designed to ask questions and to speculate on how a small material artifact can produce ripples throughout its cultural context.

“The Nano is a technological achievement of unparalleled magnitude, but it also questions the form of the city and the space of the public realm; it challenges the texture of social life, transforms patterns of habitation, problematizes demands for social justice and those of environmental stewardship, and it might even sponsor a new aesthetic inspired by mass auto-mobility,” says Dean Kent Kleinman, a co-organizer of the projects.

The exhibition in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art featured the revolutionary car dismantled and suspended in air—dissected along physical, cultural, and environmental lines.

Garnering interest from all corners of campus and the region, more than 10,000 visitors saw the exhibition, which was on display from mid-January to late March.

The March 10 and 11 symposium, “The Price of the World’s Most Affordable Car,” also attracted a large audience, including a capacity crowd in Call Auditorium for the opening evening which included a welcome by President David J. Skorton and the keynote lecture, “What Does the Nano Want?” delivered by anthropologist Professor Arjun Appadurai, NYU (Appadurai’s address is reprinted in the “Folio” on the next page). The keynote was followed by a roundtable conversation between Kleinman, Appadurai, and the man behind the Nano: Ratan Tata (B.Arch. ’57).

The second day of the symposium was dedicated to panel sessions. Attended by architects, designers, urban planners, and others, these sessions focused on the Nano’s design process, its place in the contexts of landscape, the public realm of the city and mobility, and the Nano’s potential effects on design practices. The sessions were followed by a second keynote, “Storytelling in the City,” by NYU’s Suketu Mehta.AAP Find information and multimedia from the exhibition and symposium at aap.cornell.edu/events/nano.

1 Unpacking the Nano exhibition in the Johnson Museum of Art. The exhibition was codirected

by Visiting Assistant Professor Aleksandr Mergold (B.Arch. ’00), architecture, and fabricated and installed by a team of students and recent graduates, led by Spencer Lapp (B.Arch. ’09).

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2 A capacity crowd gathers in Call Auditorium to hear the keynote address by Arjun Appadurai during the March symposium.

3 Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University, delivers the keynote address at the March symposium.

4 AAP Dean Kent Kleinman addresses the crowd during the March symposium keynote speech.

5 Ratan Tata (B.Arch. ’57) participates in a roundtable discussion at the March symposium.

6 Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural History Mary Woods, organizer of the March symposium panel sessions.

7 From left: Madhav Badami, associate professor, School of Urban Planning, McGill University; Dilip da Cunha, lecturer in landscape architecture, University of Pennsylvania; and Vyjayanthi Rao, assistant professor of anthropology, The New School for Social Research present during the “Landscapes of Mobility” panel session during the March symposium.

8 Bijoy Jain, architect and principal, Studio Mumbai, presents at the “Nano and Design Cultures” panel session at the March symposium.

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Folio 5

For the Folio in this issue of AAP News, we have the honor of publishing the talk given

by Arjun Appadurai at the “Unpacking the Nano: The Price of the World’s Most Affordable Car” symposium on March 10, 2011. For this thoughtful piece, we thought it was appropriate to print a separate, small publication for you to take with you or put on your bookshelf.

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6 Work

Qiaolun Huang (M.Arch. ’10), Inside-out Tower: Museum of Extinct Cultural Memory (2010), for Museum of Extinct Species Studio, taught by Karl Chu and Jim Williamson.

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1 Contaminating Hong Kong, thesis project by Lawrence Siu (M.Arch. ’10).

2 Body Armor, first-year studio project

by Tien Ling (B.Arch. ’15) and Vincent Parlatore (B.Arch. ’15).

3 Untitled (2010), screen prints on paper,

by Emily Soomi Choi (B.F.A. ’12), from Gang, a student exhibition held in Olive Tjaden Gallery in November.

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Karim Daw (B.Arch. ’15) tames the welded beast during Dragon Day 2011.

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Oppenheim’s At Sea Level (2011), floor pattern of vinyl contact paper, 30' x 23', from High Expectations, High Ceilings, and the Floor Is at Sea Level show. Photo: Mati Elmaliach.

Student Profile

Window onto an Artist: Ruth Oppenheim The view out the tall windows of Ruth Oppenheim’s (M.F.A. ’11) art studio in Tjaden Hall could be either inspiring or intimidating, depending on the artist.

To Oppenheim, her windows, which frame the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art’s clean angles and concrete facade promoting the exhibitions within, serve as a constant reminder that she is here to make art—and do nothing else.

Under the windows and along the walls of Oppenheim’s studio are “pieces of pieces”— dismantled parts of former artwork, monitors for installations, gifts from others, and an assortment of found objects that have comprised her work. On the floor and on one wall, sticky vinyl pieces, cut and arranged as mosaic tile, are leftover studies for an installation she just finished showing in her native Israel. Her workspace is tidy and warm, and Oppenheim is very much at home here as an artist.

This studio has significance beyond being merely a workspace for Oppenheim, who was recently awarded the 2010 Hartell Graduate Award for Art and Architecture. “I never really had the feeling that ‘I am an artist.’ I never felt comfortable enough [to say that] because I never had a studio practice,” she explains. After graduating from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and then working in an office in New York City, she was appalled to find that in that year of office work she hadn’t produced any art, despite having had a studio to work in. She realized that she needed to experience what having a regular studio practice was like—to try on the life of a full-time artist.

When she heard of Cornell University’s M.F.A. program, which offered financial support, she found her chance. “I needed an environment where I could feel what it means to have a bubble [in which] to be an artist, because in New York there was the constant struggle of surviving,” she explains. “And I wanted an M.F.A. because I do want to go into art education.”

During her two years at Cornell, she has noticed a continual redefinition of the meta-theme unifying her work. “I’m realizing that I’m working from a certain level

of frustration—with the way I experience history, or the way history is being registered…” With her work, she examines the system we are all caught in, including herself as the artist, in which we identify with a singular narrative in history in a dualistic us/them paradigm.

“That is the trap; as a human being, in order to define ourselves and grasp some personal truth, we often have to deny someone else’s existence. There’s a struggle within this system and the way I experience it—and there’s no way out of it. I’m trying to point at how it works rather than participate in it, which is extremely difficult, but at least there’s some level of awareness,” she says.

With her previous work, using found objects, installation, and video, she has touched on this theme with references to personal experiences of travel, family history, displacement, and identity. Her family roots in Germany and Poland are present in her treatment of these themes, as is her identity as a Jewish Israeli woman. Symbols such as a leather suitcase and the oranges associated with Zionism in Israel have been recurring motifs. Her art, while highly personal, reminds us that we all experience history from our own reference points, and that we all frame events as they relate to our personal stories.

As she approached the final days of life as an M.F.A. student, Oppenheim prepared for her thesis show in April. Her thesis continued the meta-theme, using found objects and other media. In fact, the found object she focused on was not something that fit into an exhibition space.

It was outside her studio windows—a temporary

mock-up structure adjacent to the museum that is part of the large expansion construction project.

Her treatment of the mock-up structure pointed to how architecture is also involved with history and the politics of history, such as the Modernist movement, of which the Johnson Museum is an example. To Oppenheim, it seemed as if “the museum made an artwork.” The mini-Modernist mock-up, with no purpose other than to test the concrete mixture, will be destroyed at some point, but not before Oppenheim uncovered its relationship to its “parent” structure and its historical context.

Her thesis also explored the limited experience of framing the world through windows. “The more you frame, the less you actually see, even though it gives you the illusion that it’s becoming a macro.” The mockup structure offered us a window that frames what lies beyond, but as Oppenheim observes, “What you actually saw was a parking lot.”AAP —Elena C. Pizarro

Oppenheim at work in her studio.

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Mumbai Studio Connects Students and Alumni 1

Architecture’s first studio field trip to India was a resounding success, thanks in large part to the outstanding contribution of Cornell’s dedicated young alumni. The fall 2010 vertical studio, which explored Mumbai’s layered and temporal urban structures as critical and creative models, spent an intensive week studying selected quarters of the city through collaborative workshops, lectures, onsite studies, and office visits. Development of the studio and field trip drew on the expertise of colleagues Mary Woods, Neema Kudva, Jeffrey Chusid, and guest critic Toma Berlanda, as well as on the input of recent alumni, including Kayzad Shroff (M.Arch. ’09), Tripty Arya (M.Arch. ’07), Namita Dharia (M.Arch. ’08), and Elie Gamburg (B.Arch. ’01).

The week began with orientation walks through Mumbai’s historic quarters, lead by Shroff and Maria Jimenez Leon (M.Arch. ’09). The orientation continued at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies, where Rupali Gupte (M.Arch. ’04) and faculty colleague Rohan Shivkumar stimulated thought and discussion with lectures on Mumbai’s housing fabrics and urban geographies. Arya organized a memorable joint workshop, which sent small groups of Cornell and Balwant Sheth School of Architecture (BSA) students out into the city’s diverse neighborhoods, including Dharavi, Kalbadevi, Colaba, Powai, Kotachiwadi, and Mount Mary. The interaction with BSA students and the generosity of residents in these neighborhoods made for an invaluable learning experience for the Cornell group, as did the review and discussion by a panel of critics that concluded the workshop. Questions about how to build on Mumbai—and for whom—were taken up by Amit Arya (M.Arch. ’08) and Namita Tijoriwala (M.Arch. ’06), who presented their graduate projects on the practices and tactics of the urban “informal.” The studio also looked at contemporary building in the city—from contemporary design, including visits to the offices of Somaya & Kalappa Architects and Serie Architects, to the new malls that are cropping up on the old mill lands.

At the end of the week of intensive work, which included documentation and analysis of the project site, the studio spent two brief but full days in Ahmedabad. Sarosh Anklesaria (M.Arch. ’11) prepared a meticulous and marvelous journey that began at dawn with the Hatheesingh Jain Temple, and continued with Le Corbusier’s Sarabhai House and Textile Mill Owners Association; B. V. Doshi’s Sangath, CEPT Architecture School, and Ahmedabad ni Gufa; Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management; a step well at Adalaj; and Charles Correa’s Gandhi Ashram and Museum. More than a visual tour, Anklesaria’s itinerary encapsulated the entire trip by offering an immersion in architecture, food, society, and culture.AAP —Associate Professor Lily Chi, architecture

Student Group Partners with Upstate Communities on Planning and Design Projects DesignConnect, an interdisciplinary student organization, collaborated with 11 upstate communities on a variety of design and planning projects during the 2010–11 school year.

Formed in 2009, the group now includes more than 70 undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of departments across the university, including design and environmental analysis, civil and environmental engineering, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, and architecture.

Each semester, DesignConnect solicits project applications from regional communities requiring design and planning assistance. DesignConnect’s student leaders evaluate the projects based on social justice, environmental sustainability, economic responsibility, and the potential for community engagement. Student volunteers form teams for each accepted project, work with the community clients to refine project scope, and engage a faculty adviser who volunteers to provide advice along the way.

“DesignConnect thrives on a synergy of community and student needs,” explains David West (M.R.P. ’11), DesignConnect’s 2010 chairperson. “Local project ideas were sitting on the shelf because communities couldn’t afford the conceptual design and planning needed to compete for project funding. Meanwhile, design and planning students were desperate for real-life project experience and interdisciplinary collaboration. Student leaders conceived DesignConnect as a win-win situation for students and communities, and it has exceeded our most optimistic expectations.”

DesignConnect’s projects last fall included working with the City of Binghamton’s Department of Planning, Housing, and Community Development and Northside Community Board to revitalize the city’s Northside neighborhood; assisting in creating a graphic identity for Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services’ new Community Housing Trust; developing a plan for a redesign and restoration of the historic Village Park in the City of Lyons; and collaborating with the Interlaken Revitalization Committee to produce a conceptual streetscape design and historic preservation recommendations for Interlaken’s Main Street. Interlaken is using the resulting document for an application for the upcoming 2011 Main Street grant.

Volunteers also worked in Cooperstown on the formation of a community-led improvement process for Cooperstown Village Hall, and in Elmira on several projects including the creation of a Chemung River trail vision.

“We all understand that some of our conceptual designs will never be funded,” says Alyson Fletcher (M.R.P. ’12), 2011 chairperson. “But all our work champions public participation, helps communities in need articulate their visions, and develops community capacity.”

DesignConnect believes student autonomy is key to education. West explains, “With DesignConnect, students don’t just create the final product, they create the entire process. From the structure and leadership of the organization to mobilizing community participation to designing deliverables, students do it all. Students test and reformulate models of practice, take risks and learn the hard lessons that only come from bearing the whole weight of their decisions.

The autonomy and responsibility DesignConnect elicits is turning future planners and designers into future planning and design leaders.”AAP

Association, Volume 4, Available Online In November, the AAP student-run publication Association launched volume 4 at aap.cornell.edu/association. Association is now an online-only publication.

Association captures the ideas and pursuits of AAP students, faculty, and alumni and features projects that are not confined to one field but generate associations crossing traditional boundaries, allowing for interdepartmental collaboration and exploration.

Justin Hui (B.Arch. ’11) served as managing editor and worked with: Jessica Bello (B.Arch. ’11), Yoonjee Koh (B.Arch. ’13), Jacqueline Liu (B.Arch. ’13), Aaron Kazam Sherbany (B.Arch. ’09), Karl Tsui (B.Arch. ’12), and Mauricio Vieto (B.Arch. ’13). Associate professor of art Barry Perlus served as the team adviser.AAP

CRP Representatives Present at Regional Science Conference Professor Kieran Donaghy and five Ph.D. students in regional science presented their work at the 57th annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International (NARSC) in Denver, Colorado, in November. The topics discussed at the conference included planning policy, transportation, housing, advanced econometric methods, and computable general equilibrium modeling.

Along with Donaghy, presenting for CRP were Sutee Anantsuksomsri (Ph.D. RS ’11), Ji-Won Park (Ph.D. RS ’11), Javier PerezBurgos (Ph.D. RS ’12), Supree Srisamran (Ph.D. RS ’13), and Nij Tontisirin (Ph.D. RS ’11).AAP

Preservationists Hit the Midwest CRP’s Historic Preservation Planning program toured three cities in the Midwest in November 2010. Guided by Professor Michael Tomlan and Associate Professor Jeff Chusid, the students traveled to Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee. Highlights of the trip included a tour of Oak Park, where Frank Lloyd Wright built his home and studio, and meetings with Jim Peters, executive director of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois; Dan Stephens, the restoration architect of the Wisconsin state capitol; and Carlen Hatala, who works for the Preservation Commission of Milwaukee.AAP

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1 From left, Alan McNutt (B.Arch. ’11) with student collaborators Pranali Patel and Rishi Parmar from Balwant Sheth in the Mumbai neighborhood of Kotachi Wadi.

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2 Ariel Morales (M.R.P. ’12), at left, and other students are guided through the Wisconsin State Historical Society by Jim Dreager, at right, deputy state historic preservation officer. Photo: Christiana Limniatis (M.A. HPP ’11).

3 Regional Science students at the NARSC Conference. From left: Srisamran, Park, PerezBurgos, Tontisirin, and Anantsuksomsri. Photo: Sutee Anantsuksomsri.

4 Students in Sverre Fehn’s Hedmark Museum.

Photo: Paul Joran.

5 A detail from Confluence Philadelphia 2026.

6 Christina Chaplin’s (B.F.A. ’12) winning submission in the 2010–11 Bean Prize competition, untitled (2010), digital print, 11" x 17".

Ph.D. student in architecture Sophie Hochhäusl’s master’s thesis titled “Otto Neurath—City Planning, Proposing a Socio-Political Map for Modern Urbanism,” was recently published by Innsbruck University Press. In her thesis, Hochhäusl investigates aspects of mapping at the dawn of Modernism. She argues that Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath’s map, “City Planning,” serves not only as one of the first accessible socio-political maps of a city, but is also a heuristic architectural device. In addition, Hochhäusl explores the extent to which Neurath perceived the city as an agglomeration of social facts, and how much his socio-political map contributed to planning the city on such a basis. The book includes an interview on mapping with Rem Koolhaas.

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Norwegian Exposure

News

Edson Cabalfin, Ph.D. candidate in History of Architecture and Urban Development, presented his paper titled “Exotic Spectacles: Philippine Villages in American World’s Fairs, 1901–1915” at the joint conference of the Association of Asian Studies and International Convention of Asia Scholars in Honolulu, Hawaii, in April. The paper is part of his Ph.D. dissertation on the history of architectural representations of the Philippines in international expositions during the 20th century.

Sarina Cirit (B.S. URS ’11) and Shannon Holm (B.S. URS ’11) interned with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance in the summer of 2010, where they wrote economic proposals that were sent to 14 retail stores in hopes of luring them to downtown Ithaca. The list of target retailers included Anthropologie, Banana Republic, and J.Crew, among others. Their final report, “Downtown Ithaca Alliance Business Proposals,” was completed during an independent study with Professor Mildred Warner during the fall 2010 semester.

Doctoral candidate Kathleen E. Foley (M.A. HPP ’02) has written two reports for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) that address the construction of mosques in America and the public opposition to them. ISPU, an independent nonprofit public policy research organization, released the reports in response to the opposition stirred by the Park 51 project, a Muslim community center and mosque proposed for a site two blocks from the World Trade Center that was destroyed on September 11, 2001, in Manhattan.

The fall 2010 thesis of Jungwook Lee (M.Arch. ’11), “Smooth Space in the Striated Empire,” was published in the online magazine Evolo. Faculty members Jonathan Ochshorn and Gisela Baurmann were Lee’s thesis advisers.

In January and February, Bernard Yenelouis (M.F.A. ’12) participated in a group show in New York City called Unpunished. The show was curated by Nayland Blake, who lectured on campus in March, and held at the Sue Scott Gallery.AAP

The spring semester’s Oslo Option Studio: Lofoten Timber Towers explored the relationship between architectural concepts, structural forms, and material choices.

Taught by architecture professor Mark Cruvellier and Beate Hølmebakk of the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the studio focused on the design of small but significant architectural installations in the form of timber bird-watching towers on the spectacular Lofoten Islands located off the Norwegian coast.

The studio traveled to Norway in March, where students met with local architects, engineers, and artists who have worked on projects that are related to the materials, scale, and natural landscape issues integral to the studio’s design agenda. Students attended a presentation about Peter Zumthor’s Memorial in Memory of the Victims of the Witch Trials in Vardø, lectures by Oslo School of Architecture faculty members Per Olaf Fjeld and Michael Hensel, and a guest lecture by Yves Weinand of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) on his research on innovative timber technologies.

CRP and Landscape Architecture Students Win International Design Competition For the second consecutive year, a team from Cornell has won first place in the Ed Bacon Student Design Competition, a sustainable urban design challenge based in Philadelphia.

The winning team in the fifth annual competition was announced on December 7, and consists of CRP and landscape architecture graduate students Eammon Coughlin (M.L.A. ’11), Kevin Dowd (M.R.P. ’11), Matthew Gonser (M.R.P. ’11), Clark Taylor (M.L.A. ’11), and Lin Xue (M.L.A. ’11).

The theme of this year’s contest was “Designing the Fair of the Future,” an assignment to imagine a world’s fair–styled celebration in Philadelphia for the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026.

Competitors were asked to consider various issues including: rethinking the

traditional world’s fair model; how the event would best represent Philadelphia’s heritage and diversity; creating temporary versus permanent facilities; and how to update the city’s infrastructure to accommodate a high volume of visitors.

The Cornell team’s plan, Confluence Philadelphia 2026, was cited as “a venue that reflected not only a positive effect for the city in 2026, but also a lasting legacy.”

The team’s broad master plan creates a framework for the so-called USA250 events in 15 years that would then “transition into a lasting condition at celebration’s end.”

The Ed Bacon Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the vision and legacy of former Philadelphia city planning director Edmund N. Bacon (B.Arch. ’32).AAP

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Three Art Students Study in Rome After Receiving Bean Prize Three undergraduate art students were selected as recipients of the 2010–11 Bean Prize in Fine Arts.

Christina Chaplin (B.F.A. ’12), Zhili Li (B.F.A. ’12), and Sarah Sanders (B.F.A. ’12) were chosen for the award in an exhibition juried by the art faculty and studied with the Cornell in Rome program this spring.

Chaplin, of Middletown, New Jersey, submitted four photographs to the competition from a larger series of her work. Li, of San Francisco, displayed a series of photographs, a video, and selected footage from a documentary film about Shenzhen, 5

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The trip also included tours of the Oslo National Opera and Ballet building, the National Architecture Museum, and presentations at the offices of Snøhetta and JSA. On the final day, students traveled two hours north of Oslo to Hamar to visit Sverre Fehn’s Hedmark Museum, which Paul Joran (M.Arch. ’11) described as “amazingly elegant and inspiring.” The day ended with a memorable afternoon spent at the lakefront home and studio of large-scale timber and stone sculptor Knut Wold.

“The Oslo trip was one of the most diverse and educational trips I have ever been on,” says Yazma Rajbhandary (B.Arch. ’12). “We were given the opportunity to interact with an international panel of critics, hear lectures by a range of professionals we would have otherwise never had the opportunity to see, and were then allowed to sit and admire an artist’s work in the form of his unique home. This trip solidified the goal of the studio; to show us that small-scale architecture is no less impressive and no less monumental than larger work.”AAP

China. Sanders, of Fremont, California, presented two drawings for a comic book, a photograph, and a collage.

The annual Bean Prize was established by Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bean ’43 in memory of their son, David Richard Bean ’71. David graduated from Cornell with a degree in government administration. While spending time in Europe as a student, he became enchanted with Florence and planned to study art. The prize provides financial support for travel in Europe, and each recipient of the prize is given a copy of Bean’s writings and artwork.

An exhibition of the artwork submitted by students competing for the 2010–11 Bean Prize was held in October.AAP News10 Summer2011

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Convivium: A Mode Architecture Gradua Three years ago, the curiosity of a group of architecture graduate students was piqued by a symposium. The group began to meet spontaneously to discuss the themes and issues that had been raised during the session, and after the first meeting, realized that there was a real interest in focused yet informal gatherings to discuss matters of architecture and urbanism. Convivium was officially formed.

Now, with more than 15 events to its credit and about 30 M.Arch.1, M.Arch.2, and M.A./Ph.D. student members, Convivium continues to host conversations that reach beyond the boundaries of traditional architecture programs and fields.

“The group’s first session was the result of a symposium called ‘Architecture of Disbelief,’ organized by architecture professors Jim Williamson and Mark Morris,” says Melissa Constantine (M.Arch. ’11), who, along with Kyle Jenkins (M.Arch. ’11),

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were the original co-coordinators of Convivium.

“The symposium raised questions about disciplinary speciation, the increasing presence of science and computational methods, and historical recursion—questions that lingered with many of us after the event was finished. It became clear that a forum for collective discussion was needed.”

Soon, the group invited Williamson and Morris to join the students in digging even deeper. That meeting spawned still more questions, and the formal, student-led group was established.

The first conversation with Williamson and Morris acted as a model for what has become the format for Convivium meetings: sessions follow a salon-type approach and include informal conversations accompanied by presentations, readings, exhibitions, and short excursions. Time is split equally between presentation and discourse, and while the group is encouraged to stay on topic, the

discussions often lead to adjacent or related topics which in turn lead to the development of new ideas and thinking.

“The group gives us a chance to create our own focus in architectural discourse and room to discuss these topics with our peers,” says Ph.D. student Sophie Hochhäusl, the current president of Convivium who co-leads the group with vice president Anthony Morin (M.Arch. ’11). “We look critically at what we are taught in the classroom and studio and what we think we know about architecture.

It’s important that we have a space outside the curriculum to do that, because it allows everyone to speak comfortably.”

The group meets every three weeks with a different member leading each session. This shared leadership allows for a wide variety of topics to be covered: recent sessions include “Design/Non-design,” “Ambiguity in Architecture,” “Authorship and the Role of the Architect,” and “Digital_Analog.”

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ern-day Salon for ate Students This variety is one of the strengths of the group, says Hochhäusl. “Since we have people from different disciplines in the architecture program and many different architecture schools, we learn about topics that might not otherwise be discussed within the confines of Cornell. I have learned what philosophers are read at Pratt and how these texts apply to the production of space. And I now understand how McGill University teaches digital technologies, and why community was not even something important to consider in landscape architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. This variety adds a lot of strength to the discussions and presentations.”

Convivium has also attracted prominent guest presenters, from both within and outside Cornell. Recent participants include architectural historian Mario Carpo, Professor Don Greenberg, Assistant Professor Kevin Pratt, and architecture department chair Dagmar Richter, who were all involved in the

“Digital_Analog” session; Barbara Penner, author and professor at University College London, who was interviewed for the spring 2011 session titled “Desire”; Peter Eisenman (B.Arch. ’55) and Log editor Cynthia Davidson, who came to an informal group brunch; and the editors of Princeton’s Pidgin Magazine, a publication of the graduate students of the university’s School of Architecture, who came to campus for an entire session dedicated to the publication’s creation and production.

All of the guests were asked to fit their presentations to the informal format of the group.

But Hochhäusl is quick to add, “Faculty and other guest speakers are not included in every session because we avoid hierarchical structures during these meetings. These are really discussions, where it is important that everybody feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas—student and professor alike. And although our teachers certainly have more knowledge than any of the student

participants in Convivium, the strength of this group is that we come from a variety of places, disciplines, and architectural traditions, which really enables pluralistic thought.”

Given the success of the group and the quality of the discussions that have emerged, Convivium has decided to move beyond just regular meetings. A publication that presents a survey of the topics covered in the meetings is in development, and the group hopes to have it released this summer.AAP —Rebecca Bowes

Visit the group’s website at cornellconvivium.blogspot.com for additional information about Convivium.

News10 Summer2011

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16 Faculty&Staff News

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News

Susan Christopherson continues to be a leading voice on the economic impact of potential natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale area of upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Christopherson presented highlights from her economic analysis of drilling in the area on a tour of upstate New York and Pennsylvania in November, and she was quoted in the New York Times after former New York Governor David Paterson vetoed legislation on the controversial issue in December. Christopherson also offered a spring semester workshop that explored the long-term economic consequences of natural gas drilling. On a separate topic, Christopherson gave a presentation in Seville, Spain, in February, on higher education and economic development.

She also was a presenter at the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference held in Washington, DC, in January.

Architecture’s Visiting Assistant Professor Dana Cupkova and Assistant Professor Kevin Pratt—working as EPIPHYTE Lab—collaborated on a newly built 2,200-square-foot Ithacaarea home that was highlighted during a fall 2010 Green Building Open House Tour sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension. The passive solar home for the Hsu family includes nontoxic finishes, an on-demand water heater, and a rainwater catch, and features a cast-in-place concrete heat-sink mass wall prototype and a solar-responsive siding pattern.

Professor Ann Forsyth, CRP, received a 2011 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy China Program Fellowship to conduct research on urban design and health aspects of suburban developments in Tianjin. Forsyth was also one of five finalists for the Association for European Schools of Planning (AESOP) Best Paper Prize given to a paper published in one of the 48 planning journals based in Europe.

She and coauthors K. Krizek and C. S. Slotterback were considered for their article, “Is There a Role for Evidence-Based Practice in Urban Planning and Policy?” which was published in Planning Theory and Practice (10, 4). Other recent articles published by Forsyth include: “Suburban Technopoles as Places: The International Campus-Garden-Suburb Style” in Urban Design International (15, 3:165–182); “Promoting Walking and Bicycling: Assessing the Evidence to Assist Planners” in Built Environment (36, 4:429–446); “Testing Three Health Impact Assessment Tools in Planning: A Process Evaluation” in Environmental Impact Assessment Review (31:144–153); and “Neighborhood Food Environments: Are They Associated with Adolescent Dietary Intake, Food Purchases, and Weight Status?” in Public Health Nutrition (13:1757–1763).

A book titled Japan-Africa Relations,

by Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo,

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visiting professor in CRP, was published in the spring of 2010. He also presented papers at several recent conferences: “Globalization and China in Africa: A New Political Economy Perspective” was presented at the Suffolk University Department of Government in Boston, Massachusetts, in November; “Japan’s Relationship with Africa in Post-Bipolarity: A Reflection on the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD)” was presented at the New England Political Science Association annual meeting in Newport, Rhode Island, in April 2010; and “China-Africa Relations: Neo-Imperialism or Neo-Colonialism?” was presented at the 2010 New York African Studies Annual Conference in March 2010, at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. In addition, Lumumba-Kasongo was honored at a reception at the University of Kinshasa in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo in August 2010, and was awarded the 2010 Distinguished Africanist Award at the New York State African Studies Association’s (NYASA) annual conference at Binghamton in March 2010. The Distinguished Africanist Award is given to an academic by the NYASA executive board for outstanding contributions to the field of Africana studies in New York.

Associate Professor Todd McGrain, art, has a new permanent installation in the Correllus State Forest on Martha’s Vineyard. The exhibit, the seventh in McGrain’s Lost Birds project, is a memorial to the heath hen, a bird driven to extinction in 1932. The sculpture is situated where the last bird was seen. This project is a collaboration between McGrain and the State of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. McGrain is also working on a Lost Birds documentary with Middlemarch Films, as well as a companion book.

During the summer of 2010, Chris Oliver, Rand shops assistant, was an artist-in-residence at both Art Farm in Marquette, Nebraska, and the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, New York. During each monthlong residency, he completed a permanent architectural installation: Dodge 100 Historic Recreation Site (Marquette) features a Quonset-huttype structure to create a display case for an orange 1970s pickup truck that had been sinking into the landscape for the previous 20 years, and The Path Shed (Cazenovia) is a small wooden building constructed around a section of forest without disturbing interior vegetation. The Path Shed was partially funded by a grant Oliver received from the Cornell Council for the Arts. After the summer residencies, Oliver spent the fall semester as a visiting professor of sculpture at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont, where he taught a course that explored intersections between

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In October, Professor Mildred Warner sculpture and architecture. was a panelist at the first global conference Plasti-Kool II, a collaborative exhibit of public sector unions, “Council of

by Visiting Assistant Professor Carl Global Unions—Quality Public Service Ostendarp and his wife Gail Fitzgerald, Conference,” held in Geneva, Switzerland. was included in the Boston Globe’s 2010 Warner presented her research in a panel annual “The Year’s Top 10” list of gallery titled “Privatization, Reverse Privatization, openings. The exhibit was held at the and Public Private Partnerships.” Warner Carroll and Sons Gallery in January 2010. also contributed an article to a special Assistant Professor Maria Park’s work was featured in a solo show, Counter issue of Public Administration Review on the future of public administration.

Nature 3, at Sabina Lee Gallery, Los She presented the article, titled “The Angeles, in April and May. Counter Nature Future of Local Government: 21st 1 was shown in New York City this past summer, and Counter Nature 2 was shown Century Challenges,” at a panel at the American Political Science Association in San Francisco this past fall.

Associate Professor Barry Perlus was conference in March. Professor Warner also spoke at public sector conferences a runner-up in the Photography category in Boston, Geneva, Switzerland, and at of the Fall 2010 Creative Quarterly (CQ 20) competition.

Rutgers University in the fall. Further, Visiting Critic Yehre Suh, architecture, Warner presented on “Planners’ Role in Creating Family Friendly Communities” received a grant to travel to South Korea at the International Making Cities Livable with the 12 students in her Parallel Conference in Charleston, South Carolina Utopias: Strategies of Normalcy class. in October. She received a $40,000 grant Suh’s proposal was the only winner of from the Peppercorn Foundation to further the $20,000 Rotch Travelling Studio grant her work and hosted a webinar with the selected from among 23 entries in the competition this year. The trip unfortunately Women and Planning Division of the American Planning Association in March. had to be canceled because of the Warner’s research on reverse privatization hostilities with North Korea. was selected as one of 30 exemplary Hamlets 3, a guidebook by Roger articles in the first 20 years of the Journal Trancik, professor emeritus of city of Public Administration Research and and regional planning and landscape Theory, and she was invited to serve on architecture, was published in February. the editorial board.AAP The guidebook and accompanying website are the culmination of a two-year study led by Trancik that was funded through the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s 2007 1 The work of Brooke Moyse, program coordinator for AAP NYC, was recently included Adirondack Park Community Smart Growth in an exhibit at Momenta Art in Brooklyn.

Grant Program. The smart growth grants Pink Ghost Mountains (2010), oil on canvas, for Adirondack Park communities are 14" x 18". intended to help develop plans that link 2 Hsu home designed by Dana Cupkova and concepts of sustainable development, Kevin Pratt, architecture. Photo: Susan and environmental protection, and community Jerry Kaye. livability. Hamlets 3 provides citizens, 3 Cornell researchers including Kevin Pratt (at planning boards, not-for-profit planners, and right) and Don Greenberg (second from right) are public officials in the Adirondacks with an developing computer simulation software for sustainable building design. easy to use, smart growth planning model, Photo: Jason Koski/University Photo. principles, and processes for achieving 4 Photo: Zachary Tyler Newton (M.Arch. ’10). expansion of their community centers.

Artist, Emeritus Professor Zevi Blum Dies at 77 Professor emeritus of art Zevi Blum (B.Arch. ’57), an artist whose satirical etchings are internationally known and who taught drawing in AAP from 1974 to 2002, died on February 25 of pancreatic cancer in San Francisco.

He was 77.

Blum entered Cornell as a fine arts major in 1951. After earning his degree, he worked as an architect and fine artist through the 1960s, devoting himself full time to art in 1966, with his first solo gallery shows in New York and California.

He joined Cornell as a visiting critic in the Department of Art in 1971; he joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1974, becoming associate professor in 1977.

Blum was known for the magical realism in his work and was a skilled satirist, depicting topical and political subjects, and medieval characters in many works. He created illustrations for such publications as Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, the New York Times Book Review, and Readers’ Digest. His artwork has been exhibited in the United States, Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland, among other countries; and his work is in several private and public collections, including the Vatican, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

Survivors include Blum’s wife Barbara, her daughter, and his two sons and their families.AAP

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AAP’s Digital Fabrication Technician Recognized Frank Parish, digital fabrication technician for AAP, was recently recognized by an appreciative undergraduate architecture student for his commitment to provide abundant and exceptional technical support for the students who use the digital fabrication lab. In an unsolicited email to Peter Turner, AAP assistant dean of administration, Austin Beierle (B.Arch. ’11) commented that Parish “has taken an unbelievably stressful and difficult time of the semester and managed it in a professional and compassionate way. Everyone that has used the digital equipment owes him a debt of gratitude.”

Parish manages the schedules and training of 30 student employees, who assist him with lab operations. The lab includes several laser cutters that cut and score materials such as chipboard, paper, wood, and Plexiglas. It also includes two 3D printers and a CNC milling machine.

“Please extend this thanks to the rest of the shop and lab staff as well, and to yourself for coordinating all of these players year after year,” continued Beierle in his acknowledgment of Parish’s efforts. Beierle presented a certificate of appreciation to Parish in October on behalf of the architecture students.AAP

Computer Graphics to Help Streamline Green Building Design Making a building meet sustainability requirements usually involves engineers prescribing fixes—from building orientation to ventilation systems—long after the architects have drawn up their designs.

Supported by federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), an interdisciplinary research group at Cornell is creating computer simulation software that would streamline this process, allowing architects to employ sustainable design principles from day one.

The team, which includes faculty from architecture, computer science, and mechanical engineering, has received a three-year, $1.83 million grant from the Department of Energy to continue work on their project. Their 3D simulation tool lets a building designer proactively include such information as temperature, the behavior of light, and total energy use at the start of the design process. Such factors should help cut down on the expense of consultation and the labor of going back to change a building’s design, said Don Greenberg, professor of architecture (also a professor in computer graphics and at the Johnson School) and one of the project leaders.

“You can have the greatest impact in the early stages of the design process,” Greenberg said. “You can make the big changes and see where it’s going.” Others on the project are Kevin Pratt, assistant professor of architecture, and Brandon Hencey, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

The key to sustainable design is tightly coupling a building to its environment, Pratt said. For example, a well-designed building would use natural ventilation during warm weather to eliminate the use

Mark Cruvellier, associate professor of architecture, recently published the second edition of his textbook, The Structural Basis of Architecture (Routledge). Cowritten with Arne P. Eggen and Bjørn N. Sandaker, the book is concerned with how to “see” structural forms as an integral part of architecture, and with exploring the link between mechanical forms and conceptual ideas inherent to the art of building. The authors analyze structural principles behind works by Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Sir Norman Foster, SANAA, Zaha Hadid, Snøhetta, and Santiago Calatrava, among others.

This new edition is completely updated and rewritten, covers an expanded range of topics, and includes many worked-out examples inspired by built projects.AAP

Art chair Iftikhar Dadi’s 2010 book, Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia, published by University of North Carolina Press, was the subject of a March review in Art in America magazine.

The lengthy review by art historian Saloni Mathur called the book a “substantive response” to the absence of “sustained engagement with theory or criticism” in Pakistani contemporary art.

Dadi’s book also recently received an American Institute of Pakistan Studies Annual Book Award 2010.AAP

Jim Williamson, a visiting associate professor of architecture, has coedited and contributed to an anthology of essays about the influence of religion on Western modern and contemporary architecture.

The book, The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture: A Reader, published in February by Routledge, examines the relationship between religion and architecture from the late 19th century to the present. Williamson also recently published an essay in the online journal Places titled “What Passes for Beauty: A Death in Texas,” which describes his assignment to design a grave site while a young intern at an architectural firm in Midland, Texas.AAP

of air conditioning. The simulation tool will allow designers to immediately understand all aspects of the building environment and to cut energy use and, ultimately, the carbon footprint.

“If you’re just generically designing a building, you always have the option of putting mechanical systems in and pumping it full of energy,” Pratt said. “But that’s not really a viable design process anymore.”

The collaboration was first funded in 2008, by the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future Academic Venture Fund. The grant allowed the researchers to create a working prototype of their software. In their next phase of research, the group plans to continue perfecting their system, as well as test it with architecture firms and on campus buildings.

Recent advances in computer graphics technology will likely accelerate these types of simulation computations by orders of magnitude in the near future, Greenberg said. The program now functions on a cloud of computers at Cornell’s Program of Computer Graphics, running multiple parallel simulations. In several years, said Pratt, most architecture firms will have the computing capability to run such complex models in their offices.

The group is also looking to expand their software to display the simulation results on large-scale multitouch devices, as opposed to just a standard interface.

A prototype is being worked on by Lars Schumann, a member of the research team.

The stimulus funds will support seven years of student research, and roughly two postdoctoral associate positions. To date, Cornell in Ithaca has received 159 ARRA awards, totaling more than $113 million.AAP

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After an 8-year hiatus, the Cornell Journal of Architecture (CJoA) relaunched in January with exhibitions and events in John Hartell Gallery in Ithaca, and an “interrogation” and exhibition at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City (above). As part of Storefront’s interrogation series, contributors to the CJoA asked each other questions about their articles. The Journal is available for purchase on Amazon.com and in select bookstores.AAP Read excerpts and access scans of previous issues at cornelljournalofarchitecture.cornell.edu.

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18 Alumni News 1

1 Niall Atkinson. Photo: Beth Rooney/University of Chicago.

2 Students and alumni visit the studio of Peter Gerakaris. Photo: Mark Gibian.

3 Sarah Carpenter’s Synchronous (by nature) / (2010), ink and gouache on paper, 60" x 44 1/2".

Alumnus Highlights City Building in University of Chicago’s Art 101 For years,

Preparation at Cornell

college students have taken Introduction to Art, or Art 101, to fulfill their core requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. At some schools, the course offers a sweeping, chronological survey of major Western artworks from the caves of Lascaux to the kitsch of Jeff Koons. But starting in 2008 at the University of Chicago, a revamped version of the course makes it more collaborative, predictable, and engaging for faculty and students.

For the new course, instructors build their syllabus by selecting from a set of nine thematic modules created by colleagues in the department. Each module is short and can be covered in a week or two. The topics—funerary art in classical Athens, medieval sacred versus secular love, and Chinese painting and calligraphy among others—reflect faculty research interests.

For Niall Atkinson (Ph.D. HAUD ’09), who joined the faculty this past August as a Neubauer family assistant professor in art history, that meant designing a new module on the art of city building.

Cities are at the heart of Atkinson’s scholarship; he wrote his dissertation on architecture and urban space in late medieval and early Renaissance Florence. His module—the first to focus on architecture—looks at utopian approaches to city planning and the ways people experienced urban environments in different times and places.

For course readings, he’s steering students toward innovative historiography like Diane Favro’s recreation of a walk through Rome in 52 BC. Atkinson also likes primary sources, believing that Walter Benjamin’s essays on 19th-century Paris and Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto provide a stronger sense of time, place, and attitude than a survey textbook can.

To round out his syllabus, Atkinson has chosen five modules prepared by colleagues who have taught or are currently teaching their own sections of Art 101. Before classes began, he met with fellow instructors and adapted lesson plans, lecture notes, images, and readings they had uploaded to a shared Web space. “This is a course which is, in a way, built the way a wiki is built,” he says.

“That is, course content can be refined as participating faculty alter existing modules and expanded when they create new ones.”

By emphasizing critical concepts rather than names or dates, Atkinson aims to give students “not only the tools with which they can confront objects in a museum but also an apparatus with which they can interpret the visual world around them.”

Adapted from an original story by Elizabeth Station that appeared in The Core, a supplement to the University of Chicago Magazine. Excerpted with permission.AAP

The collaborative and less restrained approaches that Niall Atkinson employs in his teaching at the University of Chicago have their roots in the training he received as a grad student at Cornell. Here, he had the opportunity to create his own curriculum and range widely through multiple departments and disciplines.

The freedom was “terrifying at first,” he says.

He recalls early conversations with faculty and students that showed a willingness to embrace different approaches to even the most traditional of topics, like his focus on the experience of urban space in the Italian Renaissance.

As an undergraduate, Atkinson was immersed in contemporary theory and public art of the 80s and 90s. Feeling “groundless historically,” he became interested in applying some of that thinking to the urban condition of the Renaissance.

“Cornell was taking a chance on me when I said I wanted to apply contemporary art theory to the urban condition of the Renaissance—a field which tends to be more archivally based and more positivist in method,” he says.

Atkinson credits the HAUD program at Cornell, and especially his adviser, Associate Professor Medina Lasansky, for having Ph.D. students “build the foundations of a rigorous intellectual engagement with the discipline when they first get here” so that they can confidently move on to potentially more adventurous approaches to their graduate education.

“So,” he says, “while the types of cross-disciplinary scholarship that define my work might be considered a bit transgressive at many institutions, I was lucky enough not to be hindered by those traditions at Cornell. And that approach has really helped make my teaching in Chicago a success.”AAP

Second Alumni Artists’ Tour a Success There was a strong student and alumni turnout for the second annual alumni artists’ studio tour, which took place on January 9, in New York City. The tour was initiated by the AAP advisory council’s career committee led by Jill Lerner (B.Arch. ’75) and organized by Mark Gibian (B.F.A. ’77).

The tour included visits to the studios of Maria Calandra (M.F.A. ’06), Erik den Breejen (M.F.A ’06), Peter Gerakaris (B.F.A. ’03), Gibian, and Jill Magid (B.F.A. ’95). Artists showed their current work, reflected on their Cornell experiences, and offered insight about their career paths, both academically and professionally.

“It’s a win-win opportunity to get this group together annually to see Cornell artists’ studios,” says Gibian. “It’s beneficial on many levels: uniting alumni and aligning them more closely with Cornell, and providing students with a network and an idea of how to proceed once they graduate. All this in addition to the pleasure of meeting and visiting interesting artists and seeing their work in the studio environment.”

Calandra was happy to connect with current students and

Susan B. Boyle (M.R.P. ’82) Jennifer Cecere (B.F.A. ’73) Kimberly (M.Arch. ’96) Jungwoo Ji (M.Arch. ’09) Sam Jury (M.F.A. ’98) Richard Me Page (M.F.A. ’75) Brian Pinkett (B.Arch. ’90) Stacy Latt Savage (M.F.A (Ph.D. CRP ’01) Julio Torres-Santana (B.Arch. ’10) José Fernando V Wong (B.Arch. ’80) James Zver (M.F.A. ’69) To see recent news and notes from these C68303.indd 20

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19 A new book by

David J. Lynn (M.R.P. ’88), Emerging Market Real Estate Investment, offers an approach to commercial real estate investment in the growing markets of China, India, and Brazil. Lynn focuses on investment themes and strategies as well as the economic, legal, and institutional environment of each country. Also included are in-depth, country-specific chapters that look at the main features of each real estate market, including real estate foreign direct investment, and an analysis of the four or five primary real estate sectors in each country.AAP

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alumni. “The students’ questions were very to the point, and I also really enjoyed sharing the work with Cornell alumni,” she says. “It’s a great thing to be part of a group that has been so fruitful since graduating.”

“Close friends that I made at Cornell in the art, music, and various social scenes formed a ‘support group’ that contributed significantly to my survival as a young artist in NYC,” says Gerakaris. “It has been rewarding to share some of these experiences with new students—from the survival stories of crashing on warehouse floors to fortuitous encounters with influential art collectors.

Although a life in the arts is no walk in the park, it can be incredibly exciting and addictive: for better or worse, it’s the kind of thing that chooses you, not the other way around.”

Feedback from the students was also positive. “Going on this studio tour and seeing a community of artists was a truly inspiring and important part of my education,” says Roxanne Yamins (B.F.A. ’11).AAP Anyone interested in participating as an artist or attendee of the January 2012 tour should contact Mark Gibian at mark@markgibian.com.

Post-bac Exhibition Sarah Carpenter (B.F.A. ’10), Mollie Miller (B.F.A. ’10), and Andrew Schwartz (B.F.A. ’10) were the featured artists at the annual Post-baccalaureate Exhibition in New York City in January. The Post-baccalaureate Exhibition is a commendation awarded annually by art faculty to those graduating B.F.A. thesis students whose work is most consistently engaged within the context of a professional art practice. In the year after graduation, recipients curate, install, and showcase new work in an exhibit at AAP NYC. All three of this year’s recipients are currently working and living in New York City. Carpenter is training and working as a printmaker at Burnet Editions, where she is engaged in the collaborative process of working with artists in the production of intaglio print editions; Miller is pursuing an associate’s degree in fashion design at The New School; and Schwartz is an assistant in the studio of painter David Reed.

“We were under immense pressure to live up to a gallery space in New York, and took very seriously the chance to expose our work to colleagues, other artists, AAP students, faculty, and alumni and even potential buyers,” says Carpenter. “The turnout and positive response were more than we hoped for.”AAP 3

Michael Manfredi’s (M.Arch.’80) firm Weiss/Manfredi recently won the 2011 American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture for the Diana Center, a 98,000-square-foot multipurpose arts building at Barnard College in New York City. Located on Broadway, the seven-story Diana Center establishes a new nexus for social, cultural, and intellectual life on campus and within the city. The building is home to the departments of architecture, art history, visual arts, and theater, and includes architecture and painting studios, a 500-seat events space, black box theatre, café, dining room, reading room, classrooms, and exhibition galleries.

The Diana Center has achieved a LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. The building has also been recognized with a Progressive Architecture Award, AIA Award of Excellence, and AIA Best in New York State Award. Photo: Albert Vecerka/Esto.AAP

y Dowdell (B.Arch. ’06) Anthony Graves (M.F.A. ’09) Eric Höweler Meier (B.Arch. ’57) Aryan Crawford Omar (B.Arch. ’00) Barbara F.A. ’96) Andrea Strongwater (B.F.A. ’70) Michelle Thompson Vázquez-Pérez (B.Arch. ’95) Laura Wernick (B.Arch. ’77) Janine se and other alumni, visit aap.cornell.edu/alumni/news.

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Rendering of the view from the ferris wheel in B+H’s proposed design for the Ontario Palace revitalization project in Toronto.

Arch Alum Finds Success Designing in the Middle East The middle of an Iraqi war zone isn’t where an up-andcoming Toronto architect expects to land his next job, but Patrick Fejér (M.Arch. ’97) will be heading there soon to pitch his proposed design for a commercial redevelopment zone in Basra. The project was commissioned by an Iraqi official interested in restoring the city to its past glory as a cultural capital. And, at its center will be one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces reconfigured as a museum. Other elements of Fejér’s proposal include a marina, office buildings, a 20-story hotel, botanical gardens, convention center, and a contemporary retail bazaar.

“They’re trying to figure out how to create a green zone where foreign investors can come in and not worry about safety,” Fejér says. He planned a trip to Basra last fall but escalating violence in the region made that impossible. “It’s calmer now, and the project is still on.”

Less volatile parts of the Mideast have also proven fertile ground for Fejér, who is a partner at Torontobased architecture and design firm B+H. He and his team recently designed the Sharjah Jewel, a mixeduse tower in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, located at the edge of the Al Mamzar Lagoon that separates Sharjah from Dubai. The 60-story tower, approved by the sheikh of Sharjah himself, has a hinge-like design whereby the hotel component appears to open out and swing away from the main body of the office and residential tower. “His Highness (Sheikh Sharjah) thought the building might split in half, but we did get the job,” Fejér says, laughing.

Fejér’s career as a standout architect started very early, with his first big break coming while interning at the Los Angeles office of NBBJ during his Cornell graduate years. He was part of a team of 13 competing to win the design for the Staples Center sports arena in

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downtown L.A. NBBJ won the project, which became the firm’s largest-ever public commission, and when they recruited Fejér back after graduation, he became the project leader. The unique design, a departure from the typical box-shaped arena, comprises five buildings with open-air concourses that open to 85-foot-high lobbies, creating an interplay between the building’s interiors and exteriors. Some of the concourses open to the L.A. skyline, giving it a context within the larger city. The arena opened in 1999.

After the success of the Staples Center build, Fejér was presented with an opportunity to work on a very different type of project. His father, a real estate developer, obtained rights to convert the Gresham Palace in Budapest into a Four Seasons hotel and invited Fejér to join the team. The project’s mission was to retain the historical integrity of the palace while adding 21st-century amenities. Fejér and his wife, Kai, a 1998 graduate of the School of Hotel Administration, recruited a select team, hired a qualified Hungarian architect, and over the next few years successfully converted the 1907 palace into what is now considered one of the finest hotels in Europe. The $85-million renovation made use of existing sculptures and facade stones, metal decoration, stained glass windows, roof, ornaments, ceramic tiles, mosaics, stucco decoration, and wrought iron.

Fejér credits the rigor of Cornell’s design studio with preparing him for his career as an architect, particularly as project leader for the Staples Center, which he managed to secure at only 24 years of age. Fejér says that despite his young age he felt far more capable than some of his colleagues from other schools.

“We could all speak about theories, but when it came time to apply those theories and concepts, they were spinning their wheels because they didn’t have as

much practice as I did,” Fejér says. “They couldn’t put their ideas to paper as well as the Cornell grads.”

Cornell’s demanding environment also gave Fejér the courage and perseverance to move through difficult projects and to stay committed to his education.

“Professor Jerry Wells would really push us and wasn’t exactly politically correct in his critiques,” Fejér says. “Sometimes I’ll get asked today where I get my tenacity, and I think back to Jerry. If you accepted his challenge and stuck with it, then you got the praise.”

After the Gresham Palace project was completed, Fejér was recruited by B+H, a global company that had done several joint ventures with famous architects, including Mies van der Rohe and Daniel Libeskind, but is not yet very well known for its own designs.

Impressed by Fejér’s experience and looking to raise their profile a bit, the practice gave him carte blanche to rebrand the entire firm.

One of Fejér’s first orders of business: recreating the studio environment that he experienced at Cornell, so that the creative personnel and more technical people could share ideas and brainstorm. “The intensity of the Cornell design studio basically created the DNA for how I approach almost every design aspect of my professional projects,” Fejér says. “I want to recreate aspects of that same environment in B+H. I think it will take the firm to the next level, whether it’s designing in Toronto or Basra.”AAP —Nancy Rowe

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Hannah Levy (B.F.A. ’13), untitled (2010), silicone, 26" x 26". For Carl Ostendarp’s Painting II studio.

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Cornell University 129 Sibley Dome Ithaca, NY 14853-6701 aap.cornell.edu

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