
Search results for "Syracuse University School of Architecture"


School for the City
Dutch activists launch new school for urbanism and migration

Close to the Edge at the Center
Archtober 2018 kicks off with Hip-Hop Architecture exhibition

Theory vs. Practice
What happened to speculation in architecture?

Mind Over Matter
AN remembers Diane Lewis
To walk the streets of a city with Diane meant to be move slowly and with focus, and to often come to a complete standstill when the discussion at hand was primary over all else. This immersion was in striking contrast to her gait and quickness in the halls of Cooper Union and her brisk efficiency in the orchestration of a construction site. She lived in accord with the tenets of her practice and her teaching, and her intellectual rigor and intensity were applied to all endeavors. She believed deeply in the necessary confrontation of the existing with the ideal. The rub of dueling conditions as the source of artistic inspiration was a concept for Diane that spanned from Dante’s Divine Comedy (the introduction to our course at Pratt) to how she engaged the eccentricities of building within a given condition. To work alongside Diane on the job site was a demonstration of architecture as both an art in form and a theater piece with a unique casting call and stage directions in a whirlwind toward exquisite results. In the center was Diane, always a cutting sight in her effortless, yet careful wardrobe and its accents; the most important were her eyeglasses. She had wanted glasses since an early age and was thrilled when they became a necessity.
Diane’s ability to enjoy life was to make the best possible conditions for living, eating, thinking—whatever happened to be the pursuit of the moment. She had a gusto for food and ate with the same enjoyment and abandon as when she watered the garden at one of her many 9th street studio locations, a bit messy but with pure joy, flinging water so that it hit not only the plants but also the table she designed and the chairs and cushions. She was a talented cook and brought recipes from all over the world back to the studio, where she would regret that we did not have a dedicated chef on staff as Scarpa had when she visited his Venetian studio in the ’70s. Decades later when we visited Venice she insisted the first act must be to go immediately to Harry’s Bar, which was filled with Carnival revelers.
Wherever Diane lived it was always in a work of architecture, whether by her own hand or by selection. She would spend the summers in Long Island renting the guesthouse from Charles Gwathmey’s mother, and she lived for many years on a floor in William Lescaze’s townhouse on 48th street, where she was later married. In a metropolitan style, she had simply stopped by and made an inquiry to his widow if there were rooms for rent; Diane later designed an addition to her D.C. residence. Diane would note that she saw the principals of Hejduk’s Wall House in the Lescaze townhouse. Her intrinsic ability to see the lineages of work and continuity of thought allowed her to absorb, project, and hypothesize. She created a literary a-chronological world of architecture that is both deeply engaging and spectacularly liberating.
As a professor she preserved the sanctity and dignity of the students and adhered to the highest aspirations of academic sovereignty. She treated us with respect and demanded a critical forum for the discussion of work, investing in each student close readings as well as the independence to shape our studio projects. Under her teaching team, our class, and many others, created spectacular work from both expected and unexpected sources. Her gravitational field pulled people from near and afar: My friend and classmate Jack immediately applied to Cooper after having Diane during her tenure in the Hyde Chair at the University of Nebraska. Diane herself applied to Cooper as an art student at the recommendation of George Segal, whom she met in Syracuse in a high school summer program. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners’ Everson Museum of Art was in construction nearby; they would be second firm she would work for after initiating her professional career in the office of Richard Meier.
Most striking about Diane was her precise language, her careful articulation and her prescience to the gulf between thought and speech. Her unrelenting attention to meaning and complete absorption in structure were a means to penetrate through the contrived and conventional. Diane demanded that we engage the world not as it is, but as it should be. She entitled an unfinished book, Mind Over Matter.

Instagram Eavesdrop
Bjarke goes west and other updates from the architects of Instagram
Olson Kundig sent this update from Dornbirn, Áustria, where one of its employees is participating in a two-week Earthwork Building Workshop. The course is part of the firm's traveling fellowship program.
David Adjaye was in Port of Spain, Trinidad and admiring the Hasely Crawford stadium, which was completed in 1982.
Bjarke Ingels found his way to the set of HBO's Westworld—we think it's the Melody Ranch in Santa Clarita, California—and that didn't stop him from enjoying other uniquely West Coast diversions, like this high tech–styled dune buggy.
Spanish architect Andrés Jaque re-grammed this glorious drawing from his Advanced Design Studio at Columbia's GSAPP.
And while we're on student work, Michael Speaks, dean of Syracuse University's School of Architecture, was proud to show oodles of models and drawings produced by high school students during Syracuse's summer architecture program.
The Art Institute of Chicago's Zoë Ryan teased the upcoming exhibit Past Forward: Architecture and Design at the Art Institute, with exhibition design by Julia di Castri, visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Last but not least, WORKac Co-founder Dan Wood posted this preview of his firm's contribution to the upcoming Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Mister Massey
Jonathan Massey named dean of University of Michigan Architecture and Urban Planning

Studio Visit
From China to Long Island, see Gluckman Tang’s recently completed and on-the-boards projects
The clean, white-walled exhibition space, the now-preferred one for displaying art, did not materialize overnight, as Mark Wigley and others show in their histories of exhibition design. Sheetrocked walls with smooth, joint-compounded planes, set inside an old industrial building with clear polyurethane wood floors, exposed beams, and metal straps, can be traced back to the 1980s.
One of the first interior spaces to show the power of these minimalist white-walled spaces was likely the Dia Art Foundation at 548 West 22nd Street in Chelsea, New York, designed in 1985. This space was designed by Richard Gluckman, who can—as much as any other architect—be credited with creating spaces influenced by the minimalist art of the period.
His firm, now Gluckman Tang Architects (Dana Tang, who has worked in the office since 1995, became his partner in 2015), has built on this minimalism-inspired base of design ideas with 22 employees that design scores of major projects. In the last three years they have become a truly global practice with important projects on three continents. Gluckman Tang always seems to have an impressive portfolio of museums, galleries, and institutional projects on the boards. It, like any firm, doesn’t realize all of its commission or competition entries, but it is clear that it is a firm that institutions trust to create an appropriate and workable spaces, like: the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, and the Zhejiang University Art and Archaeology Museum in China. Gluckman, whose first major New York project was a townhouse for Heiner Friedrich and Philippa de Menil in 1977, has also built on this foundation to create scores of lofts, private homes, and other residential projects since the 1970s. Gluckman Tang seems to have hit a sweet spot as an office with a manageable number of employees and a reputation that ensures that they will continue to interview with enviable clients offering desirable, even glamorous, commissions. William Menking
Dineen Hall, Syracuse University College of Law Syracuse, New York
Dineen Hall is a new 200,000-square-foot facility that anchors Syracuse University’s West campus expansion with a distinctive five-story state-of-the-art building for the College of Law. A central atrium at the main level visibly linking the core elements—a library, a celebratory space, a ceremonial courtroom—is positioned beneath a green roof that creates a seasonal outdoor terrace, with the skylit vertical axis introducing natural light throughout the building. The iconic ceremonial courtroom will be visible from inside and outside the building, signifying the law school’s inherent accessibility and transparency. De Maria Pavilion Long Island, New York This is the second Gluckman Tang–designed single-artist exhibition structure on this Long Island estate (the firm created the earlier Noguchi Garden Pavilion in 2004). A board-formed concrete interior frames a selection of Walter De Maria works, and is naturally lit by a large skylight and window-wall. A brick exterior references the 1920s garden wall. Zhejiang University Museum of Art and Archaeology Zhejiang Sheng, China This facility is a teaching museum that supports research and study of the arts on a campus for Zhejiang University. The contemporary design alludes to various aspects of traditional Chinese architecture and garden design. It brings together three major elements—public exhibition, art study and storage, and academics. The museum’s entry and lobby overlook a garden along a canal to the south. The four-story academic wing has its own entry facing the new campus to the north, and contains the library, auditorium, classrooms, seminar rooms, study centers, conservation lab, and education center.
Curve Control
2016 Best of Design Award for Temporary Installation: Rounds by SPORTS
2016 Best of Design Award for Temporary Installation: Rounds
Architect: SPORTS Location: Lake Forest, IL
Rounds is a temporary plywood theater pavilion created for an artist colony just north of Chicago. It was the winner of the Adrian Smith Prize, which is sponsored by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and included a $15,000 production grant and a ten-person, design-build residency for three weeks at Ragdale. Departing from the bandshell structure and stage most commonly deployed in this setting, Rounds establishes a dynamic and playful performance surface. Small-scale curves in the ring’s ribbon-like design act as lounge spaces while mid-scale waves serve both as covered stage areas and portals to the inner space of the ring. The largest undulation is designed for the main stage area, which can be broken down into smaller parts and distributed around the ring for several concurrent performances.
Additional support for the project was provided by Syracuse University School of Architecture and W.E. O’Neil.
Build Team Greg Corso, Molly Hunker, Jordan Nelson, Nick Zukauskas, Kevin Lenhart, Preston Welker, Sean Morgan, Dabota Wilcox, Jon Anthony, Monika England, Kokeith Perry, Sarah Beaudoin
Engineer Arup
Landscape Architect Rosborough Partners Fabrication Consultant Knowhow Shop Exterior Finish Stuc-O-Flex Honorable Mention, Temporary Installation: Floating The WallerArchitect: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Location: Austin, TX
This installation of 200 empty illuminated inner tubes floating on Austin’s Waller Creek was conceived to highlight the need for improving water quality, ecological health, and public accessibility in urban waterways.
Honorable Mention, Temporary Installation: Town Branch Water Walk
Architect: SCAPE Landscape Architecture Location: Lexington, KY
The design intervention is not a physical landscape, but a communication tool conceived with the Lexington, Kentucky, Downtown Development Authority. A self-guided podcast tour of the Town Branch Culvert gives a broad understanding of the biophysical area, reveals the invisible waters beneath the city, and demonstrates the impacts each resident can have.

Meet the Met
Building of the Day: The Met Breuer
The Met Breuer, which opened in March of this year, houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s expanding modern and contemporary collections within its modest 29,000 square feet of exhibition space. When the Met moved into the building, its main goals were to restore and rejuvenate the space while still preserving the patina of the past. To that end, the Met gave the former Whitney the kind of exacting precision and gentle care it uses on its most treasured art objects.
That precision and care resulted in a building that both honors Breuer’s original vision and updates the space to meet the challenges of contemporary museums. The Met enlisted the help of Beyer Blinder Belle, a firm that specializes in the revitalization of historic buildings and has significant experience with the restoration of other midcentury modernist icons (Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport and Wallace Harrison’s Lincoln Center Promenade are two great examples). The restoration of the building took just under a year.
The updates that the Met and Beyer Blinder Belle incorporated show an informed understanding of Breuer’s subtle, graceful materiality and his ingenious structural engineering. A multitude of restoration and revitalization techniques needed to be devised for the various materials used in the building, which includes terrazzo, concrete, walnut parquet, and the famed gray granite exterior. The bluestone floors were treated with a natural, black wax to bring a soft luster while the walls, which required both chemical cleaners and water, were treated with a gentle, painterly approach. Breuer designed with the effects of time on materials in mind. The Met and Beyer Blinder Belle followed this example by leaving the bronze handrails of the staircase unfinished, allowing them to show their wear.
The lobby showcases the updates made for a contemporary museum with greater visitor numbers. The space was completely redesigned with multiple ticket sales points, self-service kiosks, and a substantially decreased retail footprint. Additionally, the lighting in the lobby has been updated to Breuer bulbs that can dim and provide a warmer uniformity of color temperature. The plexiglass and stone information center originally installed has been changed to a LED screen.
For the time being, the Met and the Whitney share ownership of the building. The Met will occupy the Breuer masterpiece for eight years, with a possible extension to 15 should the Met Breuer prove to be a success.
Despite its fame, the Breuer building is not a New York City landmark. Perhaps with a new tenant and renewed interest in the space, the building will get the recognition it deserves. Otherwise, its fate will be another question for the city and architecture lovers, should the Met end up vacating.
About the author: Anna Gibertini is a freelance journalist based in the New York metropolitan area. She contributes regularly to The ArtBlog, a Philadelphia-based arts and culture publication, and has had work published in Charleston, South Carolina’s Post & Courier and Syracuse, New York’s The Post Standard. She recently graduated from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications with a master’s in arts journalism.

Space Savvy
Building of the Day: the Pivot apartment

Thin Mint
SPORTS’s giant green ribbon lands in Chicago’s north suburbs
A glimpse of a bright green form caught my eye as I missed the driveway of the Ragdale Foundation estate north of Chicago. A red Ferrari was close behind my rental car, and I couldn’t slow down in time to make the turn. The 50-acre Ragdale estate is situated in the wooded Lake Forest community, home to some of Chicago’s wealthiest families. The green apparition I spotted was this year’s Ragdale Ring.
The Ragdale Ring is a temporary open-air theater designed each year by winners of the foundation’s Adrian Smith Prize. This year’s iteration, designed by Syracuse-based SPORTS, is entitled Rounds. Fittingly, the installation is an undulating arching ribbon creating a perfect 70-foot diameter circle in plan. Nestled in a clearing in the forested front of the estate, the piece ties into its surroundings with curving archways. The arches rise to different heights, forming varied elevated seating areas, passages to the center, and one large space designated for a stage. Each arch responds to different conditions around the site, such as the main house, the residency building, or an entry path. The mint green color is vibrant, yet complementary to its verdant surroundings.
Thanks to engineering assistance from Arup, the piece is constructed out of waffled framed plywood and stands with no visible support. Landscape architects Rosborough Partners prepared the site with subtle rises where the ribbon hits the ground—combined with a meticulous paint job, it is hard to understand exactly how the ring was built, even when standing close. The result is the appearance that the entire ring was brought as one piece, maybe dropped on the site by some playful aliens.
SPORTS is a design collaboration between architects Greg Corso and Molly Hunker, faculty members at the Syracuse School of Architecture. Corso, Hunker, and a small team lived at Ragdale for three weeks in order to construct Rounds. The Adrian Smith Prize provides a $15,000 production grant and Ragdale provides room and board for the entire team, who also takes part in communal dinners and has access to the property’s forest and prairies.
The Ragdale property was originally the country home of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. Shaw was also the designer of the original Ragdale Ring in 1912. That first open air theater was specifically designed for his playwright wife. This year’s ring is the fourth since Ragdale initiated a program to reimagine the original in 2013. Now an international competition, it calls for designs that “explore intersections of architecture, sculpture, landscape, design, public art, and performance disciplines.”
Ragdale is not normally open to the public. The property is kept private to provide space for its nearly 200 annual residents to work without interruption. Fortunately, the public can experience Rounds in person—tickets are available to the public for a small number of performances throughout the late summer. The next of these will be a jazz concert August 18. What better way to finish a picturesque drive through Chicago’s mansion-filled north suburbs, than with a jazz concert in an uncannily mint green theater?