THE IRWIN S. CHANIN
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE 
The Cooper 
Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

News & Events 

 

Lectures This Week: Sarah Oppenheimer | Mersiha Veledar
2013 Eleanore Pettersen Lecture: Sarah Wigglesworth
Upcoming Lectures
Lecture Series by Dr. Steward Pickett
Student Opportunity: Africa Trip
New Opportunities: Mellon Fellowship | 2013 Ideas City
Faculty & Alumni News
LESSONS FROM MODERNISM:
Environmental Design Considerations in 20th Century Architecture,
1925 - 1970  
On View
JAN 29-MAR 16      

 

Lessons From Modernism examines selected works of architecture completed between 1925-1970 through the lens of sustainability.  
 
 

  

Image: Installation view

THIS WEEK
2013 STUDENT LECTURE SERIES
Sarah Oppenheimer: FE-5
FEB 21 at 6:30PM
RM 315
7 E. 7 Street     
 
Oppenheimer's Typology of Holes begins with the premise that the specificity of site can be extended from the particular to the general. This generality (for us, the inheritors and inhabitants of modern space) is the arrangement of spatial zones that abut and overlap in a mappable way. Holes alter this arrangement, functioning as a catalyst for the transformation of the perceptual experience of the occupant. The hole is an active blurring of the (architectural) distinction between zones. 

Oppenheimer's work has been shown nationally and internationally. Recent projects include the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Warhol Museum, Art Unlimited at Art Basel, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Saint Louis Art Museum, Mattress Factory, Skulpturens Hus (Stockholm), The Drawing Center, and Sculpture Center. She is the recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award, and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship among others. Oppenheimer is a critic at the Yale University School of Art.
 

THIS WEEK

SPRING 2013 FACULTY TALKS
Mersiha Veledar  
FEB 22 at 6:30PM
RM 315
7 E. 7 Street     

ARCHITECTURE HEALS

Mersiha Veledar, member of the Design IV faculty teaching team, will present a lecture on her early works as a young architect through which she examined various forms of political traces, man-made and nature-made induced disasters and their projected design solutions.

Born in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mersiha received her Bachelors in Architecture from The Cooper Union [2003] and her Masters of Architecture II from Princeton University [2005]. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, and in publications and exhibitions. Since 2005, she has been teaching design at The Cooper Union and practicing architecture in New York City.

Free and Open to The Cooper Union Faculty/Students/Staff


NEXT WEEK

2013 ELEANORE PETTERSEN LECTURE
Sarah Wigglesworth 
FEB 28, 7pm
Great Hall
7 E. 7 Street     
Since founding her London-based practice in 1994, Sarah Wigglesworth has developed a reputation for bringing great design to ecological buildings with innovative materials. At the heart of her firm's interest in sustainability is a professed desire to help things run more efficiently, improve people's well being, and make life more enjoyable.

Published and award winning projects include 9/10 Stock Orchard Street, the Sandal Magna Community Primary School, and the Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, among others (see images of all of these projects in the slideshow above). Together with her partner, Jeremy Till, Wigglesworth was the first architect to be awarded the Fulbright Arts Fellowship. In 2004, she was awarded the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Wigglesworth currently teaches at Sheffield University.

Image: SWA-Siobhan Davies Dance Studios | photo: Richard Bryant/Arcaid 

SAVE THE DATE

PANEL DISCUSSION 
MAR 7, 6:30pm
Great Hall
7 E. 7 Street     
The Development, Design and Construction Committee of The Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce presents:

The panel discussion will feature:
John Catsimatidis, Owner and CEO, the Red Apple Group and Gristedes; Candidate for NYC Mayor
Kenneth Knuckles, President and CEO of UMEZ and Vice Chairman of the New York City Planning Commission
Julie Menin, former Community Board 1 Chair; Candidate for Manhattan Borough President
Edward J. Minskoff, President of Edward J. Minskoff Equities, Inc.

Moderated by Louis Katsos, Jekmar Associates, Inc., Professor Adjunct, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture

This event is sponsored by The Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce and The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, in association with the Albanian-American Chamber of Commerce, Cyprus-US Chamber of Commerce Jamaican-American Chamber of Commerce and the Russian- American Chamber of Commerce as a benefit for The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.

Reception and Informal Conversation With the Panelists to Follow 
 


AROUND SCHOOL | THIS WEEK 
EVOCATIVE
Sam Harrington and Sue Van Hook
FEB 22, 6pm
RM 215
7 E. 7 Street    

Ecovative has spent five years developing an alternative to plastics that are grown using fungi and agricultural waste. Sam Harrington and Sue Van Hook of Ecovative will talk about the inspiration and thinking behind these materials from two perspectives: biology/mycology and engineering/design. These environmentally responsible innovations are influenced by natural systems design, and utilize billions of years of natural R&D.

FREE and Open to the Public 
 
Presented by The New York Mycological Society and The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design 
 
 

AROUND SCHOOL
CITIES IN CRISIS: 
ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Dr. Steward Pickett
FEB 11 - MAR 18
All lectures at 6:30PM
The Great Hall
7 E. 7 Street    

On the one hand, cities can be the epitome of sustainability, reaping the benefits of proximity, efficiency, and innovation.  On the other hand, they can be graveyards of dreams and sources of contamination. In Cities In Crisis: Ecological Transformations, six lectures at The Cooper Union, Dr. Steward Pickett, past President of the Ecological Society of America and a plant ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, will present an integrated view of cities from an ecological perspective and explore the frontiers of promoting the transformation of a more sustainable urban trajectory.

FEB 11 | Globalization and the Changing City
FEB 18 | Cities as Ecosystems
FEB 25 |  Natural Disturbance and the City
MAR 04 | From Sanitary to Sustainable City
MAR 11 | Ecology for Urban Design
MAR 18 | A Land Ethic for the Urban Era

FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

 

STUDENT OPPORTUNITY

THE 9TH COOPER UNION 
TRIP TO AFRICA
SUMMER 2013  
 
Open to students from the Schools of Art, Architecture and Engineering, the ninth Cooper Union trip to Africa will take place during the summer of 2013 leaving New York City around mid-May. The principal research themes for the upcoming trip are light (Cooper Union's own SociaLite), emergency shelter for refugees (Cooper Union's own RAMESSES), a new steam engine being developed by a Cooper alumnus, currently in Ghana on a Fulbright scholarship and the role of technology and its impact on rural communities, especially from the perspective of women.

Students will spend much of their time living in these remote rural communities to investigate and understand first hand the supply and usage of these resources 'at the end of the dirt road'. Living conditions will be very spartan. With generous support from the President's Office, SEA2M3 will offer a limited number of travel bursaries. All participants are required to spend a minimum of nine weeks in Ghana and should be aware that they will not have access to many of the resources we take for granted in this country.

Numbers for the trip are limited and preference will be given to those in their junior year. 

To learn more about the trip, please contact: Professor Toby Cumberbatch (Electrical Engineering) [email protected] or [email protected], +1 212 353 4332 
 


OPEN CALLS & OPPORTUNITIES 
DEADLINE TODAY!! THE ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE PRIZE FOR YOUNG ARCHITECTS + DESIGNERS: RANGE | Young architects and designers are invited to submit work to the annual Architectural League Prize Competition. Projects of all types, either theoretical or real, and executed in any medium, are welcome. The jury will select work for presentation in lectures, digital media, and an exhibition in June 2013. Winners will receive a cash prize of $1,000. A catalogue of winning work will be published by the Architectural League and Princeton Architectural Press. The Architectural League Prize is an annual competition, lecture series, and exhibition organized by the Architectural League and its Young Architects + Designers Committee. The Prize was established in 1981 to recognize specific works of high quality and to encourage the exchange of ideas among young people who might otherwise not have a forum. DEADLINE: February 19, 2013 learn more ... 
NEW!! MELLON FELLOWSHIP | The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has been awarded a grant of $900,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will support a major new initiative within LSE Cities exploring the intersection of architecture, urbanism and the humanities. The Mellon Fellows will be invited to spend nine months at LSE, to engage humanists in the study of urban life - as pursued by LSE Cities - and to become involved in postgraduate teaching and research.
learn more ... 
HARVARD GSD WHEELWRIGHT PRIZE | The Wheelwright Prize, presented by Harvard GSD, is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that will be awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work. Now open to applicants from all over the world - no affiliation to Harvard GSD required - the prize aims to foster new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement. DEADLINE: February 28, 2013  learn more ... 
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS | Superstorm Sandy Photography Exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. Superstorm Sandy moved into the greater New York metropolitan area and altered the physical and psychological fabric of the region. As recovery efforts progress and the future of essential infrastructure, including waterfront repair, is considered, the Museum of the City of New York seeks contemporary photographs of the areas and people affected by the storm.
DEADLINE 12pm March 3, 2013.  
learn more ...
NEW!! REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATION | The PEN World Voices Festival and the Architectural League of New York are partnering in a Little Free Libraries/New York project, which will be presented as part of the May 2013 IDEAS CITY festival. In keeping with this year's IDEAS CITY theme of untapped capital, the libraries will facilitate an informal exchange of books in the city's public spaces, where local residents and visitors may use and contribute to these communal, non-market based resources. Architects and designers interested in creating a library as part of this project are invited to submit their qualifications and describe their interest in the project in response to this RFQ. 
DEADLINE March 4, 2013.  learn more ...
ARTIST AND ARCHITECTS RESIDENCY PROGRAM | The Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture of the Republic of Austria in cooperation with the MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, is going to award a total of eight scholarships for residency at the Mackey Apartments, Los Angeles, in 2013/2014. These scholarships are open to free-lance artists, advanced students of architecture and graduates of architecture immediately after completion of their degree.
DEADLINE: March 3, 2013  learn more ...
CALL FOR ESSAYS: FUZZY MATH | The Architectural League's Urban Omnibus announces their second annual essay competition, on the topic of cost, metrics, and measurement in urban life. With this competition, Urban Omnibus invites writers to infuse the quantitative language that pervades environmental understanding with narrative, theory, history, or humor. 
DEADLINE: March 22, 2013 5pm  learn more ...
CALL FOR PAPERS | On the Spatial Epistemology of Politics, or How We Know Politics Through Space: Essays for Design Studies is a forthcoming edited book that explores how spaces are political and how politics is spatial. Co-edited by Harvard PhD candidates Delia Wendel and Fallon Samuels Aidoo, the book is funded in part by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. This call for papers solicits original research to explore the politics of contention and consensus in spatial forms and practices. DEADLINE April 8, 2013  learn more ...
TRAVEL AND STUDY GRANT | The Deborah J. Norden Fund, established in memory of architect and arts administrator Deborah Norden, awards up to $5,000 annually in travel and study grants to students and recent graduates in the fields of architecture, architectural history, and urban studies. The Deborah J. Norden Fund is a program of The Architectural League of New York. 
DEADLINE: April 17, 2013  learn more ... 


FACULTY & STAFF NEWS 
LECTURE AND PUBLICATION | Michael Webb will present a lecture as part of  WWW Drawing Spring 2013, which is a group of projects about contemporary architectural drawing produced by the Architecture Department at the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, a unit of the College of Arts & Architecture, Penn State University. He is also a contributing author in the forthcoming publication The Car in 2013: Mobility Planning for the Near Future, ActarD Publishing, March 2013.
MIT SYMPOSIUM | Urtzi Grau will be a panelist in the Under the Influence symposium to be held at MIT on February 22-23, 2013. The symposium will bring together scholars and practitioners of architecture in order to focus on one of the most anxious disciplinary topics: influence.  learn more ...

WATERPROOFING NEW YORK | Lydia Kallipoliti will participant on the "Waste/Water" panel at the Waterproofing New York symposium held at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York. PLEASE NOTE: Date change to March 2, 2013.  learn more ...

AIA COLLEGE OF FELLOWS | Peter Schubert has been inducted as a member of the AIA College of Fellows. The Center for Architecture will honor Schubert and the other twelve AIA New York Chapter members who are now Fellows, with a reception on February 28, 2013. learn more ...
PRINCETON LECTURE SERIES | Hayley Eber and Urtzi Grau will participate in the panel discussion "New Kids on the Block" as part of the What I Did Next - Princeton's Alternative Architectural Practices lecture series on February 20, 2013 at Princeton University School of Architecture. read more ...

LEBBEUS WOODS. ARCHITECT | The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will present a retrospective on the work of Lebbeus Woods to be held February 16 thought June 2, 2013. Additional programming will include a lecture by Thom Mayne on Woods' "immeasurable influence and wide-ranging legacy," on February 21, 2013. learn more ...



ALUMNI NEWS 

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Elizabeth Diller, AR '79; Ricardo Scofidio, AR '55) | presenters | "Definition Series 02: Museum - Culture Sheds and Shoulds," Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York, NY February 15, 2013

 

Lance Jay Brown (AR '65) | presenter | "Shelter," Waterproofing New York Symposium, the Landscape Architecture Program of the City College of New York's Spitzer School of Architecture, with support from the Municipal Art Society, American Society of Landscape Architects New York Chapter, and the Institute for Urban Design, PLEASE NOTE: Date Change March 2, 2013

 

Alexander Gorlin (AR '78)  | interview | "Gorlin, Arsham, and Pharrell on Art and Architecture," Architect's Newspaper.blog, February 18, 2013
 
Mark West (AR '80) | group exhibition | ""WWW Drawing," Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penn State University, Spring 2013 semester, University Park, PA,  

   

Catherine Seavitt (AR '94) |  symposium organizer and presenter | Waterproofing New York Symposium, the Landscape Architecture Program of the City College of New York's Spitzer School of Architecture, with support from the Municipal Art Society, American Society of Landscape Architects New York Chapter, and the Institute for Urban Design. PLEASE NOTE: Date Change March 2, 2013 
 
Vladimir Belogolovsky (AR '96) | lecture | "Intercontinental Curatorial Project," Hammons School of Architecture, Springfield, Missouri, February 27, 2013 
 
Michal Raz-Russo (AR '01) | curator | "When Collecting Was New," Art Institute of Chicago, December 15, 2012-May 12, 2013

Gerri Davis (AR '03) | solo exhibition | "Gerri Davis Reflects," Bridge Gallery, New York, NY, February 7-March 23, 2013

Situ Studio (Basar Girit, Aleksey Lukyanov, Wes Rozen, Bradley Samuels, all AR 05) | article | "Situ Studio's Valentine's Day Installation Opens in the Heart of Times Square," Architect's Newspaper.blog, February 12, 2013

                                                                                         

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