This lecture is co-sponsored by the Architectural League of New York.

Each year The Architectural League in its Current Work program presents the work of significant international figures who powerfully influence contemporary architectural practice and shape the future of the built environment. David Adjaye will present his work in a public lecture to be followed by a conversation with moderator Gregg Pasquarelli.

David Adjaye founded the practice Adjaye Associates in London in 2000, and has since expanded the office to the United States, Germany, and Ghana. Engaging issues of place and identity, Adjaye Associates, in its own words, seeks to create "buildings [that] belong to yet diverge from their contexts, absorbing and animating difference rather than homogenizing it." Sensitivity to materials, color, shape, and light informs the work on all scales. The office's projects range from pavilion and exhibition design, the Dirty House residence, and the Idea Store/Whitechapel Road educational and information center in London to two neighborhood libraries in Washington, D.C., the Sugar Hill social housing scheme in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Adjaye Associates is currently designing the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. 

The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) announced that the Buckminster Fuller Challenge sponsor, Interface, Inc., chose to recognize Waterbank Schools, headed by New York-based designers and social entrepreneurs David Turnbull and Jane Harrison, with a special award of support in this year's Challenge cycle. Interface, the world's largest carpet tile company whose visionary founder Ray Anderson led a transformative movement to sustainable business, will work with Waterbank Schools over a six-month period to determine how best to leverage the company's expertise in support of the groundbreaking project's growth. 

BFI's partnership with Interface honors the synergies between the profoundly relevant legacies of Ray Anderson and Buckminster Fuller - "two forces of nature committed to designing a world that works." 

"We are thrilled to have an additional entrant recognized and supported in this year's Challenge," said Elizabeth Thompson, BFI's Executive Director, "Our mission is to support as many whole-systems approaches as we can, and Interface has joined us as dedicated contributors in the field." 

Waterbank Schools is a transformative building prototype developed by PITCH Africa, that is a working demonstration of the remarkable leveraging power of water catchment as a socially integrated resource awareness and community engagement tool. 

"The Waterbank School's simple design is an elegant and practical way of addressing sanitation, health, and education," said Dan Hendrix, chairman and CEO of Interface, Inc.

Read the complete Press Release here.

Sarah Turner is the Associate Director for Academic Affairs at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. 

For more information, see http://www.cranbrookart.edu.

 

Organized by the Center for Career Development 

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals Cordially invites Cooper Union Alumni and Faculty to attend "An Evening at Thurgood" at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse.

Program Participants:

Discussion on Thurgood Marshall US Courthouse Infrastructure Upgrade Project
Project Manger - John Leeper (AR'85), Project Executive, fmr. Lend Lease LLP
Moderator - Scott Teman, Assistant Circuit Executive, US Courts for the Second Circuit
Client - Dennis Jacobs, Judge, US Courts for the Second Circuit
Architect - Lawrence Gutterman, Associate Partner, Beyer Blinder Belle
Engineer - Jim Standish, Senior Vice President, WSP - F&K
Contractor - Chris Hargrove, Executive Vice President, Cauldwell Wingate Company LLC

This collection consists of reproductions of drawings of primarily 20th Century works of architecture, as well as bridges, tunnels, piers, parks, aerial views and maps, many of which are centric to New York City. These materials are used for research purposes in conjunction with Design Studio analysis projects, as well as the Building Technology and Structures curriculum.