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Highlighting America's rich history of architectural experimentation and the original ways architects today are working collaboratively to invigorate community activism and environmental policy
A series of public programs exploring curatorial, pedagogical and architectural approaches to civic engagement at Parsons the New School for Design
Slought and Parsons The New School for Design are pleased to announce "Into the Open: The Conference," on the evening of Friday, April 24, 2009 from 5-9:00pm in New York City at Parsons (Kellen Auditorium, 66 Fifth Avenue, Ground floor).
Into the Open, the official U.S. pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia, the 11th International Architecture Exhibition, is on view from March 4 through May 1, 2009 at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center. The exhibition focuses on the increasing interest in civic engagement in American architectural practice, and examines the means by which a new generation of architects is reclaiming a role in shaping community and the built environment. Into the Open features 16 architectural groups who actively engage communities, responding to social and environmental issues, including shifting demographics, changing geo-political boundaries, uneven economic development, and the explosion of urban migration. These intellectually entrepreneurial actors are designing the conditions from which new architectures can emerge-becoming activists, developers, facilitators of inclusive urban policies, as well as innovative urban researchers. Reaching creatively across institutions, agencies, and jurisdictions, they are negotiating hidden resources in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
The conference will consider what happens after the exhibition Into the Open closes. How can the issues explored in it be mobilized in contemporary practice?
Download the Conference Schedule
What's the politics of displaying architecture? How can we actualize the ideas presented in the exhibit, beyond the space and time of the exhibit?
Presentation by Rick Lowe, with responses by agents provocateurs Alfred Zollinger, Susan Yelavich, Lydia Matthews, Ken Saylor, and Bob Rubin
Should the architect define the program or should it be the community's responsibility?
Presentation by Teddy Cruz, with responses by agents provocateurs Jean Gardner, David Grahame Shane, Miodrag Mitrasinovic, and John Thackara (UK)
How is research a form of architectural practice? Is digital visualization a new form of architecture?
Presentation by Laura Kurgan, with responses by agents provocateurs William Bevington, Brian McGrath, and Sven Travis
How do you design sustainably for extreme conditions?
Presentation by Deborah Gans, with responses by agents provocateurs David Lewis, Robert Kirkbride, and Raoul Rickenberg
Guatemala-born Teddy Cruz, founder of Estudio Teddy Cruz, is an architect and educator based in San Diego, CA whose practice and pedagogy, through research and design production, has been focused on the particularities of the bicultural territory of the U.S.-Mexican border. He is currently associate professor in Public Culture and Urbanism in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego and was appointed by San Diego Mayor's Jerry Sanders to serve as a member of the board of directors of San Diego's Center City Development Corporation. His work has been included in major architecture biennales, magazines and exhibits around the world and he has been pinned one of the emergent voices in American architecture.
http://www.estudioteddycruz.com
Deborah Gans is the principal of NY-based Gans studio and a full professor in the Architecture School at Pratt Institute. She is also visiting critic at Yale University. Many of Gans studio's projects in industrial design and architecture have a focus on social engagement, including a school desk for the New York School Construction Authority and alternative forms of housing for Kosovo and New Orleans. Current projects are a master plan for The Graham School in Hastings-on-Hudson New York. Among Gans' publications are the Le Corbusier Guide, now in its third edition (2006) and Extreme Sites: The 'Greening' of Brownfield (2004).
http://www.gans-studio.net
Laura Kurgan teaches architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, where she is the director of the Spatial Information Design Lab (SIDL) and the Director of Visual Studies. Her recent projects include a multi-year SIDL project on "million-dollar blocks" and the urban costs of American incarceration, which has appeared most recently at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (where it is part of the permanent collection). Her book on working with GPS and satellite imagery in various ways, Satellites, is forthcoming from Zone Books.
http://www.arch.columbia.edu/SIDL
Texas-based Rick Lowe is the founder of Project Row Houses, an arts and cultural organization located in Houston's historically significant and culturally charged Third Ward neighborhood. As an artist, Lowe has participated in exhibitions and programs internationally, and has worked as guest artist on a number of community projects nationally. Lowe collaborated with arts consultant Jessica Cusick on the Arts Plan for Rem Koolhaas' Seattle Public Library, and worked with California-based artist Suzanne Lacy and curator Mary Jane Jacobs on the Borough Project for Spoleto Festival 2003, in Charleston, South Carolina.
http://www.projectrowhouses.org
Jean Gardner
Senior Faculty, School of Constructed Environments and School of Design Strategies, Parsons; Co-Founder of the Michael Kalil Endowment for Smart Design at Parsons
Robert Kirkbride
Associate professor of Product Design and thesis coordinator in the product design department, School of Constructed Environments, Parsons
David J. Lewis
Associate Professor, director of The Design Workshop, School of Constructed Environments, Parsons
Lydia Matthews
Dean of Academic Programs of Parsons the New School for Design and Professor in Art and Design History and Theory
Brian McGrath
Interim Director of Academic Affairs, and Associate Professor, Urban Design, School of Constructed Environments, Parsons
Raoul Rickenberg
Assistant Professor in the School of Design Strategies, Parsons
Bob Rubin
Robert M. Rubin is an architectural historian and preservationist of Modernism
Grahame Shane
Adjunct Professor of Architecture, Columbia University and Cooper Union, author of Recombinant Urbanism (Wiley, 2005)
John Thackara (UK)
Programme director, Designs of the time (Dott 07), England; Commissioner, Tools for Survival, St Etienne Design Biennial, France
Susan Yelavich
Assistant Professor in Parson's School of History and Theory of Art and Design
Alfred Zollinger
Director of the BFAs in Interior Design and Architectural Design, Professor of interior design, School of Constructed Environments, Parsons
Sven Travis
Interim Dean, Communications Design and Technology
Miodrag Mitrasinovic
Chair of Design Strategies Urban Initiative
William Bevington
Executive Director, Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM); formerly Chair, Communication Design Department at Parsons The New School