NEWS
SCI-Arc faculty member Elena Manferdini is featured in the current issue of Architectural Record. Writes architectural reporter Ingrid Spencer:
Manferdini switches hats easily from engineer to architect, product designer, fashion designer, and artist. For her, these diverse disciplines aren't just hobbies. Her firm has working collaborations with a slew of companies from a variety of industries, including MTV, Fiat, Nike, Alessi, Guzzini, Ottaviani, Moroso, Valentino, and Rosenthal.
From a dress to a table to a building, it's all about a shift in scale for Manferdini's design process. She gives some credit for her versatility to her European upbringing, but mostly, she says, "it's digital tools. With them we can break boundaries. They've changed the way we produce, they've changed the way we craft, and given us less of a division between all areas of design."
A single-family residence in Tokyo designed by SCI-Arc faculty members Eric A. Kahn and Russell N. Thomsen of Idea Office, was featured on the cover and in an 8-page spread in Dwell Magazine's Dec/Jan 2010 issue.
The project team for Y House included SCI-Arc undergraduate students Adrian Ariosa and Rinaldo Perez; alum Masao Yahagi was the firm's associate architect in Japan.
The story quotes IDEA Office founder Russell Thomsen, "Good architecture is not necessarily big architecture," he says. "Smaller buildings, such as this house, can challenge the creativity of an architect in unexpected ways. It takes a shift in cultural understanding about how to do more with less."
IDEA Office (IO) works on design at all scales, ranging from graphic design to installations and industrial design, to architecture and urban planning. The firm (formerly COA, 1986-2009) was launched in 2009 in Los Angeles by Kahn and Thomsen, who are also senior design faculty at SCI-Arc.
On March 10, Kahn and Thomsen will guest lecture at SCI-Arc, part of the school's spring 2010 lecture series lineup.
Minneapolis artist and SCI-Arc alum Connie Wexler Cohen (M.Arch '89) debuts her first solo exhibition of mosaic at the Jewish Community Center in the Greater St. Paul Area (St. Paul JCC) in Minneapolis, MN.
Cohen began working in mosaic eight years ago, after taking a course with her mother, Lois Wexler of St. Louis Park, in Ravenna, Italy, to celebrate Lois' conquest of cancer. Previously, Cohen had worked in the field of architectural and graphic design. She received her bachelor's in studio arts from the University of Minnesota and her master's degree in architecture from SCI-Arc.
While the art of mosaics is an ancient one, Cohen sees it as "an up-and-coming medium" in the contemporary world. She uses small tiles that are made only in Italy and Mexico. They come in a variety of shapes, color and finishes that add light and texture, and set them apart from those that cover your bathroom floor.
Many of the works in the show can be seen on Cohen's website.
Connie Cohen's exhibition is on display through Feb. 22 in the Gallery Walk at the St. Paul JCC, Minneapolis, MN.
LOS ANGELES, January 20, 2010 – The Glendale-based firm Osborn Architects, led by architect and SCI-Arc faculty member Michael Pinto, is highlighted in Architect's Newspaper's most recent studio feature.
"If offered a half-empty glass of water, Osborn Architects would not say it's half full, they'd make use of what's left. That's because the Glendale firm thrives on creating with apparent limitations," writes Allison Milionis of Architect's Newspaper.
Milionis goes on to describe four of the firm's recent projects, all of them involving tight budgets, including the Sierra Vista High School Music Building in Baldwin Park, the Animo Venice Charter High School—the first public school to receive California's High Performance Incentive Grant for sustainable features, Playa Vista's Central Region Elementary School and the multipurpose room of the Paradise Canyon Elementary School in La Canada.
"The firm finds opportunities to make a campus identifiable and to help students see how they fit into their city or community," adds Milionis. Michael Pinto, a SCI-Arc alum, and fellow principal Tim Ballard took over the firm in 2006, after the retirement of CEO and founder Ted Osborn. Pinto has been coordinating efforts of the Outreach and Community Programs at SCI-Arc.
LOS ANGELES, January 19, 2010 -- SCI-Arc faculty member David Ross has been selected to exhibit Versus at The Cooper Union in the upcoming show Rites of Passage: 1995–2009. The exhibition, marking the 150-year anniversary of the institution, showcases innovative works by alumni of the last 15 years, and will open at 41 Cooper Square, the new academic building designed by Thom Mayne.
Versus, the latest project by Code-A, extends Ross's exploratory research in systemic variation. By challenging the stability of ubiquitous geometric structures with goal-directed environmental stimuli, Versus represents a notable transformation in the applications of systems theory and parametric design as they relate to architecture.
Although heavily coded and formula driven, Versus relies on intuition as much as computation. In a calibrated information model, testing is real-time, bypassing iterative analysis—variable vs. variable—in favor of complex simulation, system vs. system.
Versus is fueling a series of automated architectural applications by Code-A. While Ross's archive has addressed systemic failure and mutation, this case study further probes compound organizational orders—structurally robust, spatially performative, and contextually exotic.
Versus is on view from January 21 at The Cooper Union. For more information see Rites of Passage .
LOS ANGELES, January 19, 2010 -- SCI-Arc faculty member Peter Zellner led the renovation of the new gallery space for Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, located at 6006 Washington Blvd in Culver City. Housed in a former industrial warehouse, the new roughly 8000 sq. ft. gallery space features four large exhibition spaces, an open bow truss ceiling, and a massive work / storage area.
The new gallery space will be inaugurated with a solo exhibition of new work by Rodney McMillian, opening Saturday, Jan. 23, at 6pm.
Under Zellner's leadership, the renovation of the building was completed by HWI Construction, who have built, among others, for Frank Gehry, Phillip Lim, and CalArts. Zellner is the designer of contemporary art spaces in the Los Angeles area such as the Sweeney Art Gallery for UC Riverside, LAXART, and the REDCAT Lounge as well as New York galleries Wallspace, Maccarone Inc., and Harris Lieberman. His firm, Zellnerplus, is now at work on the new Matthew Marks Gallery in West Hollywood.
More about Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects >>
SCI-Arc faculty member Elena Manferdini's latest silver collection design will be launched this weekend at the 86th edition of MACEF – Milan's biggest international trade event for home ware and design. The fair has been organized in Milan twice a year since 1964.
2010 Opening dates: January 15–18th
Guest-edited by New York-based architect Mark Foster Gage and SCI-Arc's Florencia Pita, Log 17 (Fall 2009) features essays and conversations focusing on relationships between new media and materiality in architecture – with an emphasis on sensation and affect.
The launch reception of Log 17 is co-hosted by the LA Forum and LAXArt on Wednesday, December 16, 7pm, at the LAXArt headquarters (2640 S. La Cienega Blvd.)
Published by Anyone Corporation, Log is a journal of writing about contemporary architecture, cities, and the built environment - serving as a forum for observations, speculations and ideas about all things current.
Contributors to this issue include: Sir Peter Cook, Joe Day, David Erdman, Jeffrey Kipnis, Sylvia Lavin, Alex McDowell, William O’Brien Jr., David Ruy, Mohamed Sharif, and Teresa Stoppani. The cover features a 3-D drawing by Tristan Eaton and the issue comes with a pair of 3-D glasses (in lieu of the traditional Log postcard).
Conversations include: Thom Mayne and Hernan Diaz Alonso discussing drawing; Peter Zellner and colleagues discussing the pretensions of form; and Todd Gannon interviewing Georgina Huljich and Marcelo Spina, the curators of the Matters of Sensation exhibition held at Artists Space, New York, in 2008.
The issue closes with Kenneth Frampton's In Memoriam C.G., In the American Vein: The Domestic Architecture of Charles Gwathmey.
Princeton University's School of Architecture hosts SCI-Arc faculty member Andrew Zago for a lecture part of the On Accident conference taking place December 11-12.
Speakers include Jeffrey Schnapp, Bridget Alsdorf, Guy Nordenson, Eric Rosenberg, Ross Hamilton, Eileen Reeves, Michael Witmore, Edward Eigen and Ben Kafka. The conference is sponsored by The Princeton University School of Architecture, the Center for Architecture, Urbanism and Infrastructure, and the Princeton University Council of the Humanities.
On Accident insists on accident as an irreducibly particular object for, and ineluctable feature of, research and design. Zago's lecture concludes the conference on December 12.
Daly Genik Architects' Camino Nuevo High School was named one of the Best Los Angeles Buildings of the Decade by CurbedLA. SCI-Arc's undergraduate program director, Chris Genik, leads the architecture practice along with associate Kevin Daly. Their firm completed the Silver Lake-area high school in 2006.
The other nine buildings nominated are Frank Gehry's Disney Hall, Michael Maltzan's Inner City Arts; the Standard Hotel—Andre Balazs' renovation of Claud Beelman's Standard Oil building; the Caltrans District 7 Headquarters by Morphosis; the Kodak Theatre by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut + Kuhn Architects; the restored and expanded Griffith Observatory by Pfeifer Partners and Levin & Associates; the Cinerama Dome (2002) by Gensler on Arclight; Peter K. Schaborum's Van Nuys Civic Hall, whose restoration was coordinated by Kennard and Tetra design groups, and the Getty Villa–whose renovation and expansion was completed by Machado and Silvetti Associates.
CurbedLA editors compiled the top 10 list based on submissions from local architects, architectural writers, readers, and members of the community.
Read the article on CurbedLA >>
More about Daly Genik Architects >>
