Aesthetics/Anesthetics

on birds, axonometries, children, green, comics, and 30 Storefronts
June 27 – July 28, 2012
Exhibition Opening: June 26, 2012 from 7-9 pm

 

What is it that an architectural drawing does and how does it do it? How can we distill beauty from cosmetics? How can new modes of representation produce new architectures and new sensibilities? 

 

Aesthetics/Anesthetics was an exhibition about architectural drawings that invited audiences to reflect on the performing properties of architectural drawings, their purpose and aesthetic qualities, encouraging the architectural community and other creatives to push drawings, and with it architecture, beyond inherited acknowledged values. 


An image (and its after-image) carries within itself a history (or performative script) of characters, discourses, and conventions. The exhibition acknowledged the resurgence of certain representational devices that had become architectural clichés operating almost as placeholders or decorative elements of an architecture unable to draw itself: birds on beautiful skies, happy children with balloons, axonometries… this exhibition was an invitation to let those clichés go and explore the performativity of the architectural drawing as a way to generate a new imaginary. The 30 drawings on display were an open door to reclaim a lost territory: the drawing.

 

The centerpiece of the exhibition was a collection of 30 newly commissioned architectural drawings. Each drawing depicted the Storefront Gallery space at 97 Kenmare, from the perspectives of a diverse group of emerging and established architects worldwide. The drawings revealed a different aspect of the space and were representative of the generative properties of the architect’s drawing. The gallery space, wallpapered with sourced images of birds, axonometries, children, green and comics cut from drawings produced in the past five years, reflected on the specific graphic devices used by architects to ignite certain feelings and properties in their drawings that the architectural drawing itself is unable to convey: skies filled with birds to portray movement, axonometries as a mode of applied intellectuality, children as life generators, green surfaces as magic ecological surfaces, or comics as prosthetic communicative devices.

 

As part of the exhibition, Storefront hosted a public event: Performing Representations, which discussed the purpose and properties of the architectural drawing. The event included a discussion between Jimenez Lai, Brett Littman, Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge and Michael Young. The group collectively created a new drawing during the conversation. A video of the conversation can be found here.

 

Each of the 30 commissioned architectural drawings were auctioned at the end of the exhibition, with proceeds supporting Storefront for Art and Architecture’s exhibitions and programs.

 

Commissioned Artists Included:


Vito Acconci [New York]

Alisa Andrasek [London]

Aziza Chaouni [Toronto and Fez]

Luis Callejas [Colombia]

Teddy Cruz [Tijuana]

Frida Escobedo [Mexico]

ESKYIU – Eric Schuldenfrei and Marisa Yiu [ Hong Kong]

Ling Fan [Beijing]

Interboro Partners [New York]

Sam Jacob [London]

Andres Jaque [Madrid]

June 14 Meyer-Grohbrügge&Chermayeff – Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge and Sam Chermayeff [Germany, New York]

Perry Kulper [Ann Arbor]

Jimenez Lai [Chicago]

Juergen Mayer H. [Berlin]

Leong Leong -Chris Leong & Dominic Leong [New York]

LTL -Paul Lewis, Mark Tsurumaki, David Lewis [New York]

MOS -Michael Meredith & Hilary Sample [New York]

OFFICE – Kersten Geers & David Van Severen [Brussels]

Jorge Otero-Pailos [New York]

Productora [Mexico DF]

Philippe Rahm [Paris]

Noura Al Sayeh [Bahrain]

Sho Shigematsu [OMA New York]

Julien De Smedt [Brussels-New York]

STAR strategies + architecture -Beatriz Ramo [Rotterdam]

Superpool – Selva Gurdogan – Gregers Tang Thomsen [Istanbul]

VisionArc -Landon Brown-Toshiko Mori- [New York]

WW – Sarah Whiting, Ron Witte- [Houston]

Michael Young – Young & Ayata [New York]

Alejandro Zaera Polo [London-New York]

Andrew Zago [Los Angeles]

 

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

 

Vito Acconci was born in Bronx, NY in 1940, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His early work took the form of fiction and poetry, and his last poems reduced words to indices of the writer’s and reader’s travel across the page. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, his first artworks used performance, photos, film and video as instruments of self-analysis and person-to-person relationships. His audio and video installations of the mid-1970s turned an exhibition-space into a community meeting-place. His architectural games of the early 80s made performative spaces for viewers, whose activity resulted in the construction and deconstruction of house prototypes. In the mid 1980s the work crossed over into architecture, landscape, and industrial design. In 1988 he started Acconci Studio, a theoretical-design and building workshop. They treat architecture as an occasion for activity; they make spaces fluid, changeable, and portable. For more information on the Acconci Studio, visit http://www.acconci.com/

 

Noura Al-Sayeh is an architect currently working as the Head of Architectural Affairs at the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Bahrain. She is responsible for overseeing the planning and implementation of several planned cultural institutions as well as for the creation of an active agenda of exhibitions, academic exchange initiatives and architecture competitions. She earned a Master’s in Architecture from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and has worked as an architect in Amsterdam, New York, Jerusalem, Bahrain and Paris. She was the Co-Curator of RECLAIM , Bahrain’s first participation at the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, which was awarded the Golden Lion for best national participation. More recently, she oversaw the program for the Month of Architecture, which was part of the Manama, Capital of Culture of the Arab World 2012 agenda which centered on the notion of public space in the Arab World and the organization of the BAB open ideas competition.

 

Alisa Andrasek is the founding principal of Biothing operating at the intersection of architecture, design and computer science. She teaches at the UCL Bartlett, and has taught at the AA DRL, GSAPP Columbia, Pratt, UPenn, RMIT Melbourne, RPI and UTS Sydney. She received Europe 40 under 40 Award, Metropolis Next Generation and FEIDAD Award. Biothing’s work is part of permanent collections at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, FRAC in Orleans and TB-A21 in Vienna, and has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Andrasek curated the US East Coast section for the exhibitions at the Beijing Biennial 2006 and 2008 and the UK section at the Beijing Biennial 2010, as well as PROTO/E/CO/LOCICS Symposium series in Rovinj Croatia. 

www.biothing.org

 

Landon Brown is the Director of VisionArc, a strategic design practice founded in New York City in 2009. Through social and environmental initiatives, his work locates opportunities for design where systemic challenges call for new modes of communication and cooperation. VisionArc’s recent work includes collaboration with the World Economic Forum on the development of an energy monitoring and conservation tool used in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. His recent research into urban resources and micro-communities has led to lectures and workshops for the BMW Guggenheim Lab in New York, Aalto University in Helsinki and The Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge. Brown has previously practiced professionally with leading architecture and design offices in New York, Cambridge, Barcelona and Rotterdam. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 and a Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 2008.

 

Luis Callejas is a Colombian Architect, former founding partner of studio Paisajes Emergentes and now founder and director of LCLA office, an Architecture studio and international research platform based in Medellín, Colombia. The practice stands in the blurry intersections between landscape, Architecture and infrastructure. In 2010, Callejas was selected as one of the world’s ten best young practicing architects by the Iakov Chernikhov foundation after the evaluation of 133 nominees from 25 countries. In the same year, together with Edgar Mazo and Sebastian Mejia, Callejas completed the aquatic centre for the XI South American games , a 20 000 square meter open air complex of swimming pools and public space in Medellin, Colombia. Parallel to the practice Callejas is currently a visiting faculty at the Landscape Architecture department in Harvard GSD. www.luiscallejas.com

 

Aziza Chaouni is the principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects (ACP), a Moroccan/ Canadian based multidisciplinary office which focuses on investigating and implementing sustainable design strategies in the Developing World. Prior to creating ACP, Chaouni co-directed the collaborative practice Bureau E.A.S.T with Takako Tajima. She is an assistant professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of architecture landscape and design. She directs the research platform Design Ecological Tourism (DET.) DET Projects have won several awards in 2012 including the ACSA Collaborative Award and a Progressive Architecture Award Citation. Chaouni graduated with a MArch with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and with a B.S. with Honors in Civil Engineering from Columbia University.

 

Born in Guatemala City, Teddy Cruz obtained a Master in Design Studies at Harvard University in 1997 and established his research-based architecture practice in San Diego, California in 2000. His work dwells at the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico, where he has been developing a practice and pedagogy that emerge out of the particularities of this bicultural territory and the integration of theoretical research and design production. Cruz has been recognized in collaboration with community-based nonprofit organizations such as Casa Familiar for its work on housing and its relationship to an urban policy more inclusive of social and cultural programs for the city. In 1991, he received the prestigious Rome Prize in Architecture and in 2005 he was the first recipient of the James Stirling Memorial Lecture On The City Prize. His work has been profiled in important publications including The New York Times, Domus and Harvard Design Magazine. He lives and works in San Diego, California.

 

Julien De Smedt is the founder and director of JDS Architects based in Brussels, Copenhagen, Belo Horizonte and Shanghai. His commitment to the exploration of contemporary architecture has helped to re-energize the discussion of the practice with projects such as the VM Housing Complex, the Mountain Dwellings, the Maritime Youth House and the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Prior to founding JDS Architects, De Smedt worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Rotterdam and co-founded and directed the architecture firm PLOT in Copenhagen with Bjarke Ingels. He has given lectures and been exhibited in numerous locations around the world. His academic contributions include visiting professorships in Rice and Lexington University. In 2009, he received the Maaskant prize of Architecture, and in 2011 he received the WAN-World Architecture News ’21 for 21′ Award – leading architects of the 21st century.

 

Frida Escobedo holds a Bachelor degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and a Masters degree in Art, Design and the Public Domain from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). In 2003 she established the architecture studio Perro Rojo with Alejandro Alarcón. In 2006 she founded her own practice. In 2008, she was selected for the Young Architects Forum organized by the Architectural League in New York. From 2007 to 2010 she was teaching design studio at Universidad Iberoamericana. Escobedo’s work has been selected to be presented at the Mexican Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, and at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco. Additionally, she will be presenting her first solo exhibition at LIGA, in Mexico City.

 

ESKYIU, a multi-disciplinary architecture studio actively integrating culture, community, art and technology is led by Founding Partners Eric Schuldenfrei and Marisa Yiu. They explore how architecture intersects with transformative cultural landscapes, education and social sustainability. They were awarded the ‘Architectural League Prize’, Perspective’s ‘40 under 40′ and curated the 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture. They have exhibited widely, with works including ‘Urban Pastoral’ for the 2008 Venice Biennale; ‘Human Motor: Narratives from the Assembly Line’ in Ljubljana; Chinatown WORK, an interactive public arts project commissioned by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and ‘Nutritious: an aeroponic facade’ at the Architectural Association in London. Both have lectured internationally at Harvard’s AsiaGSD conference, TEDx, V&A museum, the Asia Society to universities from Nanjing, Finland to Cambridge. Recently they published a book entitled INSTANT CULTURE: Architecture and Urbanism as a Collective Process.

 

Ling Fan ( 范凌 ) is a Chinese architect, spatial artist and educator. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University and is the founder of interdisciplinary office FANStudio ( www.fatflatfloat.com ) as well as an Assistant Professor at China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He was awarded the Art Special Prize by the China Scholarship Council in 2011 and the China Contemporary Young Critic Award by Art Observation in 2009. Fan was the only architect to be shortlisted in the Focus on Talent Project by Martell Art Foundation in 2011. His works have been exhibited at 2011 Chengdu Biennale; Today Art Museum, Beijing; 2009 World Design Congress; 2009 Gwangjiu Art and Design Biennale, Korea; 2008 Shanghai Art Biennale, among others.

 

Interboro Partners is a Brooklyn-based office of architects, urban designers, and planners “who work together to improve the urban environment.” Founded in 2002 and led by Tobias Armborst, Daniel D’Oca, and Georgeen Theodore, Interboro has engaged in projects “that represent an ever-expanding concept of what architecture is, of how it acts on the world, but also how it is acted upon by individuals, institutions, ideas, idealizations, and objects.” Recent projects include LentSpace, a temporary sculpture park in lower Manhattan; Made in Midtown, a project with the Design Trust for Public Space, researching Manhattan’s garment district; The Arsenal of Exclusion/Inclusion, a “dictionary” of policies, institutions, and phenomena that foster and restrict access to the built environment, produced for the 2009 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam; and West Market Redevelopment Plan for the City of Newark. The office has received numerous grants and fellowships from institutions, including the Design Trust for Public Space, the Graham Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Interboro Partners was selected by the Architectural League in 2005 to participate in the Young Architects Forum (now known as the Architectural League Prize) and were the 2011 winners of the P.S.1 and MoMA Young Architects Program.

 

Sam Jacob is a founding director of London-based architecture firm FAT. He has a strong commitment to architecture as a cultural act addressing social and political concerns. This is manifested through built projects and through wider set of activities including fine art, writing, and criticism. He has taught at universities in Europe and is currently a Unit Master at the AA, London, and professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been a visiting lecturer at many institutions in Europe and the United States. Jacob is a frequent contributor to public architectural debate through exhibitions, lectures, and symposia. He writes at strangeharvest.com, is a design critic for Art Review, a contributing editor for Icon, and he writes for many other books, magazines, and journals.

 

Andrés Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation explore the potential of post-foundational politics and symmetrical approaches to the sociology of technology to rethink architectural practices. The office’s slogan is ‘ARCHITECTURE IS TECHNOLOGICALLY RENDERED SOCIETY’ and is currently devoted to the study of connected-domesticities like politically-activated urbanism. Their production has been published in 2G, A10, ABC, Abitare, Architecture Digest, Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Architecture Review, Architecture Now, Arquitectura Viva, Arquitectura, Arquitectos, AV, Bauwelt, Beyond, C3, Corriere della Sera, Diseño Interior, Domus, Dwell, El Croquis, ELLE, El Mundo, El País, Fisuras, FRAME, Glamour, Interni, La Vanguardia, Le Monde, Le Moniteur d’architecture AMC, MARK, The Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Pasajes, Pasajes Diseño, Plot, Suma, Vogue or Wall Street Journal and exposed at the Schweizerisches Architektur Museum in Basel, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine de Paris, the Hellerau Festspielhaus in Dresden, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, the Instituto Valenciano de Arte moderno (IVAM) in Valencia, the 7 Mostra di Architettura de la Bienal de Venezia or the Bienal de Arquitectura Iberoamericana 2004 en Lima. They are authors of the Everyday Politics and EcoOrdinary. Codes for everyday architectural practices publications. Their work ‘Casa Sacerdotal Diocesana de Plasencia’ has been awarded with the Dionisio Hernández Gil Prize and has been finalist to the VIII Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. ‘TUPPER HOME’ has been finalist of the European Award Mies van der Rohe. In 2010 the instaltion ‘FRAY HOME HOME’ was presented at the Biennale di Venezia 2010. In 2011 the research and prototype-making project ‘SWEET PARLIAMENT HOME’ was presented at the Gwangju Biennale. Jaque has been Tessenow Stipendiat in Alfred Toepfer Stiftung FVS, visiting teacher in a number of international universities and has lectured extensively throughout the world including Columbia University GSAPP, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Istituto Politecnico di Milano, Centre International pour la Ville de Paris, Centre pour l’Architecture et le Paysage (Brussels), Sociedad Central (Buenos Aires), Berlage Institut (Rotterdam) or Museo Nacional (Bogota).

 

Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge from Germany and Sam Chermayeff from New York opened a studio together after meeting at SANAA in Tokyo where they both worked from 2005 to 2010. Their new venture, June 14 Meyer-Grohbrügge&Chermayeff, began with a desire to make things, places and atmospheres for people. The office and work aims to have people relate to architecture, for architecture to relate to people and for people to relate to themselves. June 14 searches for an understanding of different ways of living and working in the contemporary world. The work stems from a belief that architecture can make things happen and that things can happen to architecture. On a practical level, the principals have experience with a wide range of projects from small gardens and bespoke furniture to office towers. The office’s intention is to expand that range while maintaining a dynamic understanding of the human scale. The office is based in Berlin and New York.

 

Perry Kulper is an architect and associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. Prior to his arrival at the University of Michigan, he was a SCI-Arc faculty member for 17 years and took on visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Arizona State University. Subsequent to his studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (BS Arch) and Columbia University (M Arch) he worked in the offices of Eisenman/ Robertson, Robert A.M. Stern and Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown before moving to Los Angeles. His interests include the roles of architectural representation and design methods in the production of architecture and in broadening the conceptual range by which the varied agencies of architecture contribute to our cultural imagination.

 

Jimenez Lai is an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and Leader of Chicago-based architectural office Bureau Spectacular. He graduated with a Master of Architecture from University of Toronto. Previously, Lai has lived and worked in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Before founding Bureau Spectacular, Lai worked for MOS, AVL, REX, and OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Toronto, Rotterdam, and New York. In the past years, Lai has built numerous installations as well as being widely exhibited and published around the world. His first manifesto, Citizens of No Place, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Draft II of this book has been archived at the New Museum as a part of the show Younger Than Jesus. In 2012, Jimenez Lai has been named a winner to the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects.

 

Leong Leong is an award-winning, New York-based design office practicing in the fields of architecture, culture and urbanism founded by brothers Dominic Leong and Christopher Leong in 2008. Leong Leong believes the practice of architecture is a collective intelligence in constant dialogue with other disciplines, cultures, thinkers, and makers to offer new possibilities to engage the city. As a result, ideas are not generated in a vacuum but emerge from critical conversation, analysis, and experimentation. Leong Leong is the recipient of the 2010 New Practices New York Award from the American Institute of Architects and the 2011 Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award. Dominic received his Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Christopher received his Master of Architecture from Princeton University and his Bachelor of Arts from University of California, Berkeley.

 

www.leong-leong.com

 

Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis (LTL Architects) is a New York-based design intensive architecture firm founded in 1997 by Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki and David J. Lewis. LTL Architects engages a diverse range of work, from large-scale academic and cultural buildings to interiors and speculative research projects. LTL Architects realizes inventive solutions that turn the very constraints of each project into the design trajectory, exploring opportunistic overlaps between space, program, form, budget and materials. Paul Lewis holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University and is an Associate Professor at Princeton University School of Architecture. He is the recipient of the Mercedes T. Bass Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome and is a Vice President of the Architectural League of New York. Marc Tsurumaki holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Tsurumaki served on the Board of Trustees of the Van Alen Institute from 2002 to 2011 and currently is a General Services Administration National Peer. David J. Lewis holds a Master of Architecture from Princeton University, a Master of Arts in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College. He is an Associate Professor at Parsons The New School for Design, where he directed the Design Workshop program and was on the faculty for the Solar Decathlon project. He serves as a founding member of the Advisory Board of the School of Architecture at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

 

Juergen Mayer H. is the founder and principal of J. MAYER H Architect’s studio. Founded in Berlin in 1996, his cross-disciplinary studio focuses on works at the intersection of architecture, communication and new technology. Based in Berlin, recent projects include a student centre at Karlsruhe University; the villa Dupli.Casa near Ludwigsburg, Germany; the redevelopment of the Plaza de la Encarnacion in Sevilla, Spain; the office building ADA1 in Hamburg, Germany; and the extension of the science park in Danfoss, Denmark. Mayer studied at Stuttgart University, The Cooper Union and Princeton University. His works have been published and exhibited worldwide and are part of numerous collections including MoMA New York and SF MoMA. He has taught at Princeton University, University of the Arts Berlin, Harvard University, Kunsthochschule Berlin, the Architectural Association in London, the Columbia University, New York and at the University of Toronto, Canada.

 

In 2003, Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample co-founded an architectural practice entitled MOS, an acronym of their names and a “shared desire to be horizontal and fuzzy, as opposed to tall and shiny.” Today, as they have grown, they continue to operate around one large table as a design office that works closely on each project through playful experimentation and serious research. MOS engages architecture as an open system of interrelated issues ranging from architectural typology, digital methodologies, building performance, structure, fabrication, materiality, tactility, and use, as well as larger networks of the social, cultural, and environmental.

 

OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen was founded in 2002 by David Van Severen and Kersten Geers. Their philosophy is best summed up as follows: “While every attempt of making architecture seems to drift off in rhetorics of programmatic organization and ironic provocation, form and space as such have become a rare good. In our projects we try to counter this by making direct and precise spatial proposals, formal compositions without rhetoric. This literal architecture aims for a phenomenological experience, perhaps despite of its program.” Van Severen graduated in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Ghent, Belgium and at the Esquela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid, Spain. He worked with Stéphane Beel Architects, Xaveer De Geyter Architects and for Atelier Maarten Van Severen. He is currently a guest tutor at Architecture School of Versailles and was previously was a teacher and guest critic at the Academy of Amsterdam, the TU Delft, and the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. Geers graduated in Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Ghent, Belgium and at the Esquela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura in Madrid, Spain. He worked with Maxwan Architects and Urbanists and with Neutelings Riedijk Architects in Rotterdam. Previously, he was professor at the University of Ghent, and visiting professor at Columbia University, NYC, and the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland.

 

Born in Madrid, Jorge Otero-Pailos is a New York-based architect, artist and theorist specialized in experimental forms of preservation. He is tenured Associate Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture. He is the Founder and Editor of the journal Future Anterior. His artworks have been exhibited in international shows such as the Venice Art Biennale, and are in the collections of major museums and foundations. His works and writings have been published in international publications such as Art in America, Artform, Architectural Record, Volume and others. His work rethinks preservation as a powerful countercultural practice that creates alternative futures for our world heritage.

 

PRODUCTORA is an architecture practice founded in 2006 in Mexico City that brings together architects from different countries: Abel Perles (1972, Argentina), Carlos Bedoya (1973, Mexico), Víctor Jaime (1978, Mexico) and Wonne Ickx(1974, Belgium). PRODUCTORA develops its ideas by means of intuitive explorations, rather than on the basis of an established methodology. The name itself emerges from the conviction that the design process advances through a continuous production of formal and spatial material to be evaluated. PRODUCTORA is developing a variety of projects in Mexico and abroad ranging from single-family dwellings to office and public buildings. The office has been teaching and lecturing on national and international events and has been widely published. In 2011, PRODUCTORA founded LIGA, a platform for Latin-American architecture in Mexico City in collaboration with curator and art-critic Ruth Estevez.

 

Philippe Rahm is architect and principal in the office of Philippe Rahm architectes, based in Paris. His work, which extends the field of architecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. He has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide including Archilab, Orléans, France 2000; SF-MoMA 2001; CCA Kitakyushu 2004; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003-2006 and 2007; Manifesta 7, 2008; Louisiana museum, Denmark, 2009; and Guggenheim Museum, New-York 2010. He currently holds the Jean Labatut Professorship at Princeton University. He has lectured widely, including at Harvard School of Design, Cooper Union, UCLA and the ETH Zürich. Rahm is also currently working on several projects in France, Taiwan, Italy and Germany. His recent work in 2011 included the first prize for the 69ha Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan, an office building of 13000 m2 in La Défense in France for the EPADESA, and a convective condominium for the IBA in Hamburg, Germany.

 

Beatriz Ramo is a Spanish architect living and working in Rotterdam. In 2006, she founded STAR strategies + architecture, a practice dealing with architecture in all its forms. The office portfolio includes a prototype to bring cinemas back to the city centers, a Ferris wheel + Railway station, or a study on the elements that shape secondary European cities. STAR has won several prizes in architectural competitions in China, Lebanon, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. Beatriz remains active in research and writings and is currently working on models for sustainable cemeteries and on a series of essays aiming to develop critical assessments of today’s most dangerous clichés and assumptions in architecture. She is academically involved with several schools and institutions in the Netherlands and she has lectured internationally about the work of STAR. Ramo has been contributing/managing editor of MONU magazine on urbanism since 2008.

www.st-ar.nl

 

Shohei Shigematsu joined OMA in 1998 and became a partner in 2008. He has led the OMA office in New York since 2006, overseeing OMA’s operations in North America and Japan including the recent completion of Milstein Hall at Cornell University, the construction of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the design for the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art in Hudson, New York. Shigematsu was also project leader for the winning competition entry for the CCTV headquarters in Beijing, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters, the Whitney Museum extension in New York, and Prada Epicenters for Shanghai and London. He is a visiting faculty member of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning.

 

Selva Gurdogan and Gregers Tang Thomsen lead SUPERPOOL, an Istanbul-based international design practice operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. Superpool has recently finalized 2 projects for the art institution SALT; the Becoming Istanbul Exhibition at SALT Beyoglu and their offices in the newly renovated Ottoman Bank Building in Galata. Underway and soon to finish is the ZK01 House in Zekeriyakoy, north of Istanbul. Since August 2009, Superpool has been one of 14 partners in the EU-funded FP7 research project “TailorCrete”. The aim of the 4-year research is to reach break-through advancement in the concrete building industry through introduction of robots. The project received €5.9 million in funding. Most recently Superpool has received the Audi Urban Future Award 2012 to study mobility in Istanbul in 2030. The study will be concluded with an exhibition in Istanbul in October 2012 along with the 5 other cities in the program.

 

Sarah Whiting and Ron Witte founded WW in 1999. Their work centers on the idea that a building’s program and form are inextricably tethered to one another and that architecture’s progressive potential lies in the speculations, refinements, and definitions that are the nucleus of the program/form relationship. Prior to founding WW, Whiting worked with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Peter Eisenman in New York; and Michael Graves in Princeton, New Jersey. In addition to practicing, Whiting is Dean of the School of Architecture at Rice University, where she is the William Ward Watkin Professor of Architecture. Whiting has also taught at Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Florida. Whiting received her B.A. from Yale, her Master of Architecture from Princeton University, and her Ph.D. from MIT. Witte received his Bachelor of Architecture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and his Master of Architecture from Princeton University.Prior to founding WW, Witte worked with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Jacques Couelle in Paris, France; and Reid & Tarics in San Francisco, California. In addition to practicing, Witte is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at Rice University. Witte has also taught at Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Florida.

 

Michael Young is an architect and educator practicing in New York City where he is a founding partner of the architectural design practice Young & Ayata. Their design work and research has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Michael currently teaches studios and seminars at The Cooper Union, Yale University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. His drawings have been exhibited recently in New York, Los Angeles, and Lexington, Kentucky and are featured as part of the Drawing Center’s Viewing Program. In addition to teaching & practicing, Young is invested in writing, research and experimentation on issues concerning aesthetics and architectural mediation.

 

Alejandro Zaera-Polo is a contemporary architect and founder of London and Barcelona based AZPA. His work has consistently merged the practice of architecture with theoretical practice, providing a strong intellectual rigor to the practice and the discourse on architecture. He trained at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, graduating with Honors, and holds a MARCH II from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, with Distinction. He worked at OMA in Rotterdam between 1991 and 1993, prior to establishing Foreign Office Architects, which run until its dissolution in 2011. He now runs AZPA, which integrates architecture, urban design and landscape architecture, working both for the public and private sector on an international scale. He was recently named the new Dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture, and was formerly Dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam (2000-2005) and held the Delft University Berlage Chair. He has also been Visiting Critic at Columbia GSAPP, Princeton SOA, UCLA School of Architecture and Yokohama University and he led a Diploma Unit at the Architectural Association in London. In addition to his professional role as an architect and an educator, Alejandro Zaera-Polo is a theorist and a thinker with a capacity to identify social, economical, technological and political trends and translate them into the architectural discourse. His texts can be found in many professional publications such as El Croquis, Quaderns, Log, A+U, Arch+, Harvard Design Magazine, Archis, and Volume, among many others.

 

Andrew Zago, principal of Zago Architecture, is Faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI- Arc) and Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. Zago is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a recipient of both an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Fellowship from the United States Artists organization. Zago Architecture is noted for bringing open-ended, creative inquiry to disciplinary concerns in architecture. The firm has completed projects in the US and Korea and its work has been published widely in books, professional journals and reviews.