DEADLINE: Wednesday, February 1st, 2012, 5pm. The deadline for this competition has passed.
Click here to download a PDF of this Call for Essays.

DESCRIPTION
How does the Manhattan street grid determine your experience of the city?

How does it affect your understanding of what a city is, what a city does, how you move through a city?

How does it embed itself in defining aspects of daily life in New York City: destinations, neighborhoods, intersections, commutes; where and how we live, work, explore or enjoy the city?

This year, the Commissionersʼ Plan, the framework that established Manhattanʼs famous street grid, celebrates its 200th anniversary. In honor of that event, and in connection with two exhibitions on the history and future of the grid, Urban Omnibus is soliciting essays that reflect on the Manhattan street grid as paradigm, rubric or muse for urban life. A jury of prominent designers, urbanists, writers and thinkers will review submissions. Up to three winning entries will be published on UrbanOmnibus.net and will receive a monetary award ($500 for first place; $250 for up to two second place winners). The essays submitted to this competition may reference either New York Cityʼs speculative futures or its storied past, but in either case, essays should reflect on its contemporary reality. A strong personal voice is encouraged. Essays can range from stories that take Manhattanʼs numbered streets and avenues as points of departure to journalistic descriptions of place-based urban subcultures to theoretical treatises on infrastructure, property or density.

The prize-winning essays selected for publication will complement a pair of exhibitions presented by the Museum of the City of New York and the Architectural League of New York that commemorate the Manhattan grid and explore its evolving legacy. The exhibitsʼ premise is that the grid has been subject to countless adaptations and transformations over the past 200 years and will be subject to more urban innovation in the years to come. The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011, curated by Hilary Ballon, explores the 200 years since the creation of that foundational plan through the lens of the gridʼs enduring impact on land use, real estate and the public realm. The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan, curated by Gregory Wessner, displays eight design proposals – selected from a pool of over 120 submissions from around the world – that project ways “to act on and within the grid to respond to the challenges and opportunities… that New York faces now and into the future.” The essays will contribute personal, reflective and contemporary voices into this conversation about the past, present and future of New York City. Writers interested in submitting work are encouraged to view the exhibitions as they shape their essays.

With this competition, Urban Omnibus seeks to advance its dedication to redefining the culture of citymaking by inviting writers to interpret a system that influences so many aspects of urban life, and yet is rarely considered in evocative or creative non-fiction writing.

AWARD
The jury will select one first-prize essay, whose author will receive an award of $500. Up to two second place winners will receive prizes of $250 each.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Essays should be between 800 and 2000 words. Suggestions of imagery that supports or illustrates each essay are strongly encouraged.

Email submissions as attachments to info@urbanomnibus.net with GRID: ESSAY SUBMISSION as the subject line. Please include your name at the top of the document.

Submissions must be received by 5:00pm on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012.

Questions about this call for essays can be sent to info@urbanomnibus.net.

ELIGIBILITY
Staff and board members of the Architectural League and the Museum of the City of New York are not eligible for this competition.

JURY 
Ken Chen, Executive Director, Asian American Writersʼ Workshop
Sina Najafi, Editor, Cabinet
Michael Sorkin, architect, urban designer, writer
Nicola Twilley, author, Edible Geography and Co-Director, Studio-X New York

Rosalie Genevro, Executive Director, Architectural League
Cassim Shepard, Editor, Urban Omnibus
Varick Shute, Managing Editor, Urban Omnibus
Gregory Wessner, Special Projects Director, Architectural League and curator of The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan

ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS
The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011 celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Commissionersʼ Plan of 1811, the foundational document that established Manhattanʼs famous street grid. Featuring an original hand-drawn map of New Yorkʼs planned streets and avenues prepared by the Commission in 1811, as well as other rare historic maps, photographs and prints of the evolution of the cityʼs streets, and original manuscripts and publications that document the cityʼs physical growth, the exhibition examines the gridʼs initial design, implementation, and evolution. The Greatest Grid traces the enduring influence of the 1811 plan as the grid has become a defining feature of the city, shaping its institutions and public life.

The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan: On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Commissionersʼ Plan, the Architectural League, in partnership with the Museum of the City of New York and Architizer, issued an international Call for Ideas, inviting architects and designers from around the world to speculate about how Manhattanʼs grid might be adapted, extended or transformed in the future. How might the grid accommodate growth or make possible new types of buildings; how could it be modified to respond to climate change or new transportation technologies? The Unfinished Grid presents eight proposals, selected by a jury of architects and historians, which offer provocative speculations for the future city. Proposals range from inserting a new north-south avenue, in order to introduce new street-level public spaces, to appropriating intersections as sites for new kinds of development, to envisioning fantastical vertical cities that claim the sky above Manhattan as a new realm for inhabitation. Together the proposals do not describe a literal vision of the future, but suggest the immense possibilities and catalytic power the grid still holds, after two hundred years, for organizing urban life and stimulating the imaginations of architects and urbanists.

Both exhibitions are on view through April 15, 2012 at the Museum of the City of New York.

In a deceptively modest-seeming exhibition hall on the first floor of the Museum of the City of New York is a show titled The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011, a history of the 1811 plan for Manhattan’s grid, now celebrating its 200th anniversary. The size of the exhibit is cleverly misleading. Upon closer inspection its historic scale and range are immense and provide that rare feeling that one has discovered the secrets of the city.

One floor above the historical exhibit are, fittingly, projections for the future of Manhattan’s grid in the companion exhibit The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan – eight proposals chosen from over 120, in a call for ideas sponsored by the Architectural League in partnership with the Museum of the City of New York and Architizer. [For more information about the two exhibitions, see this piece by Unfinished Grid curator Gregory Wessner. -Ed.]

At the Museum last Saturday afternoon, the Architectural League’s Gregory Wessner, the curator of The Unfinished Grid, moderated a panel discussion with Amale Andraos of WORKac, Ken Smith of Ken Smith Landscape Architect, and Mark Robbins, Dean of Syracuse University School of Architecture (Andraos and Robbins had served on the jury for the Unfinished Grid competition). The group discussed the living legacy of the 1811 plan and the new proposals imagining Manhattan’s infrastructural future.

L-R: Gregory Wessner, Ken Smith, Mark Robbins, Amale Andraos

The grand scale and defyingly disciplined solution that the 1811 Plan imposed on the map of Manhattan (in most instances keeping to the original plan within a hundredth of an inch) has had a humbling and inspiring effect on many architects and designers, including those on the panel. When asked to explain this enduring influence, Amale Andraos pointed out that, “Compared with the Roman grid, the Manhattan grid was created to create difference and expressiveness on its own. It’s funny that it seems so inevitable, so straightforward.  It’s also [a] very egalitarian ideology, not like the Continental grid. There’s no preferred access.” Indeed, as early as 1877, Frederick Law Olmsted made a similar observation, as provided in the exhibit along with quotes by other memorable observers: “Such distinctive advantage of position that Rome gives St. Peter’s, Paris the Madeleine, London St. Paul’s, New York, under her system, gives to nothing.”

While neutralizing and egalitarian in this respect, and in its use of a numbering system rather than the Continental preference for important names, the grid also presents to many as oppressive and constricting. Ken Smith noted that “it was criticized for its relentlessness at first; [but it also presented the] the genius of pure infrastructure – it frames and then individuates.” Mark Robbins then fondly recalled the tag line for The Naked City: “There are 8 million stories in the Naked City. This is one of them.” The panelists pointed out this expressive effect of the grid, that most of the individual expression and innovation occur within the interstitial spaces in the city, the ones the grid gives rise to and organically encourages.

Of course, not everyone feels the grid’s oppressiveness as a catalyst to greater flourishing of city life. One member of the audience felt quite dismayed at the unanimous adulation the panel seemed to give the grid. He echoed a not unpopular sentiment when he said, “I’m a little disheartened that you are so cheerful about the grid. For example, every street is a through street — you can’t find respite, can’t get away from it.”

Andraos countered that what he perceives as problems natural to the grid may actually have more to do with how we conduct daily life in the 21st century — garbage collection, street cleaning and traffic issues. She pointed to Barcelona’s new pneumatic trash management system that helps reduce garbage truck traffic as an example of how creative solutions can address many of these issues. When prodded by another audience member, an Englishwoman who bemoaned the lack of green space, especially as compared with London, Andraos pointed out the immense environmentally adaptive qualities of the grid. Although it was created in the first half of the 19th century, when the city could only count a population of 100,000 on the island of Manhattan, the grid made possible an efficient future sewage system, subway system, and pedestrian traffic. Within its rigidity it provided a flexibility that could accommodate this ambitiously growing and densifying city.

One of the central questions of planning in New York did creep its way into the discussion when someone asked about he pros and cons of landmarking in New York City 200 years into the future. The panelists agreed that, as Andraos replied, “We can’t and shouldn’t turn the entire city into a museum.” It’s also a question of allowing for the life of the city to continue. Wessner added that “Preserving the spirit of New York as place of change and new ideas, and balancing that with the city’s past – it’s a big question. Also, there’s a difference between preservation for historic value versus preservation efforts that are meant to keep development from happening.” This tension between development and preservation seems to underlie almost every discussion about planning, those about grand scale projects especially. Mark Robbins acknowledged this “anxiety about fabric going away in New York,” but, he pointed out, “(it) seems to be remarkably resilient.”

The panel did appraise some of the eight projects on display that project the grid’s potential into the city’s future. However, the panelists and jury members seemed a bit surprised by what they saw as a common “back to the future” sensibility of many of the entries and a relatively timid approach to thinking 200 years ahead. For example, they noted that none of the environmentally-oriented submissions were chosen as winners, partly because they were not radical enough or because many of their plans for the future are already a contemporary reality. Green plans for rooftops in Manhattan and urban farms, for instance, have been sprouting for a while now.

Maintaining New York as a place that inspires big ideas and gives them traction seems a bit more difficult 200 years on. We may recognize that planning of such sweeping scope can’t or won’t happen today, but this show serves to kindle the desire to imagine on a grand scale — the resilience of the grid speaks well to the impact of ambitious spirit. Thinking big might be okay again.

Yael Friedman writes about art and culture, and often about sports. She lives in Brooklyn and grew up in Tel Aviv and Rockaway (Bauhaus heaven and unapologetically homey beach town, respectively). You can check out more of her stuff at Ida Post.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

The following was originally published on WNET’s MetroFocus. 

New Yorkers take it for granted that we can say things like “meet me at 85th Street and Third Avenue” and know that regardless of whether someone has been to that intersection, they will easily be able to get there. It’s all thanks to Manhattan’s legendary street grid, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year.

A little history of the grid
In 1807, frustrated by years of uncontrolled development and a decade of public health epidemics attributed to lower Manhattan’s cramped and irregular streets, New York City’s Common Council (the predecessor to today’s City Council) petitioned the State Legislature to develop a street plan for Manhattan above Houston Street, at that time a rural area of streams and hills populated by a patchwork of country estates, farms and small houses. The adoption four years later of the Commissioners’ Plan established the grid of 12 north-south avenues and 155 east-west streets that, though it would take most of the 19th century to build, continues to fundamentally shape life in New York.

But is something so infrastructural, something that’s taken for granted every day, really worth celebrating?
The grid is definitely worth celebrating — without it, New York might not be the great city it has become. That’s why the Museum of the City of New York and the Architectural League of New York have organized a pair of exhibitions about its past and future. The first of these exhibitions, The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011, curated by architectural historian Hilary Ballon, traces the creation, implementation and evolution of the plan from 1811 through the 20th century. A tour de force of historical research that constitutes the first sustained examination of this subject, The Greatest Grid tells the story of a young New York that is full of optimism about its future and unafraid to take on bold challenges.

Jon Meacham takes a tour of “The Greatest Grid” at the Museum of the City of New York with curator Hilary Ballon.

Top image: an oil painting from 1885 that imagines what the junction of Bowery and Broadway, the area that became Union Square, looked like during colonial times. Bottom image: Union Square today. Photos courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York and Flickr/U2wanderer.

Among its many keen insights, The Greatest Grid reveals how remarkably flexible Manhattan’s street grid has been over two centuries. To wit, the following were all later city additions unanticipated by the grid’s creators in 1811: Central Park and the superblock housing developments of 1960s urban renewal; Madison and Lexington avenues; the automobile and the subway; skyscrapers; the water system and the electricity grid; zoning resolutions and preservation districts. That the grid was able to accommodate them all while sustaining its essential character is a true testament to its flexibility, which Ballon has described as a “living framework, which enabled the city to grow and evolve over time.”

How might designers, developers and city officials continue to modify the grid in response to the challenges and opportunities that New York faces now and into the future?
To answer this question, the Architectural League and the museum, along with media sponsor Architizer, issued an international call for ideas that invited architects and urban designers from around the world to use the grid as a springboard for thinking about the city’s future. More than 120 teams from 22 countries submitted proposals, from which a jury of architects and curators selected eight they believed offer the most insightful and provocative ideas for Manhattan’s grid.

Click the images below to see and read about the eight selected ideas:

These eight proposals are now on display in The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan, a sister exhibition to The Greatest Grid. If the submissions are any indication, Manhattan’s enduring power as architectural and urban muse is undiminished. The proposals are bold, ambitious and full of energy. They address a range of issues, from extending Manhattan’s edge to create sites for new building; to reconfiguring city streets to increase pedestrian space; to amending preservation and zoning regulations to foster alternative possibilities for development.

A portrait of Simeon De Witt, ca. 1804, one of the commissioners behind the 1811 grid plan | via Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University

How do idea competitions like this one benefit the city?
Many of the proposals will strike viewers as far-fetched or impractical, with little chance of ever being realized. But that is not the point. The proposals on view are not necessarily intended as literal recommendations for future projects, although there are certainly many good ideas in them that could be implemented to great impact. Rather, I hope that these eight proposals challenge us to remember that, like the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan itself, New York is a city that has the capacity and willingness to think big.

As inevitable — or invisible — as Manhattan’s grid may seem to us today, there was a moment, as Hilary Ballon points out, “when a set of city leaders reached a firm decision to establish [the street grid] and steadfastly held to it over strong objections from influential people.

None of the proposals on view in The Unfinished Grid are more outlandish than the idea of imposing a grid of 2,028 blocks on land that was largely rural, for a city with a population at the time of 100,000 people. But that is exactly what makes New York such a glorious and thrilling place to live. The absurd and impractical and far-fetched take root here to offer new possibilities for how to live and work and play.

Our 19th century forebears, resident in the city during the decades it took to fully realize the street grid, had to live through the blasting of Manhattan rocks and the clearing of soil, the laying out of streets and the endless building required to fill these new blocks with their first houses, shops and schools. I would expect that in true New York fashion, they complained and resisted and protested. But they also persevered. And it is only through their perseverance and their shared sacrifice that we have the dynamic city that we have today.

In 1886, this pile of rocks sat at the corner of what is now 81st Street and Ninth Avenue | via Museum of the City of New York.

It’s the job of every New Yorker to embrace change
Make no mistake: big ideas like the ones here require a commensurate level of commitment and sacrifice. But we should not forget that we ourselves are the beneficiaries of centuries of commitment and sacrifice on the part of the millions of New Yorkers who preceded us here.

New York City is perhaps one of human history’s greatest works-in-progress. It is a city that is and should continue to be about the future, about possibility, about reinvention, both personal and architectural. It is our responsibility to have big ideas and the corresponding commitment to realize them, even in the face of the inconvenience of scaffolding and torn up streets and the sounds of construction. I hope that the projects on view in The Unfinished Grid challenge viewers to think of their own big ideas, so that we hand forward a greater New York to the people who follow us than the one in which we live now. It is a project not just for architects and developers and city officials, but one that should occupy all New Yorkers.

Gregory Wessner is an architectural historian and the special projects director at the Architectural League of New York. He is curator of “The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan.”

When we spoke to landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh in December 2009 about Brooklyn Bridge Park, just before the first phase of the project opened to the public, he spoke about what it means to design something that continues to live and grow, and how this particular site offered an opportunity to completely reimagine what parks should be in today’s cities. Next week, on Tuesday, November 22, at 7pm, Van Valkenburgh will elaborate on his ideas about design, ecology and landscape across a variety of scales and locations, in “Parks, a Campus, and Three Summer House Gardens.” The talk, organized by the Architectural League and co-sponsored by the Cooper Union, will be followed by a conversation with Kate Orff, partner of Scape/Landscape Architecture and Vice President for Landscape at the League. Tickets are free for League members; $15 for non-members. Read on for more information (check archleague.org for the latest about the event):

Current Work
Michael Van Valkenburgh, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
“Parks, a Campus, and Three Summer House Gardens”
Introduced and moderated by Kate Orff
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
7:00pm
The Great Hall, The Cooper Union
7 East 7th Street
1.5 CEUs

Michael Van Valkenburgh will present the recent work of his firm, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA). Based in Brooklyn and Cambridge, MVVA is a landscape architecture firm, which works on projects in scale from the city to the campus to the garden. MVVA’s commissions have sought to achieve an “ecological urbanism,” with projects such as the Master Plans for Brooklyn Bridge Park and Wellesley College, and built work like Mill Race Park and Allegheny Riverfront Park.

The office, led by its three principals, Laura Solano, Matthew Urbanski, and Michael Van Valkenburgh with a staff of 65, works closely with urban planners, architects, engineers, and ecologists. The firm’s projects have received numerous honors, including the ASLA Design Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects; the Brendan Gill Prize from the Municipal Art Society of New York City; Progressive Architecture Awards; and awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Park Service, and the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada. MVVA has also won multiple high-profile design competitions including Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House, the Lower Don Lands project in Toronto, and The City + The Arch + The River competition for St. Louis and East St. Louis. Van Valkenburgh received the 2003 National Design Award in Environmental Design from the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and was the 2010 recipient of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Van Valkenburgh earned a B.S. in Landscape Architecture from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture, and a M.F.A. in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently the Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Van Valkenburgh teaches landscape design as well as the use of plants as design material. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and the American Academy of Landscape Architects.

Kate Orff is a partner of Scape/Landscape Architecture and is the Vice President for Landscape of the Architectural League of New York.

Tickets 
Tickets are free for League members; $15 for non-members. Members may reserve a ticket by e-mailing: rsvp@archleague.org. Member tickets will be held at the check-in desk; unclaimed tickets will be released fifteen minutes after the start of the program. Non-members may purchase tickets here.

Organized by the Architectural League of New York. Co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Video from the September 2010 Urban Omnibus feature Park as Process: Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Last month, when we spoke with Alyson Baker, former executive director of Socrates Sculpture Park, about the exhibition Civic Action: A Vision for Long Island City, she made mention of her fervent belief in the creative potential of collaboration and hinted at a new program at Socrates:

We have just initiated a new project at the park where we are creating a forum where young architects and young artists work together, on separate projects, on their own things, but in the same studio. I think that kind of collaboration is important, especially when it comes to work within the public realm, and when you have so many artists who are interested in architecture, urban planning, design — a much bigger picture.

We’re pleased to announce that this “new project” is a collaboration between Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League: Folly, a new design/build residency for architects and designers leading to an exhibition at Socrates next year.

Call for Proposals: Folly
A project organized by Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League
Deadline: January 16, 2012

For more information and to download the full Call for Proposals, visit archleague.org or socratessculpturepark.org.

Socrates Sculpture Park and the Architectural League invite emerging architects and designers to apply for the opportunity to build and exhibit a full-scale project around the theme of an architectural folly. This residency was established to explore the intersections between architecture and sculpture and the increasing overlaps in references, materials, and building techniques between the two disciplines.

Socrates and the League welcome proposals for full-scale projects and installations that explore contemporary interpretations of the architectural folly. By definition a fanciful architectural form, built to lend interest to a view or serve as a conversation piece, the folly serves as an ideal launching point for a dynamic exploration of architectural form and its relationship to sculpture.

A jury of architects, artists, curators, and arts administrators will select a single project to be realized within the grounds of Socrates Sculpture Park. The recipient will receive a $5,000 production grant to fund the project, as well as full access to the resources and fabrication facilities of Socrates Sculpture Park’s outdoor studio during a two-month residency at the Park, beginning in May 2012. The completed project will open to the public in July 2012.

JURY
Alyson Baker, Director, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
Yolande Daniels, studio SUMO
Richard Gluckman, Gluckman Mayner Architects
Christopher Leong, Leong Leong Architecture
Leo Villareal, artist

ELIGIBILITY
Architects and related designers are invited to apply. Applicants do not need to be registered architects. Architects and designers outside of New York City are eligible to apply but housing and transportation are not provided as part of the award. If selected, non-resident architects will have to make their own living and travel arrangements. Full-time matriculated students are not eligible to apply.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE
Applicants are strongly encouraged to visit Socrates Sculpture Park before submitting their application. Applicants must take into account the site’s rugged, urban outdoor environment and be aware that installations in the Park are subject to final approval by Socrates and League staff and must meet safety requirements to be able to withstand the effects of weather and public use. Additional application instructions are in the full Call for Proposals.

SUPPORT
Folly, a partnership of Socrates Sculpture Park and The Architectural League of New York, is made possible through a generous grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

For more information and to download the full Call for Proposals, visit archleague.org or socratessculpturepark.org.

This week, the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC) and the Architectural League are pleased to announce the Making Room Symposium, to be held on November 7 at the Japan Society. Buy your tickets today.

Making Room Symposium
Monday, November 7, 2011
8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Japan Society
333 East 47th Street
4.5 HSW CEUs

Making Room Afterparty in Nolita
Wine, hors d’oeuvres, and live jazz
6:00 p.m.
Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral Youth Center
263 Mulberry Street

For the latest information about this event, click here.

New York has an incredibly diverse population that lives in incredibly diverse ways. Yet the city’s housing, much of which was produced in the 20th century, does not meet the needs of a 21st century population. Households across the economic spectrum – from graduate students to senior citizens, extended families to multiple roommates, single professionals to working artists – are compelled to improvise their living arrangements in housing that can be illegal or unsafe. What New Yorkers need are more housing choices.

Making Room is a research and advocacy project initiated by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC) to increase the range of options in New York’s housing market. Through its research, CHPC identified ways in which current housing regulations and standards in New York constrain the range of choices the market can offer, particularly for single-person households, shared dwellings and multi-generational households, through restrictions on unit size, subdivisions of existing units and definitions of who may jointly occupy units. To build on its research, CHPC asked the Architectural League to join with it in a design study to propose and evaluate new types of housing that might better match the contemporary demographic make-up of New York and how New Yorkers choose to live now.

The Making Room symposium will present innovative ideas produced by teams of architects commissioned by CHPC and the League, and in-depth discussion of their proposals by government officials, international architects and other experts. Making Room will point the ways forward to introduce more legal and safe options into New York City’s housing market. At the end of the day, the Making Room “after-party” will provide an opportunity for further informal discussion with the day’s presenters and others from across the spectrum of the housing and real estate communities.

Tickets
To buy tickets, click here.
Design Symposium (breakfast and lunch included) $150; Evening reception, $100; Discount rate for both events, $225. Student rate, $50 for both events (with current ID). There is no additional discount for Architectural League members. This event has limited capacity; to ensure a ticket, please register by October 31st. Tickets will be available at the door, space permitting.

Featuring presentations of work by
Stan Allen & Rafi Segal – Principal, Stan Allen Architect and Dean, Princeton University School of Architecture; Founder, Rafi Segal Architecture Urbanism
Deborah Gans – Principal, Gans Studio and professor, Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Peter Gluck – Principal, Peter Gluck and Partners Architects
Jonathan Kirschenfeld – Principal, Jonathan Kirschenfeld Architects
Ted Smith – Principal, Smith & Others

With discussions of the designs presented and related policy issues by
Matthew Blesso - President, Blesso Properties
David Bragdon – Director, Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability
Azby Brown – Founder, Future Design Institute, Tokyo
David Burney – Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction
Seth Diamond – Commissioner, NYC Department of Homeless Services
Alex Garvin - Principal, Alex Garvin and Associates
Rosalie Genevro – Executive Director, Architectural League of New York
Linda Gibbs – Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, City of New York
Mark Ginsberg – Partner, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects
Amie Gross – President, Amie Gross Architects
Vicente Guallart - Founder, Guallart Architects and Chief Architect, City of Barcelona
Rosanne Haggerty - President, Community Solutions
Graham Hill – Founder, treehugger.com
Robert LiMandri – Commissioner, NYC Department of Buildings
Jerilyn Perine – Executive Director, Citizens Housing & Planning Council
Mark Strauss – Senior Partner, FXFOWLE Architects
Mathew Wambua – Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development
Tom Wargo – Director of Zoning, NYC Department of City Planning

Making Room has been made possible through a generous grant to CHPC from the Charles H. Revson Foundation and the support of the CHPC Board of Directors, the Lavanburg Foundation, the estate of Marian R. Naumburg, Edison Properties, and the Japan Society of New York.

…………….

UPDATE: Michael Kimmelman’s New York Times coverage of the CHPC/Architectural League Making Room project and symposium is now available at nytimes.com.

UPDATE: Making Room symposium details announced: Monday, November 7, 2011, 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. at the Japan Society. (NOTE: This event has passed.)

New York City has a remarkably diverse population and, in many respects, a remarkably heterogeneous housing stock to provide it shelter. From Riverdale to Tottenville, Flushing to Chelsea, Washington Heights to Jackson Heights to Brooklyn Heights, New Yorkers inhabit an amazing spectrum of residential building types, developed and accumulated over the history of the city. At many critical junctures over the last century and a half, New York City has been an innovative leader in housing regulation and finance, encouraging and shaping development to ensure that dwellings are safe and respond to evolving standards of livability.

But even with the great resources of its varied housing stock and its strong tradition of housing advocacy and reform, New York has a hard time producing enough housing to meet demand. And in moments of economic and social transition, housing supply and housing need can get seriously out of whack.

Over the last several years, the Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC) has been researching and analyzing how and where New York’s residents live and the housing that is available to them. Their findings have revealed many discrepancies between the kinds of houses and apartments people need and those they can find. CHPC has identified New York City’s accreted mass of housing regulations and standards — all created with progressive and worthy goals in mind — as one of the factors that contributes to this mismatch. For example, regulations have tilted what the housing market produces towards larger units, for households assumed to be “families,” even though only 17% of New York’s dwelling units are occupied by traditional nuclear families. A huge underground or improvised housing market has developed over the last two decades as people try, often in desperation, to find places to live that are affordable and can accommodate their particular needs.

Around the world, architects, developers and policymakers are responding to the shifting demands of urban dwellers with new forms of housing in ways New York is not. If our city wants to continue to respond to the needs of its dynamic population, it must continue to innovate in the types of housing it produces. In 2009, CHPC brought architects from Tokyo, Barcelona, San Diego, Montreal and Leipzig to New York for a landmark symposium (read UO‘s coverage of that event here) that introduced an audience of housing experts from design, development, law, policy and government to the vanguard of housing design for 21st century cities.

This symposium was part of a broader project — called Making Room — to take a fresh look at how housing and space standards constrict the choices architects and developers are able to introduce into New York’s housing market. To move that project forward, CHPC asked the Architectural League to join with them to carry out a design study to produce new models for comfortable, desirable dwellings. Four teams of leading New York architects, each with expertise and a particular perspective, have been asked to respond to this challenge. On Monday, November 7, the architects and their teams — Stan Allen and Rafi Segal; Deborah Gans; Peter Gluck; and Jonathan Kirschenfeld — will present their ideas in an all-day symposium. This event is only one part of a much larger research and advocacy project that will include exhibiting these designs publicly and identifying what laws and codes currently on the books are preventing new modes of residential living from becoming available.

In the video above, CHPC Executive Director Jerilyn Perine (who was formerly the commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development), Architectural League Executive Director Rosalie Genevro, Chhaya Community Development Corporation Executive Director Seema Agnani, and Blesso Properties President and Founder Matthew Blesso discuss the state of the city’s housing, the underground housing market and some of the kinds of changes that could make New York housing more responsive to the ways we live now. Over the coming months, Urban Omnibus will be providing regular updates on the Making Room project as it develops. Stay tuned.

Seema Agnani is Executive Director of Chhaya CDC and was one of its initial founders. Before returning to Chhaya as Executive Director in 2007, she was the Coordinating Consultant to the Fund for New Citizens at The New York Community Trust, a donor collaborative supporting immigrant rights work. She was also the Director of Training and Technical Assistance at Citizens for NYC. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. She is a former recipient of The Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University, earned her Bachelors at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a Masters of Urban Planning and Public Administration at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Matthew Blesso is President and Founder of Blesso Properties. Prior to founding Blesso Properties, he worked as a commercial lender, most recently in the Real Estate Finance Group at BHF Bank (now PB Capital), a German bank. Matt is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Municipal Arts Society, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the Urban Land Institute, the New York Preservation Archive Project, and the Manhattan Real Estate Network. He is also a member of Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the Citizen Housing and Planning Counsel and a founding member and the chairman of the Leadership Board of the Fourth Arts Block as well as Board member of the Institute For Urban Design.

In over 20 years as executive director of the Architectural League of New York, Rosalie Genevro has pursued the League’s mission – to nurture excellence and engagement in architecture, design and urbanism – through consistent innovation in the content and format of live events, exhibitions and publications (both in print and online). She has conceived and developed projects that have mobilized the expertise of the League’s international network of architects and designers towards applied projects in the public interest, including Vacant Lots, New Schools for New York, Envisioning East New York, Ten Shades of Green, Worldview Cities and Urban Omnibus.

Jerilyn Perine is the executive director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council (CHPC) where she spearheads a high impact agenda to improve the quality of public debate, inform public policy, promote new ideas, and engage a wide audience as well as a diverse and active Board Membership to improve NYC neighborhoods. Ms. Perine is an urban planner with 30 years of experience in housing and community development. She was appointed Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development by both Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead America’s largest municipal housing agency with more than 3000 employees and an annual operating and capital budget of $800 million. As Commissioner, Ms. Perine was the author of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, announced in December 2002 that provided $3 billion over 5 years to preserve and create over 65,000 units of affordable housing. Under Mayor Giuliani she designed and oversaw the management and operation of programs designed to return a significant inventory of tax foreclosed residential property to local, private ownership. Ms. Perine is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and was a member of the International Brownfield Exchange between 1998 and 2002. She serves on the board of Highbridge Voices, a children’s choir in the South Bronx; West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing; and the New York Housing Conference.

New York Next panel (L to R): Guy Nordenson, Rob Rogers, Betty Chen, Richard Olcott and Claire Weisz

Last week, a group of leading New York City designers met to discuss the future of New York City at New York Next: The Future City, hosted by the Architectural League and Architectural Record. The panel consisted of Betty Chen, currently a member of the New York City Planning Commission, formerly the Vice-President for Planning, Design and Preservation for the Trust for Governors Island; Guy Nordenson, of Guy Nordenson and Associates Structural Engineers and Commissioner and Secretary of the New York City Public Design Commission; Richard Olcott, founding partner and design principal at Ennead Architects and former member of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission from 1996 to 2007; Rob Rogers, principal of Rogers Marvel Architects, a firm whose portfolio includes streetscape design for Manhattan’s financial district, and flood mitigation strategies and street furniture for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and Claire Weisz, founding partner of WXY Architecture + Urban Design and adjunct professor of planning at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at NYU.

The conversation was organized without a moderator, allowing the panelists to pose questions to one another. Their discussion revolved around questions of the physical city — In what kind of city do we want to live? Who decides what kind of city ours will become? — as well as questions of pacing, framed by their own experience with major redevelopment projects across the city over the last decade. The panel set out to define what constitutes the public realm, as well as the responsibilities of both public and private entities to that public realm.

Guy Nordenson opened up the discussion with the question, “Is privatization a good thing? Or should the public sector take over?” Nordenson situated himself as undecided. He referred to a recent New York Times article that claimed that the government pays more when using private contractors they they do when using government workers, but also noted examples of particularly successful public/private partnerships around the city, such as the Central Park Conservancy. Other answers varied: Richard Olcott cited issues of capital, and the private sector’s ability to raise funds where the public sector can’t. Rob Rogers, speaking specifically about New York City, claimed that the major boon of the last decade of building in New York City was the high skill level of public sector staffs: a high quality client begets a high quality project. Claire Weisz added that New York is the right kind of city, with not just an educated city government, but an educated and involved populace. Ultimately, we hope for a well educated, well meaning, capable government, but we have to be prepared to make design decisions without one.

Betty Chen’s questions — “Is there a way for architects and engineers to play more of a role in setting the public agenda? Are there other opportunities not generated by the traditional client model?” — led the discussion to one of timing and environment. According to Guy Nordenson, new public design ideas need to have a public sector champion to become institutionalized. The consensus of the panel was that the major success of the Bloomberg administration has been its ability to institute long term, visionary planning and policies and to institutionalize progressive ideas about what kind of city New York should be in the future.

Rob Rogers and Richard Olcott asked questions regarding the widespread attention on the public realm that has been generated by the World Trade Center site, whether that has led to a more interested and more involved public and, in a more disciplinary light, how it has changed how architects work. Betty Chen answered with a fear of complacency: New Yorkers are excited about their city, but does that excitement lead to satisfaction with the status quo, and thus a lack of urgency to push the city forward? According to Chen, designers have the training and the imagination, and therefore the responsibility, to look at the urban fabric and show the rest of the city its potential.

A surprising moment of consensus on the future of the city came when the question was asked, “What is the most urgent civic design issue facing New York today?” Across the panel, there was a call for further activation of the city’s waterways, specifically through reinvestment in a ferry network, to engage our “sixth borough” and alleviate our traffic problems.

The panel opened up for questions from the audience. League Executive Director Rosalie Genevro stayed on the topic of city transit by asking about what can be done to resolve the conflicts and frustrations that arise from, as an example, the city’s subways being controlled by a State agency. A State agency is less capable of responding to the needs of the primary users, less able to act nimbly. The question harkened back to Guy Nordenson’s first question, in that it asks how large an active government agency can be before it is no longer able to be responsive to it’s citizenry. Rob Rogers suggested that the need to wrest back control and funding extends beyond the MTA, using education as another prime example. Richard Olcott pointed to the mayors of Los Angeles, Newark and San Francisco as examples of how to think regionally, without looking to their States for help, and suggested that approach as a model for New York City in disentangling itself from the State as much as possible. Claire Weisz seconded the need for regional thinking, citing the US Northwest as leading the way, but also acknowledged that some of the State/City divide is an issue of timing and balance: there was a time when the city was less capable, Battery Park City needed the State to step in, and there are still circumstances in which it makes sense for the State to take control. It is more about how to work within those constraints tactically, using state or federal capabilities when necessary.

There was, all around the table, a real sense of apprehension about what could come out of the next administration. When the Bloomberg administration leaves, who will take over? What kind of city will they want New York City to be? And will they be capable of, or even interested in, instituting the kind of long ranging, forward thinking policies that the Bloomberg administration promoted? We’ll have to wait and see. But the panelists agreed, regardless of what’s next, we have to be willing to challenge and reimagine the status quo, drive the conversation and demand quality planning and design in dialogue about our public realm.

Jessica Cronstein is a designer and writer interested in the point at which the social, cultural and physical growth of a city intersect. She has just completed her M.Arch at Rice University and lives in New York City.