Symposium Agenda

7:45-8:25am

Check-in & Breakfast | Methods+Materials Gallery

8:35-8:40am

Welcome

• 

  Diana Darling

  Publisher

  The Architect’s Newspaper

  Diana Darling

  ×

  

  Darling is CEO and cofounder of The Architect’s Newspaper, celebrating its 12th year. The A|N media company consists of print and digital publications covering architecture and design news, as well as the Facades+ conferences. As A|N’s publisher, Darling won the AIA National Collaboration Award, Grassroots Preservation Award, and ASLA NY’s President’s Award. She began her publishing career as director of print production for The Gap’s European markets. She holds a BS from The University of Texas at Austin.

• 

  John Cetra

  Founding Principal

  CetraRuddy

  CO-CHAIR

  John Cetra

  ×

  

  John Cetra co-founded CetraRuddy in 1987 on the principle that architecture should engage the urban fabric while enriching the human spirit. With a passion for innovative, inspiring designs and a commitment to real world solutions, Cetra has led the firm to international recognition. Through his practice, Cetra has experienced the interrelationship of architecture, urban design and planning. He has a sophisticated understanding of program, zoning, and complex problem solving which inform his approach on projects ranging from new construction to conversions of Landmark buildings. He is a recognized industry leader in tall building technology, historic buildings and analytic site development. Cetra holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York.

8:40-8:50am

Civic Perspective

• 

  Suri Kasirer

  President

  Kasirer LLC

  Suri Kasirer

  ×

  

  Suri Kasirer is a born New Yorker and advocate. She founded Kasirer in 1997 and is a lifelong commitment to championing people, progress and policy in the city. Kasirer grew her business into the #1 lobbying firms in New York City, assembling and leading a team with decades of experience and an unrivaled fluency in the inner workings of New York. She and her team have established an unparalleled record of success in the city on behalf of clients who are leaders in a wide range of industries, corporate to not-for-profit, education and culture, real estate to technology, hospitality to media to health care. Citizens Union honored Suri as a 2018 Gotham Great and she was a recipient of the National Organization for Women (NOW) Women of Power & Influence Award. Kasirer serves on the boards of the New York League of Conservation Voters, Citymeals on Wheels, the Women’s Leadership Forum and the New York Building Foundation. She is a member of the steering committee for the Association for a Better New York and a member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, WX New York Women Executives in Real Estate, and the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association. After graduating from Yeshiva University, Suri worked as an educator—before working on a national presidential race. Inspired by politics, she joined the executive staff of then-governor Mario Cuomo as his special assistant.

8:50-9:45am

Opening Keynote

Moderator: Matt Shaw

• 

  Ben van Berkel

  Founder

  UNSense

  Ben van Berkel

  ×

  

  Ben van Berkel, (F)RIBA, Hon. FAIA, studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987. In 1988 he and Caroline Bos set up an architectural practice in Amsterdam, extending their theoretical and writing projects to the practice of architecture. UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects include the design for Doha's Integrated Metro Network in Qatar, ‘Four’ a large-scale mixed-use project in Frankfurt and the Wasl Tower in Dubai. UNStudio projects include the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Arnhem central Station in the Netherlands, the Raffles City mixed-use development in Hangzhou, the Canaletto Tower in London, a private villa up-state New York and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. In 2018 Ben van Berkel founded UNSense, an Arch Tech company that designs and integrates human-centric tech solutions for the built environment. Currently, van Berkel holds the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor's Chair at Harvard University GSD. In 2017, he also gave a TEDx presentation about health and architecture. In addition, he is a member of the Taskforce Team / Advisory Board Construction Industry for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

• 

  Matt Shaw

  Executive Editor

  The Architect’s Newspaper

  Matt Shaw

  ×

  

  Matt Shaw is the Executive Editor of The Architect’s Newspaper. He teaches critical writing at SCI-Arc and is the founder and co-editor of Mockitecture, a half-manifesto/half-satire collection of architectural debauchery. He has worked for the Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting (C-Lab), Storefront for Art and Architecture, Architizer, and been published in The Architectural Review, Beyond, Domus, and Icon. He wrote and researched two editions of the guidebook “Europe’s Top 100 Architecture and Design Schools” for Domus, and helped edit with Mark Foster Gage the book Aesthetics Equals Politics: New Discourses Across Art, Architecture, and Philosophy (MIT Press). Shaw has led the experimental research group Critical Method Unit (CMU) at Syracuse University NYC Architecture Program, and has been an invited critic at numerous schools including Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Penn, and UCLA.

9:45-10:35am

Materiality & Fabrication: Bespoke Facade Solutions

These three panelists literally think out of the box, collaborating to meet challenging design problems with bespoke and streamlined solutions, using digital fabrication and unique materials ranging from metal mesh systems, composites like GFRC and lightweight FRP cladding, to aluminum and concrete panels.

• 

  Joshua Prince-Ramus

  REX

  Joshua Prince-Ramus

  ×

  

• 

  Shohei Shigematsu

  Partner / Director

  OMA

  Shohei Shigematsu

  ×

  

  Shohei Shigematsu has been a driving force behind many of OMA’s projects, leading the firm’s diverse portfolio in the Americas for the past decade. With an emphasis on maximum specificity and process-oriented design, Shigematsu provides design leadership and direction across the company for projects from their conceptual onset to completed construction.He is responsible for delivering a number of cultural projects across North America, including Milstein Hall, an extension to the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University; a new museum for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; Faena Forum in Miami Beach and the renovation and reimagination of Sotheby’s New York Headquarters. His cultural projects currently in progress include an expansion for the New Museum in New York City; an extension to the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York and an event space for the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles. Shigematsu has also designed exhibitions for Prada, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, Dior’s first US retrospective at Denver Art Museum and at the Dallas Museum of Art. He has collaborated with multiple artists – including Cai Guo-Qiang, Marina Abramović, Kanye West and Taryn Simon.Shigematsu's urban and public space designs around the world include the Willow Campus masterplan, an integrated mixed-use village for Facebook in Menlo Park, California; a mixed-use development in Santa Monica; a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy urban water strategy for New Jersey; and in Toronto, the largest transit-oriented development currently underway in North America.He has built a number of innovative workspaces including–the China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing (2012), and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters (2013). He is currently designing a new business center in Fukuoka (2020) and OMA’s first tower in Tokyo for Mori Building Co, Ltd. (2022). Shigematsu’s designs for three residential projects are under construction across the country–from New York to San Francisco and Miami.A design critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Shigematsu has lectured at TED and Wired Japan conference, and at universities throughout the world.

10:35-10:45am

Methods+Materials SPONSORED BY

• 

  Travis Conrad

  Architectural Consultant

  Neolith

  Travis Conrad

  ×

  

  Travis is an accredited presenter for the OAA on Rainscreen Education – has been working in the architectural community for over 10 years, with a special focus on Ventilated Façade products and systems. From 2006-2010 he worked as a designer for Cornerstone Architecture where he gained significant experience and knowledge in rainscreen building science and project tendering and had the opportunity to do many unique assignments in design development and building modeling. From 2010 – 2015, as a Business Development Representative at Ontario Panelization, he worked with an array of rainscreen products and systems from Metal Panels, to Exotic Stones, to Building Integrated Photovoltaics and later on Sintered Surfaces for a considerable amount of projects located throughout North America. During this later phase, he developed a passion for Sintered Compact Surfaces that lead him to start a new adventure from early 2015 at TheSize Surfaces as the North American Architectural Consultant Representative where he assists and educates the architectural community to use Neolith products for a wide range of applications.

10:45-11:15am

Networking Break | Methods+Materials Gallery

11:15-11:45am

Firm Spotlight: Reiser + Umemoto

• 

  Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto

  Founding, Principals

  Reiser Umemoto

  Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto

  ×

  

  Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture DPC, is a multidisciplinary design firm operating at a wide range of scales: from furniture design, to residential and commercial structures, up to the scale of landscape, urban design, and infrastructure. In 2010, the firm was awarded first prize for the Taipei Pop Music Center and the Kaohsiung Port Terminal in Taiwan, both of which began construction in 2013 are set to be completed in 2020. Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto have received numerous awards for their speculative work and built projects, including the Chrysler Award for Excellence in Design, the Academy Award in Architecture by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Citation and John Hejduk Award from the Cooper Union, and the USA Booth Fellowship from United States Artists for Architecture & Design. The firm’s first comprehensive monograph, Projects and Their Consequences, was published in 2019 and traces thirty years of innovative, multidisciplinary investigations of form, structure, technique, and planning.

11:45am-12:35pm

Scaling up Passive House | For the Greater Good

Architects and consultants create large-scale affordable housing in NYC, hewing to Passive House standards. Dattner's Grand Concourse project of 277 units and Handel's Sendero Verde mixed-use, multi building projects will be detailed. Passive House consultants Steven Winter Assoc. joins the discussion.

• 

  Gary Handel

  Managing Partner

  Handel Architects Llp

  Gary Handel

  ×

  

  Gary Handel FAIA is the founder and Managing Partner of Handel Architects. Since starting the practice in 1994, Handel has overseen its growth to over 200 architects, designers, and planners around the world. He leads the firm’s direction by placing an emphasis on enriching the urban environment. Handel is a leader in sustainable building strategies, and recent work includes some of the largest and tallest Passive House buildings in the world.

• 

  Lois Arena

  Director

  Steven Winter Assoc.

  Lois Arena

  ×

  

  Lois B. Arena, PE, possesses over 25 years experience in the building science field. She holds both US and international Passive House consultant certifications and is currently consulting on some of the largest and most difficult Passive House projects in the world and is regularly invited to present at conferences and private firms around the world to discuss the benefits of and road blocks to PH adoption.

• 

  John Woelfling

  Principal

  Dattner

  John Woelfling

  ×

  

  John Woelfling's work is driven by the belief that architecture should be sensitive to the environment. He leverages his experiences working across project typologies, from education and recreation to healthcare and infrastructure, to inform his leadership on many of the firm's mixed-use residential projects. Whether directing a design team, spearheading AIA 2030 Commitment efforts, or leading the firm's Sustainable Practice Group, his focus on sustainable design practices is guided by data informed decision making and follow up analysis.

12:35-12:45pm

Methods+Materials SPONSORED BY

12:45-1:30pm

Complimentary Networking Lunch | Methods+Materials Gallery

1:30-1:35pm

Remarks by Diana Darling

1:35-2:30pm

Afternoon Keynote

• 

  Claire Weisz

  Principal-in-Charge

  WXY

  Claire Weisz

  ×

  

  Claire Weisz FAIA is a founding partner with Mark Yoes FAIA of WXY, whose work as an architect and urbanist focuses on innovative approaches to public space, structures, and cities. The firm, globally recognized for its place-based approach to architecture, urban design, and planning, has played a vital role in design thinking around resiliency. Weisz was awarded the Medal of Honor from AIANY in 2018 and was honored with the Women in Architecture Award by Architectural Record in 2019.

2:30-3:25pm

Optimizing the Form

Zoning and site constraints provide opportunities for creative optimizations of massing and geometry, increasing views, reining in sunlight, and having a positive impact on the site. Case studies include Studio Gang's Solar Carve and Cetra Ruddy's ARO.

• 

  Weston Walker

  Design Principal, Partner

  Studio Gang

  Weston Walker

  ×

  

  Weston Walker, AIA, is Design Principal in charge of Studio Gang’s New York office, where he leads a talented team of architects and a diverse portfolio of projects. Walker’s work spans cultural institutions, universities, civic buildings, and towers. Having led the design team for the recently completed Solar Carve Tower in New York, his current projects include a major expansion of the American Museum of Natural History and the new US Embassy in Brazil.

• 

  John Cetra

  Founding Principal

  CetraRuddy

  John Cetra

  ×

  

  John Cetra co-founded CetraRuddy in 1987 on the principle that architecture should engage the urban fabric while enriching the human spirit. With a passion for innovative, inspiring designs and a commitment to real world solutions, Cetra has led the firm to international recognition. Through his practice, Cetra has experienced the interrelationship of architecture, urban design and planning. He has a sophisticated understanding of program, zoning, and complex problem solving which inform his approach on projects ranging from new construction to conversions of Landmark buildings. He is a recognized industry leader in tall building technology, historic buildings and analytic site development. Cetra holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Spitzer School of Architecture of the City College of New York.

• 

  Markus Schulte

  Principal

  Arup

  Markus Schulte

  ×

  

3:25-3:35pm

Methods+Materials SPONSORED BY

3:35-3:40pm

Remarks | YKK

3:40-4:10pm

Networking Break | Methods+Materials Gallery

4:10-5:05pm

Adaptive Reuse Challenges in NYC Historic Icons

Meeting technical challenges in preserving Landmarked facades, two firms create respectful but purposefully non-contextual, glittering glass updates to an 1898 sugar factory and 1929's historic Tammany Hall.

• 

  Eran Chen

  Founder & Executive Director

  ODA

  Eran Chen

  ×

  

  Since establishing ODA in 2007, Chen has become one of the most prolific architects in New York. He has gained a reputation for delivering designs that are innovative as well as socially and fiscally responsible. His work has been widely published around the world and recognized by the AIA and the Society of American Registered Architects. Chen graduated with honors from the Bezalel School of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where he serves on the board and as guest lecturer. He is a frequent speaker at design and development forums, as well as architecture schools including Columbia, Clemson, Syracuse, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, and The Technion in Haifa. Recent projects include the renovation of the Postkantoor in Rotterdam, the conversion of the Arbuckle Sugar Refinery at 10 Jay into offices and the forthcoming 416-4120 Kent Ave towers in Williamsburg’s Waterfront. His writings have been published in ODA’s latest book, Unboxing New York.

• 

  Russ Newbold

  Partner

  Surface Design Group

  Russ Newbold

  ×

  

  Leading the Historic Preservation and Restoration Division at SURFACE Design Group, Newbold has over 20 years of experience in the restoration and preservation of existing and historic building facades. This experience includes the restoration of traditional load bearing masonry structures dressed in stone, brick and terra cotta, cast iron facade assemblies, window replacement and restoration, glass and metal curtain wall assemblies, storefronts and waterproofing and roofing assemblies. These buildings demand a wide variety of technical services, including building condition surveys, forensic material deterioration investigations, leak investigations and the preparation of construction documents and the proper implementation of comprehensive restoration programs.

  Newbold has led preservation efforts for a wide range of architectural projects, including master plans for large federal building complexes, schools, urban planning projects, building envelope restorations and historic interiors. He places great emphasis on serving as an advocate for historic structures and materials themselves, stressing appropriate and compatible conservation techniques through both preservation and adaptive use.

• 

  Todd Poisson

  Partner

  BKSK

  Todd Poisson

  ×

  

  With over 25 years of experience, Poisson has been responsible for the design and construction of some of BKSK’s most ambitious projects, including residential, mixed-use, and institutional projects. He draws inspiration from historic detailing in the service of a relevant contemporary spirit. Award-winning projects include 529 Broadway, NIKE's new flagship retail building in the Soho Cast Iron Historic District, and Tammany Hall, a contemporary glass dome addition to and conversion of the storied landmark building on Union Square. His interest in the tools of architectural practice, as well as his commitment to excellence in project delivery, result in his teams being at the forefront of today’s design technologies and processes.

• 

  John Ivanoff

  Associate Principal

  BuroHappold Engineering

  John Ivanoff

  ×

  

  John Ivanoff joined BuroHappold Engineering in 2013 and is responsible for the direction of the United States Facades team at BuroHappold, based out of the NY office. Ivanoff holds a Master of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute. With deep global experience in design development and construction administration on projects in the US, Asia and the Middle East, his focus is on the design of complex and high performance building envelopes for a wide range of building types. He has worked with a variety of facade systems providing bespoke design solutions for both new buildings and renovations projects for institutional, commercial and cultural clients.

5:05-5:15pm

Closing Remarks - John Cetra, Diana Darling

5:15-7:00pm

Cocktail Reception | Methods+Materials Gallery