Invites you to a two-part conversation series on Public Ecologies
Moderated by Ellen Grimes, Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellow

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
IN CONVERSATION: Clive G. Jones and Michael Osman
on the intersection of ecological theory and design practice

Thursday, August 14, 2008, 7:00 p.m.
IN CONVERSATION: Julia Czerniak and Edward Mitchell
on the possibilities for public life in new ecological infrastructures

@Van Alen Institute
30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10010

Van Alen Institute is pleased to present two public IN CONVERSATION programs in conjunction with the work of New York Prize Fellow Ellen Grimes. Van Alen Institute's IN CONVERSATION series pairs diverse practitioners in spontaneous, unscripted dialogue to bridge work in contemporary architecture and urbanism with other disciplines that engage the public realm.

In her project “Public Ecologies at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie,” Ellen Grimes is developing the infrastructure for an unprecedented series of ecological experiments at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, the former site of the U.S. Army's Joliet Arsenal and the largest single piece of open land in metropolitan Chicago. Ranging across an area three times the size of Central Park, the ecological experiments will be publicly accessible, and Grimes is partnering with the U.S. Forest Service and a group of ecologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago to plan a landscape that will enable multiple audiences to participate in the scientific research. As part of her work at Van Alen Institute, Grimes brings together architects, historians, urbanists and ecologists to explore what it means to locate the public within natural ecological systems.

In the first conversation on Wednesday, August 6, CLIVE G. JONES, an ecologist and senior scientist at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, will join architectural historian MICHAEL OSMAN for an unscripted dialogue on the intersection of ecological theory and design practice. While there is a long history of architects and designers using organic and biological metaphors in their work, how do these metaphors relate to actual theoretical content in ecology and biology? How might new models of nature that embrace risk and indeterminacy influence design thinking and practice? Likewise, how might contemporary design practices influence ecological thought, and what role should designers play in the planning and management of ecosystems?

In the second conversation on Thursday, August 14, JULIA CZERNIAK, associate professor of architecture at Syracuse University and principal of CLEAR, will join ED MITCHELL, principal of Edward Mitchell Architects and adjunct assistant professor of architecture at Yale University, for an unscripted discussion and debate about the possibilities for public life in new ecological infrastructures. As ecosystems and metropolitan infrastructures become more integrated, how might they operate as a new kind of public realm? What forms of civic, cultural and scientific engagement will these new infrastructures enable and what forms of planning will they require? How will conventional strategies for managing public land – such as preservation, conservation, and restoration – adapt or expand to accommodate increasingly complex mandates?

Both conversations will take place around Grimes’s topographic model of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, and will be supplemented by extensive documentation and analyses of the site's geographic, socio-economic and historical contexts and precedents.

For more information visit www.vanalen.org/nyprize/ResidentFellows_2007/Grimes_project.html

About the Participants

Julia Czerniak
Julia Czerniak is associate professor of architecture at Syracuse University and principal of CLEAR. Her research and practice focus on the intersection of architecture and landscape architecture, and she is the editor of Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) and Case: Downsview Park Toronto (Prestel and Harvard Design School, 2001). Czerniak is also Director of UPSTATE: A Center for Design, Research, and Real Estate, at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. UPSTATE is a design research and advocacy organization addressing urban revitalization in the city of Syracuse and the upstate region.

Ellen Grimes (moderator)
Ellen Grimes is an architectural designer and assistant professor of architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her design practice, Available, focuses on projects that produce or develop resources for their stakeholders through market interventions, code and regulation interpretation, and the repurposing of under-valued assets. She is currently in residence at Van Alen Institute as a New York Prize Fellow.

Clive G. Jones
Clive G. Jones is an ecologist and senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. His research focuses on ecosystem engineering, interaction webs in oak forests, and ecological theory. Dr. Jones is the author of Ecological Understanding, the Nature of Theory and the Theory of Nature with Steward Pickett and Jurek Kolasa. He is also the Blaise Pascal International chair for research at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris.

Edward Mitchell
Edward Mitchell is an architect and writer. His practice in New Haven involves residential, commercial, and urban design. He is a fellow of the Urban Design Workshop and a member of the Vita Nuova, a goup of environmental engineers, developers, and designers involved in the redevelopment of environmentally impacted properties. Mitchell is also an adjunct assistant professor of architecture at Yale University.

Michael Osman
Michael Osman is an architectural historian. His work addresses early 20th century American urbanism and the regulatory systems that control the economies of the home, the market, labor and nature. He has published in Grey Room, Thresholds, Constructs, and co-edited Perspecta 33: Mining Autonomy. Osman also teaches at the Yale School of Architecture.

The New York Prize Fellowship is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Ellen Grimes’s project "Public Ecologies at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie" is additionally supported by the U.S. Forest Service, the Center for Research in Urban Ecology at the University of Illinois Chicago, the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Van Alen Institute is an independent nonprofit architectural organization whose mission is to promote inquiry into the processes that shape the design of the public realm. For over a century, the Institute has cultivated a fellowship of architecture and design practitioners and scholars, awarded excellence in design, and fostered dialogue about architecture as a public practice. Today, as conventionally defined fields of knowledge give way to new disciplines and alternative methodologies, Van Alen Institute reclaims its legacy as an architectural institute that is dedicated to critical inquiry surrounding contemporary forms of public space and new configurations of spatial practice. The New York Prize Fellowship provides practitioners and scholars the opportunity to pursue advanced research and experimental practice in public architecture. Appointed Senior Fellows are accomplished thinkers, artists and practitioners who have a demonstrated record of exceptional work and are identified as leaders in their fields. For more information visit www.vanalen.org.