• SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: Seasonal Brunch / Open House
• Design Speed Dating: Round Two
• FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24: Heather Rogers and Mohsen Mostafavi
• NY Prize Summer Fellows: Closing Installation
• 2010-2011 NYSCA Fellows
• National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds
• Urban Green Expo 2010: Free Tickets for VAI members
• VAI at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale: Project Eco-Delta

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: SEASONAL BRUNCH / OPEN HOUSE
Come toast the end of summer at our Seasonal Brunch on Saturday, September 11th from 11am to 2pm here at Van Alen Institute. We invite our community of members and their guests to join us for an inside glimpse of our ongoing projects and upcoming programs, engage in casual conversation with others in the VAI community, and watch rapid-fire portfolio reviews during Design Speed Dating.

It’s easy to become a Van Alen member: see below for more information.

DESIGN SPEED DATING: ROUND TWO
Design Speed Dating returns at the Seasonal Brunch on September 11th, and a new crop of emerging designers will present their portfolios to established critics and professionals in rapid-fire succession. Critics for this round include Kevin Lippert (Princeton Architectural Press) and Vishaan Chakrabarti (Director, Real Estate Development Program, GSAPP, Columbia University). The portfolios reviewed will join a growing collection in our archive and will be featured in a special section of the Reading Room.

See pictures from the first round on Facebook.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 24: ROGERS & MOSTAFAVI
This month's Reading Room Exchange features two recent publications on ecological thinking: Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers and Ecological Urbanism edited by Mohsen Mostafavi with Gareth Doherty. Join us on Wednesday, September 24th at 6:30pm for a conversation with Rogers and Mostafavi about the complexities of a green 21st century.

Heather Rogers is a journalist, author and a senior fellow at the progressive U.S. think tank Demos.

Mohsen Mostafavi is an architect, educator and Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design.

NY PRIZE SUMMER FELLOWS: CLOSING INSTALLATION
Van Alen Institute will inaugurate its storefront presence with a closing installation by our New York Prize fellows Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio. Using a Leica Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) camera to create 3D scans of Manhattan, Han and Mihalyo have investigated the city’s complex spatial qualities as part of their ongoing project Looking at Nothing. The installation will be unveiled in conjunction with our seasonal brunch, so be sure to stop by and check it out!

2010-2011 NYSCA FELLOWS
Congratulations to Felicity Scott and Nathalie Rozot, this year’s winners of Independent Projects Grants from NYSCA. Scott’s Cartographies of Drift and Rozot’s Times Square Power are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties. VAI is proud to be the fiscal sponsor of these two projects.

NATIONAL IDEAS COMPETITION
Washington Monument Grounds
Van Alen Institute is a sponsor of the National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds. The aim of the competition is to develop innovative and creative ideas for making the Washington Monument grounds more welcoming, educational, and effectively used by the public. Submissions are welcome from any and all who have ideas for the future of this grand civic landscape. The registration deadline is October 31, 2010. Please visit the website for more details.

URBAN GREEN EXPO 2010: FREE TICKETS FOR VAI MEMBERS
The Urban Green Council has extended complimentary tickets to VAI members for its Urban Green Expo 2010 on Wednesday and Thursday, September 29-30. The theme of this year’s expo is Pushing the Envelope and will focus on the importance of high performance building enclosures. In addition to a wide variety of green products and services, the program also features a number of education sessions, LEED workshops, and lectures by leaders in the sustainability movement. The expo will take place at the Metropolitan Pavilion and the Altman Building, 125 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011. Please register for tickets here. For more information, visit the expo’s website.

PROJECT ECO-DELTA: DESIGN FOR COASTAL CITIES
On August 29th, as part of the ongoing collaboration between Van Alen Institute and Environmental Defense Fund to develop design strategies for the Lower Mississippi River Delta, VAI and EDF hosted a roundtable discussion at the Venice Architecture Biennale U.S. Pavilion. Leading international experts from the fields of design, engineering, and environmental science convened to discuss how we can re-engineer and re-imagine coastal environments for the 21st century.

The Lower Mississippi River Delta is at risk of total and devastating collapse. Despite the extraordinary complexity of the political, technical, and financial processes at play in the rebuilding of the region, panelists were optimistic about the potential of alternative design strategies for innovative coastal city and wetlands management that considers industry and the environment as integral components of a sustainable solution. The context of the Venice Architecture Biennale provided an ideal perspective from which to consider the role of design in the process of rebuilding, and all were enthusiastic about engaging in further dialogue and to continue efforts to rebuild in a holistic way.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL CALL
Our ongoing work is possible in large part due to the active participation of Van Alen Institute members in our programs and events, and we thank you for your generous contributions.

Current members: Please email us with updated contact information at vai@vanalen.org. A renewal notice has been sent to you in the mail, and we'll follow up with email reminders.

If you are not a member, we encourage you to join our community by signing up here.