Van Alen Institute

VAN ALEN INSTITUTE PROJECT IN PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE

Nature Now: The Urban Park as Cultural Catalyst

Saturday, October 14, 2006
10:30am - 5:00pm

at Columbia University GSAPP
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
New York, NY 10027

The Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, Van Alen Institute, and the National Parks Conservation Association present NATURE NOW, a symposium on the role of urban parks in imagining new relationships, cultures, and habitats. Scientists, geographers, designers, historians, and park managers convene at Columbia University's GSAPP to discuss the current state of New York's urban landscape and the potentials and challenges of Gateway National Recreation Area. Speakers will address the nature of New York City, the evolution of the National Park Service, and the converging fields of design, science, technology, and art to engage new realities and to drive landscape change.

Underwritten by The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, this conference is being held in conjunction with Envisioning Gateway: A Public Design Competition for Gateway National Park.

Schedule

BIOS

Glenn Allen
Glenn Allen is a principal landscape architect at Hargreaves Associates. He is a registered landscape architect in California, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Arkansas. He has lectured at several universities around the world including Harvard University, Graduate School of Design; The University of New South Wales, Department of Landscape Architecture; Louisiana State University, College of Environmental Design, Baton Rouge; and University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Berkeley, California. He was awarded a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from University of Virginia in 1973 and a Master of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University in 1977.

Daniel Botkin
Daniel Botkin is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, at the University of California -Santa Barbara and the President of The Center for the Study of the Environment. Botkin is a scientist who studies life from a planetary perspective, a biologist who has helped solve major environmental issues, and a writer about nature. He brings an unusual perspective to his subject, his books and lectures show how our cultural legacy often dominates what we believe to be scientific solutions. He uses historical accounts by Lewis and Clark and Henry David Thoreau to discuss the character of nature and the relationship between people and nature. His books include No Man's Garden:Thoreau and A New Vision for Civilization and Nature (2000), Our Natural History: Lessons from Lewis and Clark (1995), Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the 21st Century (1990). Botkin developed the first successful computer simulation in ecology, a model of forest growth now in use in more than 50 versions worldwide. He has directed research on wilderness and natural parks in many parts of the world, from Africa and Siberia to Minnesota; and has helped develop major national programs in ecology, including the National Science Foundation's Long-term Ecological Research Program and NASA's Mission to Earth.

Ethan Carr
Ethan Carr is an assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He previously worked at the National Park Service's Denver Service Center and has taught the history of landscape architecture at Harvard and the University of Virginia. His book, Wilderness by Design, received an American Society of Landscape Architects honor award in 1998.

Rolf Diamant
Rolf Diamant is superintendent of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, a national park telling the story of conservation history, the evolution of land stewardship and the emergence of a conservation ethic. The park practices sustainable forest management and in 2005 was awarded the first Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of a U.S. national park. He has worked with the National Park Service for 30 years, during which he developed new conservation strategies for wild and scenic rivers, national heritage areas, partnership parks and protected areas. He is also a lecturer on the faculty of the University of Vermont and is a member of the adjunct faculty at the Vermont Law School; and a contributing author to several books including The Conservation of Cultural Landscapes (2006), and Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground (2003). Diamant was a Beatrix Farrand Fellow at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley where he received both a Bachelor of Science in Conservation of Natural Resources and a Masters in Landscape Architecture. Rolf was also awarded a post-graduate Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University. He is currently developing for the U.S. NPS an Atlas of Places, People & Hand-Made Products, illustrating stories about parks and protected areas working in partnership with local communities to cooperatively promote and market products that strengthen ties to landscapes and heritage.

Kenneth Frampton
Kenneth Frampton is currently the Ware Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, New York. Frampton trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. He has worked as an architect and as an architectural historian/critic in England, Israel and the United States. His books include Modern Architecture: a Critical History (1980), Modern Architecture and the Critical Present (1980), Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995), American Masterworks (1995), Le Corbusier (2002) and Labor, Work and Architecture (2002).

Matthew Gandy
Matthew Gandy has taught at the University College London since 1997. His book Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (MIT Press, 2002) was awarded the 2003 Spiro Kostof award for the book within the previous two years "that has made the greatest contribution to our understanding of urbanism and its relationship with architecture." He is currently writing a book on cultural histories of urban infrastructure. From 1992 to 1997 he was a lecturer in the School of European Studies at the University of Sussex. In 1995 he was a visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, New York. In the spring of 2002 he was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, and from 2003 to 2004 he was a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Humboldt University, Berlin. He is currently an ESRC research fellow with the project Cyborg urbanization: theorizing water and urban infrastructure. He was awarded a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge (first, with distinction) and in 1992 he completed his PhD at the London School of Economics.

Billy Garrett
Billy Garrett is the Deputy General Superintendent at Gateway National Recreation Area. He previously served as the Superintendent of the Brooklyn and Queens portion of the park and, as such, led efforts to protect the wetlands of Jamaica Bay, restore the Jacob Riis Bathhouse and enhance park programs through expanded use of concessions and partnerships. Over the course of his federal career, Garrett has also held positions at Grand Canyon National Park, the Southeast Regional Office and the Denver Service Center. As the senior architect at the Service Center, Garrett supervised a staff of 80 architects who worked on major projects throughout the National Park System. Projects he oversaw during this period include preservation of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, stabilization of the Reef Bay Great House in Virgin Islands National Park, and re-design of the grounds of the Washington Monument. He has been a primary contributor to National Park Service guidelines regarding management of cultural resources and design of park housing, and has worked on special assignments such as the NPS line-item construction program and the rights of Native Americans within Death Valley National Park. Prior to government service, Garrett focused on projects involving historic preservation, community planning and green building design. He is a registered architect with a Bachelor of Architecture (1970) and an MA in Anthropology (1981), both from Arizona State University.

Sandro Marpillero
Sandro Marpillero is an associate professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and a visiting critic at various schools in the USA, Canada and Europe. He is also an architect with offices in New York and Venice/Italy. His professional practice includes residential and commercial projects, urban spaces, buildings and installations in the United States, Italy, and Japan. His design work has been published in the United States, Italy, Germany, and Japan. Since 1995, he has been on the Editorial Board of Lotus International, and since 1999 on the Editorial Advisory Board of Daidalos. He has authored articles on design theory, as well as architectural and urban design practices, have appeared in international magazines (Arquitectura, A+U, Casabella, Daidalos, Korean Architect, Lotus International, Ottagono, Progressive Architecture, Rassegna). He received a Masters Degree at the Institute of Venice 1979, and a Master of Architecture II at Columbia University in 1983. He was the recipient of the Fullbright Scholarship for a post-graduate degree at Columbia University; New York State for the Arts Grant for an Art Installation; AIA/BSA Honor Award for an Architecture and Urban Design Project; AIA Education Honor Award for Urban Design Studio.

Anuradha Mathur
Anuradha Mathur is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She co-authored the book Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape (2001). Her design firm Mathur/da Cunha received the Young Architects award for 2000 by the Architectural League of New York. Her awarded projects are part of a publication "Second Nature" by Princeton Architectural Press and the Architectural League. Mathur's work is directed toward design and the representation of landscapes as shifting and dynamic. Mathur is currently investigating the landscape of the Deccan Plateau in South India, providing the basis for an innovative design strategy for the city of Bangalore. Mathur graduated from the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad in 1986 and after practicing for several years as an architect received her Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She believes design "begins with an appreciation for landscape as a shifting, living, material phenomenon."

Kate Orff
Kate Orff is an assistant professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, leading studios that integrate the earth sciences into the design curriculum. She is also the founding principal of the design studio SCAPE. After graduating from the University of Virginia with Distinction, Ms. Orff earned a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.

Adi Shamir
Adi Shamir is the Executive Director of Van Alen Institute. Prior to this role, Ms. Shamir served as the Dean of Undergraduate Studies at California College of the Arts (CCA) where she led programs in the fine arts, design, architecture and writing disciplines. Ms. Shamir began teaching at CCA as an Associate Professor of Architecture in 1991, and she has also taught at Cooper Union, Rice University, U.C. Berkeley, and the College of Marin, Kentfield. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union School and a Master of Architecture degree from University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Shamir's design practice has focused on cross-disciplinary collaborations with artists and designers taking the form of theoretical architectural projects, built environments, interactive media educational programs, stage sets and exhibition installations. Her architectural and historical research explores early Modernist themes; published works include Open House: Unbound Space and the Modern Dwelling (Rizzoli 2002), as well as multiple international architectural journals and edited publications.

Mark Wigley
Mark Wigley is the Dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, he is an accomplished scholar and design teacher. Wigley has written extensively on the theory and practice of architecture and is the author of Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire (1998); White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture (1995); and The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt (1993). He co-edited The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationalist Architectures from Constant's New Babylon to Beyond (2001). Wigley has served as curator for widely attended exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Drawing Center, New York; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; and Witte de With Museum, Rotterdam. He received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and his Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

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