Archinect - News

Milton S.F. Curry joins Cornell AAP as Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement

2023-07-25T14:46:00-04:00

Former USC School of Architecture Dean (2017–22) Milton S.F. Curry will be joining Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) as its new Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement and Professor of Architecture.

Curry's new position began on July 1, 2023, according to Cornell AAP, and will bring him into contact with the university community and broader public through a range of new initiatives that include the launch of the school’s social justice-focused Black Cities Americas Lab.

Previously on Archinect: Deans List: Milton Curry shares his vision for the future of the USC School of Architecture

During his five-year tenure as Dean at USC, Curry had a list of accomplishments that includes the school’s acquisition of the once-lost Paul Revere Williams archive and shifted educational emphasis towards including academic theories of architecture across the curriculum. He will come to the AAP will similar past experience as the University of M...

Cornell AAP reappoints Dean J. Meejin Yoon for a second term

2022-11-18T11:49:00-05:00

Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) Dean J. Meejin Yoon has been reappointed to her post for a second term after a vote from the university’s Board of Trustees in October.

Yoon will begin her second term in January of 2024, extending for five years a tenure that brought “dramatic institutional change” to the campus, according to Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff, who made the announcement yesterday.

Yoon has been credited with doubling the college’s endowment in the process of funding the establishment of several influential centers and recruiting more than a third of its tenured faculty.

Her time as Dean also included the founding of the AAP’s first Office of Diversity and Inclusion, in addition to creating grant opportunities and other academic programs geared specif...

Cornell professors are building the first multistory 3D printed structure in the U.S.

2022-09-22T11:25:00-04:00

Construction is underway in Houston on the first multistory 3D printed building in the United States. Designed by two assistant professors of architecture at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP), the two-story, single-family home merges 3D printed concrete with a traditional timber frame, creating what designers Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic believe is a precedent for future 3D printed multifamily and mixed-use developments.

When completed, the 4,000-square-foot home will contain three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage, while a 40-foot-high chimney will make the home one of the tallest 3D printed structures in the U.S.

Construction progress using COBOD BOD2 3D construction printer. Image credit: Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic/Courtesy of Cornell Chronicle

The project is the latest by Lok and Zivkovic to investigate applications of 3D printing in architecture. The professors, who are also co-principals of HANNAH Design Office, have previously experiment...

Cornell Tech celebrates Roosevelt Island Campus phase one completion

2022-02-24T14:33:00-05:00

Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s urban campus for technology research and education, has announced the completion of the first phase of its Roosevelt Island campus development in New York City. This news comes following the recent completion and opening of the Snøhetta-designed Verizon Executive Education Center and the Graduate Roosevelt Island Hotel in 2021.

The first three buildings at Cornell Tech, which opened in September 2017 include the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center, designed by Morphosis Architects, the TATA Innovation Center, designed by Weiss/Manfredi, and The House, designed by Handel Architects and developed by The Hudson Companies and Related Companies.

Previously on Archinect: Snøhetta completes two new buildings for Cornell Tech campus in New York

The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Center is the campus’s first academic building offering a variety of spaces designed to support different learning modes, while incorporating advanced sustainability features and comm...

Cornell University to drill 10,000-foot hole to utilize geothermal energy

2022-02-03T13:51:00-05:00

In May 2022, Cornellians will see a drill the height of McGraw Tower rise above a plot of land between the Cornell Teaching Dairy Barn and Cascadilla Creek as it drills a 10,000-foot hole. The drilling is part of the Cornell University Borehole Observatory: the first stage of the University’s Earth Source Heating project, which aims to eventually use geothermal heat to provide ecologically-friendly heating to campus buildings.

Cornell’s Earth Source Heating Program, aiming to harness renewable energy in Ithaca, is part of the school’s Climate Action Plan. The goal of the initiative is for the University’s campus operations to be carbon neutral by 2035. This step of the project will first explore the feasibility and safety of the site before delivering heat to the campus.

The Borehole Observatory will allow researchers to investigate how much heat geothermal energy can provide, determine whether it will be sufficient for Cornell’s campus, and if there are any consequences to using this site.

Snøhetta completes two new buildings for Cornell Tech campus in New York

2021-12-15T15:22:00-05:00

Construction has been completed at two Snøhetta-designed buildings for the Cornell Tech campus in New York. The two buildings, named the Graduate Roosevelt Island Hotel and the Verizon Executive Education Center, operate independently though physically connected by a planted entry plaza.

Image: Michael Grimm

Designed to be a “welcoming front door” to the Cornell Tech campus, the buildings will host academic conferences, classes, and programs, as well as lodging and dining outlets for guests and visitors.

Image: Michael Grimm

The 18-story, 196-room hotel tower features a façade with softly curved surfaces wrapped in double-height aluminum panels. At the ground level, a pair of V-shaped columns define the entrance to a bar opening onto the shared courtyard. A continuous soffit runs from this entrance along the perimeter of the ground floor, and ultimately to the education center.

Image: Michael Grimm

The education center, meanwhile, rises four stories, adopting an “intimate, orga...

Architect and academic Sara Bronin announced as Biden's nominee for Advisory Council on Historic Preservation chair

2021-06-29T13:40:00-04:00

A new nominee for chairman of the White House’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has been named this week, placing a community activist and architect into a position of influence that had been only a part-time role until 2016.

The Hartford Courant is reporting that Sara Bronin has been nominated by President Biden as the next chair of the 55-year-old council. Bronin is already an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and has been featured recently in Archinect for her ongoing efforts surrounding housing segregation in Connecticut. If confirmed, she will join Wayne Donaldson and Trump appointee Aimee Jorjani on a list of others to helm the council in the past decade.

A White House press release cited Bronin’s academic background and public service record as the reasons behind her nomination, stating that her work “focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.”

Related on Archinect: Biden admini...

New research reveals the possibility for wireless vehicle charging while driving

2021-05-13T19:20:00-04:00

Researchers at Cornell University are developing technology that would allow an electric car to charge while it’s in motion. Like a high occupancy lane, highways would have a charging lane that would charge vehicles’ batteries as they drive over its surface. This would be a monumental solution to some of the biggest obstacles of owning an electric vehicle, including dealing with battery range and charging availability.

Khurram Afridi, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell and lead researcher, has been behind the project for the past seven years. According to Afridi, the technology is still at least five to ten years away, however, he sees wireless charging as having an immense impact on an industry that is so dependent on the presence of charging stations and battery capacity. It would save time for electric car owners, alleviate the anxiety of locating charging stations and running out of battery and pave the way for more sustainable transportati...

Get Lectured: Cornell, Fall '19

2019-12-11T15:55:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2019

With a new school year already here, it's time for Archinect's latest edition of Get Lectured, an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Here's a look back at the Fall '19 lecture poster from Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. They hosted an international group of lecturers, who explored topics like “Is architecture inherently complete?”, Sentimental Monumentality, The Politics of Modern Memorials Architecture, and more. Architecture speakers included Sandra Barclay, Philip Ursprung, Michael Murphy, Mabel O. Wilson, Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang, Jimenez Lai, and Fabrizio Barozzi. Stay tuned for their Spring '20 lecture series....

Cornell AAP's "Earth: Projections 50 Years after Earth Art" celebrated the work of land artists

2019-11-15T11:55:00-05:00

The symposium was a part of the Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lecture series at the Department of Architecture at Cornell University. It marked the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Earth Art exhibition held in what was then the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art in Ithaca.

As a nod to the 1969 event, this year's symposium sought to look at the "significance for art, architecture, and design in the contemporary situation defined by planetary issues of environmental crises." The event featured works by land and environmental artists and explored the motivations of their work and its context in history.

Four lectures were given at the symposium, the speakers included:

Peg Rawes, professor of architecture and philosophy, The Bartlett School of Architecture University College London
James Nisbet, associate professor of art history and visual studies, University of California–Irvine
Rania Ghosn of Design Earth and associate professor of architecture and urbanism at MIT
Jorge Otero-Pailos (B.Arch. '...