Archinect - News

Architect Amale Andraos debuts first-ever jewelry collection for Judith Ripka

2022-12-19T19:00:00-05:00

“The challenge was adjusting to the scale,” Andraos said. “When I first started sketching, the pieces were much bigger. I remember the reaction — the team was very excited about the ideas but I wasn’t computing the budget,” adding that the process of design is “always the same across scales, but this experience was very different because the scale of jewelry and the way it relates to the body is so precise.”

Andraos, who stepped down as Dean of Columbia's GSAPP last May, told WWD that her inspiration to make jewelry for the first time came from her hometown of Beirut’s Art Deco tradition. Other architects like Elena Manferdini and Rossana Hu have contributed designs for the Judith Ripka brand. Pieces from Andraos’ new Ayah Collection retail for between $550 and $1,995. The WORKac co-founder will now rejoin the faculty in Morningside Heights in September after a yearlong sabbatical.

Related Feature Interview on Archinect: Deans List: Amale Andraos of Columbia University's GSAPP

“If you look at Amale’s body of work, she is known for asymmetry. Most people prefer symmetry in jewelry so it was an interesting challenge for us to wrap our heads around Amale’s aesthetic and make it work in jewelry,” CEO and GSAPP alumnus Robert D’Loren of Xcel Brands, Ripka’s parent company, added. “There are several finishes on the metal work, from shiny to matte which creates this remarkable sense of balance...

Andrés Jaque appointed as new Dean of Columbia GSAPP

2022-08-18T19:05:00-04:00

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) has appointed architect, curator, and artist Andrés Jaque as its next Dean. He replaces Amale Andraos, who stepped down from the role in May 2021.

Jaque received his Ph.D. and MArch from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. He has been involved with GSAPP since 2013, where he began teaching advanced design studios. He directs the school's Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design, to which he was appointed in 2018.

Aside from his work at GSAPP, Jaque is the founder of Office for Political Innovation, an international architecture firm based in New York and Madrid. His practice has been recognized and part of collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, along with other exhibitions at institutions arou...

Columbia GSAPP appoints Weiping Wu and Mario Gooden to interim leadership roles as Dean Amale Andraos' tenure draws to a close

2021-11-10T18:07:00-05:00

A restructuring at the top of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning (GSAPP) has been announced to coincide with the end of outgoing dean Amale Andraos' tenure.

Weiping Wu will now serve as GSAPP’s interim dean, while Mario Gooden is the new interim M.Arch graduate program director, replacing Andraos.

Wu was previously the director of the M.S. and Ph.D. in Urban Planning programs and brings to her new position more than twenty years of academic and professional experience. Prior to joining the GSAPP faculty in 2016, Wu served as Chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University.

Her research has been focused on the urbanization of developing countries and China in particular. She has published several books and is the current president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP), which represents a consortium of educational institutions that offer credentials in urban and regional planning....

Amale Andraos steps down as Dean of Columbia GSAPP

2021-05-20T16:10:00-04:00

Today, academic and architectural practitioner Amale Andraos announces her decision to step down as Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. After succeeding Mark Wigley as Dean in 2014, Andraos has dedicated her time towards serving and improving the GSAPP community. During her seven-year tenure, she also ran her practice WORKac along with her husband, Dan Wood.

Keen on strengthening the institution's connectivity to the city and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations between GSAPP and other disciplines, Andraos' continued involvement with the university will continue. In her open letter to the community, she notes that she will continue to serve the GSAPP community as a Special Advisor to the President. "Climate Change is one of the main reasons I accepted to serve as Dean seven years ago [...] I will be able to continue to advocate for our disciplines' urgent transformations so that they may help address the challenges already...

GSAPP launches interdisciplinary affordable housing lab

2019-09-16T14:15:00-04:00

The Columbia University Gradate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation has launched a new interdisciplinary research initiative called the Columbia GSAPP Housing Lab. The lab is to be led by GSAPP dean Amale Andraos.

Architect and GSAPP associate professor Hilary Sample has also been named to the school’s first endowed professorship position. GSAPP's new IDC Foundation Professorship of Housing Design is made possible by a $2 million donation from the Institute of Design and Construction Foundation, a group that "provides grants to educational institutions in Greater New York City to advance research and the training of students in fields relating to architectural design, engineering, and building construction," according to the IDC website.

Sample has led the school's housing design curriculum since 2011, including the school’s impressive housing studio, and is a co-founder of architecture firm MOS. MOS recently masterplanned an experimental housing community in Mexico th...

Win a Copy of “WORKac: We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge”!

2018-03-01T12:00:00-05:00

In their latest “duograph”, as WORKac co-founders Amale Andraos and Dan Wood call it, “WORKac: We'll Get There When We Cross That Bridge” revisits the firm's formative projects that shaped their practice to what it is today. Thanks to The Monacelli Press, Archinect is giving away five copies of the book to our readers!

Encased in a hardcover accented with bright colors and various paper stocks and page sizes, the book spotlights WORKac's core principle since its founding in 2003: an “utterly personal, ongoing conversation about what architecture could become,” Andraos and Wood write in the introduction.

Anthropologie, Dos Lagos retail store. Photo: Bruce Damonte.

Stealth Building. Photo: Bruce Damonte.

Some of the projects include the biodegradable Public Farm 1 at MoMA PS1, the first two buildings of Edible Schoolyards NYC, an addition to the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, their proposal for the Beirut Museum of Art, and the Kew Gardens Hills Library expansion in Queens that was fina...

Get Lectured: University of Texas at Austin, Spring '17

2017-01-25T13:55:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter & Spring 2017

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session for Winter and Spring 2017. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

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

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture has a fresh lineup of internationally recognized speakers for Spring '17, including Nader Tehrani, Amale Andraos, Mónica Rivera, Kunlé Adeyemi, and Mason White. Exhibitions will showcase innovative research on the rapid rise of urbanism in China from UT Austin Associate Professor Ming Zhang as well as a 50-year retrospective by Black + Vernooy Principal and UT Austin Professor Sinclair Black.

LECTURES
Lectures begin at 5:00pm unless o...

Work AC designs modern single-family home on top of one of New York’s oldest cast-iron façade buildings

2016-11-02T12:44:00-04:00

Built in 1857, 93 Reade St. in TriBeCa features one of New York City’s old cast-iron façades. WORKac just completed a renovation of the historic, 5-story building, adding a contemporary addition to the roof that skillfully hides behind the existing form.

The 2.5 level penthouse addition features an angled roof, designed to sit behind the roofline so that it disappears when viewed from the street, while gaining as much interior space as possible. Inside, three different levels are joined by an open staircase. Behind the structure, a patio and balcony offer views of the city skyline.

The renovation also included single-story apartments that make use of a partial-height volume to contain services, equipment and storage, “while a series of intricate spaces for gardening, sleeping, display and studying occupy the under-utilized vertical space above.”

WORKac collaborated with the digital sculptor Michael Hansmeyer to create new, 3D-printed capitals to replace the missing originals.

View addit...

The Arab City

2016-06-01T15:00:00-04:00

In a region at once feared and exoticized, we have been witnessing for more than a generation the devastation of old centers and the rise of new ones. Today there is no better context in which to investigate the complexities of global practice in architecture than that of the rapidly changing Arab city.

How does the deeply traditional meet the hypermodern in the older centers of Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo, and in the emerging new cities of Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi? In Amale Andraos’ new article on Places, and in the new book, The Arab City: Architecture and Representation, she explores the region’s complex relationship with modernity, questions the risks of essentialism in the enlisting of its cultural heritage, and asks what architecture has to do with identity in today’s Arab cities.

Dismantled Models: Amale Andraos on Archinect Sessions One-to-One #21

2016-05-02T15:24:00-04:00

We last spoke with Amale Andraos for our Deans List series, a year after she succeeded Mark Wigley as dean of Columbia University's GSAPP. Since 2011 at GSAPP, before her deanship began, Andraos has led various research studios and seminars around "Architecture and Representation: The Arab City"—the results from which she has now edited, with Studio-X Amman director Nora Akawi, into a new book, The Arab City.

Andraos spoke with me about the perpetuated stereotypes and simplifications that plague discussions of Arab cities—the desert v. the oasis, the traditional v. the modern, etc.—and how her own experiences in Beirut inspired her research.

Listen to One-to-One #21 with Amale Andraos:

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" podcast
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Download: this episode

Shownotes:

The Arab City: Architecture and R...

Hashim Sarkis & Amale Andraos among DesignIntelligence's Top 25 Most Admired Educators

2015-12-11T11:26:00-05:00

Each year, DesignIntelligence honors excellence in education and education administration by naming 25 exemplary professionals in these fields. The 2016 class of education role models was selected by DesignIntelligence staff with extensive input from thousands of design professionals, academic department heads, and students.

Listen to Archinect Sessions One-to-One's in-depth interview with Hashim Sarkis here, and check out our coverage of Amale Andraos here.

Meanwhile, here's the full list of the Top 25 most admired educators for 2016, with Design Intelligence's commentary as to why they were chosen (and with links to relevant Archinect coverage appearing in blue):

AMALE ANDRAOS | Columbia University

A talented designer with an active firm and the first female dean of the school, Amale Andraos integrates real world problems into the curriculum with a bold vision and strong leadership.

ALAN DEFREES | University of Notre Dame

Constantly pursuing knowledge in the field of building technology, Alan DeFrees is known as a passionate professor who is truly dedicated to teaching the technical aspects of architecture.

DAWN FINLEY | Rice University

Balancing heading her own Houston-based design office with teaching, Dawn Finley is admired for her focus on both the conceptual and built sides of architecture and for bein...

Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA lectures at GSAPP

2014-09-22T16:47:00-04:00

This past Wednesday, Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA addressed an overflowing Wood Auditorium, giving the first GSAPP lecture of the semester. Recently appointed dean Amale Andraos gave a brief introduction of Sejima and returned at the end of the lecture to lead a discussion as well as the Q/A portion of the evening.

Sejima began her lecture by explaining her choice of “Canopy” as her theme, an idea that is central to her, both as a part of SANAA and independently. “I like to make a space like a park, because a park is a place where different kind of people can gather,” stated Sejima, describing her desire to create an architecture that allows diverse groups of people to come together to both share and create their own space. By developing the concept of a canopy, Sejima creates a direct connection with the building and the environment, in a similar way that parks connect people with each other and the environment.

Starting with the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, Switzerland and conc...

Editor's Picks #381

2014-08-19T20:36:00-04:00

Nicholas Korody penned, Shitting Architecture: the dirty practice of waste removal. Therein drawing lessons; from Slavoj Zizek on the toilet and Timothy Morton (of Object-Oriented Ontology [OOO]) on sustainability as the preservation of the status quo, he argues that "Under the weight of the ecological crisis, the world has been flattened. There is no exit".

In response, Orhan Ayyüce offered up an image of the sublimely absurd, "I am always baffled by big houses that are marketed with +5.5 bathrooms (very common in wealthy neighborhoods) and so on. And of course these host extremely hi end living styles. It is kind of funny to think all these people do all day is shit and shit and shit everywhere in the house".

For the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect featured Francis Tsai, of Francis Tsai Illustration and Concept Design, who received a Master's degree in 1993 from University of Texas in Austin.

Xenaxis "worked with Francis Tsai at Rockstar games and he was one of t...

Weekly News Round-Up for August 11, 2014: Monumental politics, smart homes and GSAPP's new dean

2014-08-18T12:53:00-04:00

Friday, August 15

Farewell to the Old Okura: The famous Hotel Okura, built in the 1960s in a distinctive fusion of modern and traditional Japanese styles, is closing in response to prohibitive earthquake retrofits and larger, newer hotels in the area.
Samsung Acquires SmartThings, A Fast-Growing Home Automation Startup: SmartThings, an aggregator for all "smart" internet-connected devices in the home, cost Samsung an estimated $200 million —chump change in comparison to Google's $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest.

Thursday, August 14

One ridesharing app to rule them all: Ridescout moves into the competitive world of rideshare: Ridescout aggregates hundreds of ridesharing services to compare trips, and will now include "carpool" options that can help users share trips. The announcement comes after last week's news that Uber and Lyft are now both offering carpooling services.
Revisiting the American Folk Art Museum controversy, through comics: A thoughtful and diplomatic look at AFAM's his...

Amale Andraos to succeed Mark Wigley as GSAPP's new dean

2014-08-12T16:11:00-04:00

Andraos, an associate professor of architecture, planning and preservation at GSAPP since 2011 and a principal at WORKac., will succeed Mark Wigley, who announced he would retire at the end of the 2013-2014 academic year [...] “Columbia is already a leader in addressing the challenges of high-speed urbanization around the globe and I believe it can lead in recasting architecture in dialogue with our urban societies and the natural environment,” Andraos said in the release.

Just shy of the new academic year, Columbia's GSAPP has appointed Amale Andraos to succeed Mark Wigley as Dean, effective this fall. Andraos is a firm presence in New York architecture and beyond, as principal of WORKac alongside her husband, Dan Wood (both previously profiled in our UpStarts series). The Wall Street Journal named her one of Rem Koolhaas' protégés, and her writing has been featured in our Screen/Print series.

You can see what kind of post Andraos is inheriting in our Deans List interview with Mark Wigley, the prior GSAPP dean.