Archinect - News

Easing from school into practice: GSAPP launches "Incubator"

2015-12-03T13:25:00-05:00

Being a fresh graduate in the lamentably real world is perhaps one of the steepest transitions an architect ever faces, which is part of the inspiration behind Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation's newly launched Incubator program. Billing itself as a kind of professional bridge building/idea lab initiative, Incubator helps alumni network with professionals in the technological industry in a dedicated interdisciplinary co-working space located in The Bowery in New York City. The first iteration of Incubator features eleven groups including FAMILY + PLAYLAB + POOL, IrisVR, and KOSMOS.

The groups are developing projects that encompass a swath of contemporary architectural concerns and territories, including public spaces, critical discourse and publishing, virtual reality, urban regeneration, and digital technology, with the goal of helping Incubator's members entrepreneurially explore ties between technology, culture, and architecture.

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K O S M O S asks: is architecture merging with other media?

2015-07-15T18:11:00-04:00

Telephone poles, scaffoldings, abandoned utility plants: like taxpayer-sponsored dark matter, these elements form the largely ignored visual majority of our daily urban experience. K O S M O S, a self-described "virtual firm," whose four partners occasionally physically convene in New York, Basel, or Moscow, has spotlighted and transformed these otherwise drab infrastructural elements into a ribbed foil pop-up in Moscow entitled EMA. Described as "a temporary installation and renovation of ex-industrial territory in Moscow," EMA essentially repurposes an abandoned eyesore into an event space. We emailed Leonid Slonimskiy a few questions about K O S M O S' global approach to revitalizing forgotten infrastructural elements, as well as the selfie-savvy aesthetics and corresponding media-blurring issues of EMA's design.

Archinect: You describe EMA as "reveal[ing] and leverag[ing] the hidden infrastructure of the city." In what other cities would you like to attempt similar infrastructura...