Archinect - News

Rosalie Genevro steps down as The Arch League's Executive Director after 37 years

2022-09-23T14:35:00-04:00

A change has come to one of the industry’s oldest professional associations after The Architectural League of New York's Executive Director Rosalie Genevro announced on September 22 that she will be stepping down from the organization after more than 37 years in her post.

Genevro says she will depart next year to focus on a slate of issues connected to climate change and the construction industry. Since beginning her tenure in 1985, the League has vastly expanded its influential program to account for the onset of the digital age and radical changes in the broader currents of architecture as a professional enterprise, social endeavor, and field of academic study.

Among the initiatives she is credited with developing are the League’s award-winning Urban Omnibus publication, the Emerging Voices and Prize for Young Architects + Designers competitions, the ...

The mutual attraction of architecture and pastries; 4 architects turned pastry chefs

2018-01-23T15:07:00-05:00

Ms. Yee, who oversees pastry for all the restaurants in the Resurgens Hospitality Group, used to be an architect, and she designs desserts the way she once did building interiors: meticulously sketching every element, testing many prototypes. And these days she has plenty of company: Many of the country’s top pastry chefs have practiced or studied architecture.

As we have shown in Archinect's ongoing series Working Out of the Box, architects have a background and skillset that can be applied in many ways outside of traditional architecture practice. For example, these prominent pastry chefs all started off as architects and switched to designing cakes instead. Each chef has translated the intent of an architect into food design in unique ways, from 3D printed cake molds to creating pastries from sketches and blueprints.

Check out some of the their delicious designs below:

Dinara Kasko began as a Ukrainian architect:

Berry-almond tart with a surface constructed from a mold made by a 3D printer by Dinara Kasko. Image: Dinara Kasko.

Jennifer Yee has a degree in interior architecture:

Lemon Fleur éclair by Jennifer Yee. Image: Jennifer Yee.

Jansen Chan studied architecture at UC Berkeley:

Nectarine Orchata and Lemon Balm Broth by Jansen Chan. Image: Antoinette Bruno.

Baruch Ellsworth studied architecture at a California community college:

Choco...

AIA awards $100,000 to five intriguing Upjohn Research Initiative projects

2017-04-25T12:46:00-04:00

From a Circadian Daylight Metric and Design Assist Tool to Trashwalls, the AIA has announced the five projects it has selected for its 10th annual Upjohn Research Initiative grants, and they're all fairly promising. Speaking broadly, the projects each propose investigating a particular aspect of the built environment in an effort to try and improve the quality of life of that structure's likely daily inhabitants. For example, the Trashwalls from a team of researchers from Washington State University are "fabricated using materials harvested from the local solid waste stream, are designed to reduce heat loss from rented apartments, improve the comfort of those spaces during hot or cold weather, and save renters money on their utility bills, while reducing pollution. The purpose of this project is to design, construct, and examine prototypes of interior insulating walls that are attractive, have an R-value of R-10 (US) or greater, cost less than ten cents per square foot, are built fr...

It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake: WiFi can "see" you through walls

2015-12-10T13:18:00-05:00

Wi-Fi goes through walls, but it isn’t so great at getting through human bodies. Based in this piece of knowledge, a team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has built a detector that can see people through walls using Wi-Fi signals. It can recognize individuals and can even track the movement of their limbs with spooky accuracy.

If you've been trying to duck the information age by keeping a low online profile, not getting a smartphone, or even living off the grid, you are now officially out of luck: your body itself is a source of information thanks to its relative impenetrability by WiFi signals. Although it's a blow for any privacy advocates out there, the technology may have upsides, especially in the energy-savings arena: homes could automatically shut-off unneeded systems if no one was detected. Also, it could open up an entirely new (slightly creepy) area for architects: understanding how people interact with a space when they think no one is there.