Next Friday, September 20th, the Architectural League of New York is hosting its annual Beaux Arts Ball. This year’s event will be themed HEAT and examine the challenges that climate change imposes on the built environment as its subject, asking those in attendance to imagine a better future relative to how the current "foundation of extractivism, carbonization, anthropocentrism, and technocracy are put under increasing pressure."
The event takes place inside the Turbine Hall of the new Herzog & de Meuron-restored Powerhouse Arts venue in Brooklyn beginning at 9:00 PM. The space will feature a special installation piece related to the theme designed by Olalekan Jeyifous, lighting design by Joel Fitzpatrick Studio, and a live set from DJ Tara. Be sure to dress festively and prepare to dance the night away!
Thanks to The Architectural League, Archinect is giving away five party tickets to five of our readers.
For a chance to win a ticket, leave a comment below naming your favorite recent architectural project that truly represents environmental sustainability. Only your first comment counts. Each winner will receive one ticket. Deadline is Monday, September 16, at 6 PM Eastern Time.
Tickets start at $100. 21+ only. More information about attending the event can be found here.
7 Comments
The vertical forest is a unique residential complex in Milan, Italy. This sustainable building was designed to help combat air pollution and improve the city’s green spaces.
It features two tower blocks with plant-based facade designs that absorb carbon dioxide and generates oxygen, helping enhance the air quality in the area.
Over 900 trees, shrubs, and other plants are used to create the Vertical Forest’s unique facade.
This lush green space provides insulation to keep the building cool in summer and warm in winter and attracts birds, bees, and other beneficial insects, improving the building’s biodiversity.
In addition, the terraces help to reduce noise pollution and reduce the urban heat island effect.
Very apt for this years Beaux Arts Ball location, I would nominate SCAPE and Selldorf's Gowanus CSO Tank Facility and accompanying park, and tied to it, the larger endeavor of the Gowanus Canal's toxic waste cleanup project. Very exciting community asset and cleanup of historic toxic waste!
Timber Adaptive Reuse Theater in Gowanus by CO Adaptive is a great example of low-carbon design!!
The Gowanus CSO facility hits the mark at so many levels. First off, its design shows how people can integrate with vital public infrastructure, whereas in the past, these surroundings were planned to keep them apart.
Yes, this CSO facility will deliver a cleaner community by preventing up to 12 million gallons of sewer overflow during increasing wet weather events due climate change.
Yes, the design is resilient and sustainable, with all critical equipment elevated above the floodplain, concrete with recycled content, high-efficiency equipment, and green roofs.
Yes, it creates 3.6 acres of new public waterfront open space and amenities for the Gowanus community. Yes, it salvaged the brick, terracotta, and bluestone elements of the 1913 Gowanus Station building, which will be reconstructed as a part of the project.
There are even more “Yeses” it checks off, but most importantly the new facility design helps educate people - let's people SEE - how vital infrastructure affects their daily lives. And when people make that connection, they care more, and take action to protect it. That's where combating climate change begins.
This facility literally invites people in and around it. When people, and biodiversity, thrive around the perimeter of a building (designed with reducing its own environmental impact in mind) – that is truly environmental sustainability. Lastly, this project gets top marks for all its levels of support, government, community, private. Wholistic partnerships like this one moves the needle on creating longer-term solutions to climate change.
Harlem School of the Arts, 1974, 2020 Renovation Imrey StudiosThe Harlem School of the Arts, designed in 1974 by Ulrich Franzen and renovated in 2020 by Imrey Studios. This project embodies environmental sustainability within an array of aspects. Franzen’s design is a crisp, solid brick façade constructed on a modest budget with an internal courtyard to offer outdoor space. This courtyard is one of the most striking small scale open spaces within Manhattan (and one of the landscape architect Ken Smith’s favorites). Franzen integrated the dramatic natural geology of the site, a 40’ rock wall, as the fourth plane of the space and then wrapped the building around it. The greenery of the space is composed of the natural growth throughout the rock accompanied by planting at the ground level. This environ is populated by the school’s students as well as the wildlife of the area. The 2020 renovation recognized the significance and uniqueness of this space and focused the adaptations to the street façade and interior moments with the use of contemporary energy efficient systems and lighting. The reuse of structures is critical with respect to an environmental footprint and material waste.
The late architect/artist/industrial designer Gaetano Pesce celebrated often criticized materials and methods – he used what others rejected and discarded. Rags and poly formed chairs, vinyl disks became footwear. His embrace of plastics, an entrenched part of modern manufacturing and the economy, offered a perspective on the use of these undeniably present materials. This sensitivity to the earth is accompanied at the built scale in his Organic Building in Osaka Japan which featured a façade of greenery. His objects are architectural in their design, construction and materiality – the intense detailing and the physical appreciation of substance, most recently on display during Milan Design Week 2024. “What we want to convey is rich in meaning, not only does form follow function, but it has a third, very important element, namely meaning, which can make people think on a political, socio-economic, religious, philosophical, behavioural and personal level.” - Pesce
East Riverfront Pier by Ken Smith Workshop An architectural eco-park with habitat restoration as a primary component. The park features a mussel beach, dunes and a vine wall that provides screening and shade for the inhabitants. Built component use recycled materials. The open space is robustly used by the community, the adjacent neighborhood lacks park space at scale.
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