core.form-ula

Michael Chen has put together a tour de force lineup to discuss the future of prefabrication in Architecture (see below for full description). He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and holds the following positions: Director of the Kullman Center , Technics Coordinator and Design Faculty

Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Spring 2008 Kullman Center Conference,

Prefab Futures: New Agendas for Mass Customization in Architecture is the inaugural event for the Kullman Center, a research center residing within the School of Architecture with an emphasis on developing new and innovative approaches to modular construction and industrialized building techniques. The one-day conference will present research and scholarship related to the history of prefabrication, contemporary and emerging techniques and approaches to prefabrication, as well as the social and sustainable potential of prefab and prefab technologies. These three topics are key research areas for the Center, which will function both as an intellectual resource and ideas clearinghouse as well as an important laboratory for industrial construction.

Date and Location
Thursday, April 3 2008

Higgins Hall Auditorium
Pratt Institute School of Architecture
61 St James Place
Brooklyn, New York

Schedule

8:00 Morning Reception

9:00 Opening Remarks
Avi Telyas CEO Kullman Buildings Corp.

Morning Address:Kent Larson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

9:45 Prefab Precedents
Moderator: Bill Menking
Colin Davies, London Metropolitan University
Andrew Blauvelt, Walker Art Center

11:15 Prefab Futures Session I
Moderator: Thomas Hanrahan
Wes Jones, Jones Partners
Charlie Lazor, Lazor Office
Rocio Romero, Rocio Romero
Michael Pitt, Design Buro

2:30 Prefab Futures Session II
Moderator: Evan Douglis
John Nastasi, Nastasi Architects / Stevens Institute of Technology
Marcelo Spina, PATTERNS / Sci-Arc
Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano, LOT-ek

4:45 Prefab Futures Session III
Moderator: Philip Parker
Michael Meredith, MOS / Harvard University
Jeremy Edmiston, SYSTEMarchitects / City University of New York
Joseph Tanney, Resolution: 4 Architecture

7:00 Closing Remarks
Barry Bergdoll, The Museum of Modern Art

7:30 Conference Reception. Siegal Gallery

Panelist Bios

Kent Larson
Kent Larson is director of Changing Places: a joint MIT Department of Architecture and Media Laboratory research consortium. He also runs the associated House_n consortium and the MIT Open Source Building Alliance within the Department of Architecture. Current research focuses on strategies for creating responsive places of living using new design/fabrication strategies, defining system level standards for an open source approach to building design and construction, and developing ubiquitous sensing/computation technologies that do useful things for people related to proactive health, energy conservation, communication, and learning. Larson’s group, with TIAX, has developed a unique research facility called the PlaceLab to systematically prototype and test new technologies and design concepts in the context of everyday life.
Larson practiced architecture for 15 years in New York City in partnership with Peter L. Gluck, and more recently as Kent Larson, Architects P.C., with work published in Architectural Record,
Progressive Architecture, Global Architecture, the New York Times, A+U, and Architectural
Digest. His book, Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture, 2000 by the New York Times Review of Books. Related work was selected by Time magazine as a “Best Design of the Year” project.

PREFAB PRECEDENTS
Colin Davies is a professor at London Metropolitan University and author of ‘The Prefabricated Home’. Architect, teacher, writer and historian, he is a former editor of The Architects’ Journal and a regular contributor to architectural magazines world-wide. His other books include ‘High Tech Architecture’, various monographs on the work of architects such as Norman Foster, Michael Hopkins and Nicholas Grimshaw, and most recently ‘Key Houses of the Twentieth Century’ published by Laurence King in 2006. He teaches across a wide range of disciplines, including design, architectural history, building technology, and architectural practice. His research interests include technical and semi-technical subjects but he also regularly reviews books on architectural theory for the Architectural Review. He believes that technology, history and theory are closer than is normally supposed and often overlap.

Andrew Blauvelt
Andrew Blauvelt is Design Director and Curator of architecture and design at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In his role as Design Director, he has provided creative direction for the Walker’s innovative design identity across various media platforms and public spaces, oversees its publications program and design studio, and curates design-related exhibitions and programs.

As curator of architecture and design programs at the Walker he has organized traveling exhibitions such as Ideas for Modern Living, part of The Home Show (2000), which explored the early history of the Walker’s pioneering Idea House project and Everyday Art Gallery; Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life (2003), an international survey of avant-garde architecture and design whose roots lie in the exploration of commonplace materials and daily routines and rituals; and Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses (2005), featuring eight modern modular residences in production. Most recently, he co-curated Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes, the first major museum exhibition about the art and architecture of the American suburb (2008), organized by the Walker Art Center in association with the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

Along with colleagues in new media and education at the Walker, he directed the experience planning for the museum’s Herzog & de Meuron-designed expansion, which integrates technological experiences and interpretive strategies. He also recently completed the furnishings program for the Walker’s new administrative offices and launched a new program of rotating furniture designs for its public spaces.

A practicing graphic designer for more than twenty years, he is the recipient of more than 50 design awards including numerous nominations for the Chrysler Award for Design Innovation and the National Design Awards from Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York. His work has been exhibited and published widely in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and has been featured in such publications as Metropolis (US), I.D. (US), Eye (UK), IDEA (Japan) magazines and in the books Area (Phaidon), a survey of the world’s 100 top graphic designers, and c/ID (Lawrence King), an international survey of leading efforts at cultural branding.

Blauvelt writes about design and culture for various publications and has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. He is a contributing writer for the blog designobserver.com. A former professor, his research continues to focus on the application of cultural and critical theory to design. He served as department chair of graphic design at North Carolina State University’s College of Design, as well as director of the graduate program. He served as interim chair of the 2D Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he received his MFA in Design (1988). He has also served as a visiting tutor at the Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, the Netherlands, and at University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico. Recently, he has served as a guest critic at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts; California Institute of the Arts, Valencia; and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California.

Blauvelt is an elected member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).

PREFAB FUTURES I

Wes Jones
Wes Jones is a partner in Jones, Partners: Architecture, a California-based architectural practice founded in 1993 by Jones and the design staff from HHPJ, where Jones had served as Design Partner since its inception. His technologically inspired designs for completed buildings and theoretical projects have received acclaim for their critical engagement with the contemporary cultural scene and their disciplinary sophistication. His eight Progressive Architecture Design Awards include recognition for the Astronauts’ Memorial at Kennedy Space Center and the $180M South Campus Chiller Plant for UCLA. The work of J,P:A and HHPJ has been featured in many publications and exhibited widely.

A recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture, Mr. Jones has lectured internationally on technology and the work of the firm, and has taught in the schools of Architecture at Harvard, Princeton, IIT, Columbia, UCLA, UC Berkeley, the Ohio State University, and the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Jones received the AB with Highest Honors from UC Berkeley in 1980, and the MArch with Distinction from the HGSD in 1983.

In early 1998 Princeton Architectural Press published a monograph of his work, Instrumental Form, which covers the first ten years of J,P:A’s existence; the firm is presently working on the next volume due in Fall 2007, titled El Segundo, which will bring the coverage up to date.

Charlie Lazor
Charlie Lazor co-founded the furniture design office, BLU DOT in 1997 with his partners, John Christakos and Maurice Blanks. Blu Dot’s work has been recognized for its precise and often inventive use of materials, fabrication technology and assembly methods to produce furniture that is both elegant and accessible.

In 2002, BLU DOT was nominated as a finalist for The Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards. Their work has received numerous awards, including the 2003 International Contemporary Furniture Show Editor’s Award, an ID citation and numerous Good Design awards from the Chicago Athenaeum. Their work has been exhibited by the Museum of Modern Art, The Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Centres Pompidou. BLU DOT has been published in Spoon, New American Furniture Design, and Inside Design Now as well as national and International magazines.

In 2003 Charlie founded LAZOR OFFICE to pursue a broader spectrum of design programs and scales, including architecture and environments. The design work of LAZOR OFFICE begins with observation and analysis of a need or problem and seeks an elegant, cost efficient solution. Using the latest generation of digital fabrication technology or the simplest tool in the shop, our knowledge of tools and materials is the basis of a design process that yields functional and beautiful forms that are easily made.

Charlie is a Cass Gilbert Professor in Practice at the University of Minnesota College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, where he investigates the question of the manufactured building systems. This Fall Charlie is the Max Fisher chair at the University of Michigan Taubmann School of Architecture. He was named a Design Fellow at the MIT Media Lab for the 2003 Simplicity Program and a Fellow of the Design Institute in 2000.

In 2005 Charlie was a finalist for the Athena emerging designer sponsored award by RISD and Surface. Charlie is a frequent lecturer at design schools and museum symposium, including the Walker Art Center, The Hammer Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The work of Lazor Office will be included in the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Biennale for 2006 and in the Walker Art Center Exhibition, “Some Assembly Required” in 2005.
Lazor graduated with a Masters of Architecture in 1993, from Yale University and a BA from Williams College in 1987.

Rocio Romero
Rocio Romero is the first designer to offer modern prefab homes in the United States since the Arts & Architecture Case Study Homes of the fifties and to date, through Rocio Romero, LLC, have sold 154 LV unites in 23 states with more than 50 currently under construction or completed.
We are a multidisciplinary firm that designs, manufactures, builds, ships, and sells prefabricated kit homes. It is our philosophy that by marrying all these disciplines we are able to better deliver quality design easily and affordably. It is through prefab efficiencies that we are able to control the cost and quality of our homes.
The LV Home Series are affordable, easily built, and highly customizable homes. Homeowners are provided with a prefabricated kit of parts that makes up the exterior shell of the LV home and can be delivered anywhere in the United States. The LV employs traditional construction materials and techniques; therefore, any General Contractor can build the LV home
Romero received her bachelor’s degree in environmental design from the University of California at Berkeley and a master of architecture degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Michael Pitt
Michael qualified with an Honours degree and Diploma at Aston University and the Birmingham School of Architecture in 1970, and is a Chartered Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

He started Michael Pitt Associates in 1976, and having already had some experience in timber frame construction, spent the next five years focusing on a successful export system called ‘Nomad’ with the Potton Group. In 1981 he returned to the UK market, investing heavily into timber frame computer systems, becoming the leading practice in this field in the UK.

Michael merged his firm with a Warwick practice, Corstorphine & Wright, in late 1986, becoming Group MD with a Group turnover of £4.25m in 1990, the practice then being in the top 20 UK practices.

Michael started The Design Büro as a specialist architecture/offsite solutions practice at the beginning of 1991. Over the following years, The Design Büro expanded, reaching a total group staff of over 50 by today.

After many years of timber frame design, a growing demand for lightweight steel frame led to research into UK and US systems. Michael is an active member of The Steel Construction Institute, the UK’s leading technical body, plays an active role in the production of technical and promotional manuals, and is recognised as a leading expert in the field.

Most recently Michael has been focusing on the really exciting opportunities in the US, where his skills, knowledge, and experience can be used to great effect. He has joined The Kullman Buildings Corporation as SVP Design, working on a variety of exciting new initiatives, and is the process of setting up a New York base. KBC is building on its considerable experience with new systems and techniques, blending the best solutions from both sides of the Atlantic.

PREFAB FUTURES II

John Nastasi
John Nastasi is a practicing architect and design educator. He serves as the Founding Director of the Product-Architecture Lab, an interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Product Design, Architecture and Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and is also the Founding Design Director of the award-winning Hoboken-based design build studio, Nastasi Architects. Mr. Nastasi is an alumnus of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, a recipient of Harvard’s Rice Prize for advancement in Architecture and Engineering and a 1996 recipient of the Young Architects Award from the New York Architectural League among other honors. He resides in Manhattan.

Nastasi founded his architectural studio in 1991. Throughout his professional endeavors as principal of his own design studio and as a professor of advanced design, John has remained committed to the creation of an architecture that is informed by philosophical thought while responsive to practical and performative concerns. This philosophy continues to guide the work of the studio today which is distinguished by a consistency of process; a rigorous detailed investigation of real and theoretical issues; and a high level of craftsmanship that accompanies the art of making.

Marcelo Spina
Established in 1999 and headed by principals Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich, PATTERNS is a design research architectural practice based in Los Angeles and operating globally. PATTERNS work has gained international recognition for its innovative approach to design and architecture that fuses advanced computation with an extensive understanding of form, tectonics and materials. PATTERNS’s vision is to generate innovative spatial forms that actively engage, enhance and influences the body, constantly challenging its relationship to the built environment akin to the complexity of contemporary life.

PATTERNS has received numerous prizes and awards including first prizes in the competitions for the Vertical Garden at the Schindler House in West Hollywood and the New SCI_Arc Café, the third prize in the prestigious Young Architect of the year Award in 2003 and most recently, an honorable mention for a Concert Hall in Skopje, Macedonia. Current projects include Sunset 8746 Boutique, and the SCI_Arc Café both to be completed in 2008 in Los Angeles, a Hybrid Office Building in Chengdu and an Entertainment Pavilion in Ningbo, both in China, and a vertical apartment building in Rosario, Argentina.

PATTERNS work has been shown and exhibited worldwide, most notably at the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Venice Biennale in Italy, The Architectural League of New York, and its first solo show “UniBodies” at Artists Space also in New York. PATTERNS’ work is part of the Permanent Architecture Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the MAK center in Vienna and the Sculpture Collection at Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation in Korea.

PATTERNS partners Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich have lectured extensively in the US, South America and Europe and their work has been published internationally in books, exhibition catalogues, magazines and newspapers such as Los Angeles Times, Next Generation Architecture, A+U and Architectural Record which selected PATTERNS to integrate their prestigious “Design Vanguard” in 2004.

Marcelo Spina is a Design Faculty at SCI_Arc since 2001where he also coordinates the Applied Studies Program. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Harvard GSD, Tulane, Berkeley and Innsbruck, Austria and has previously taught at the National University of Rosario and The Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Born in Rosario, Argentina, Mr. Spina holds a Professional Degree from the National University of Rosario and a Master in Architecture from Columbia University in New York where he was the recipient of several honors including the William Kinne Fellowship and the Honor Award for Excellence in Design.

LOT-EK®
LOT-EK is a design studio based in New York City. Founded in 1993 by Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, it has been involved in residential, commercial and institutional projects in the US and abroad, as well as exhibition design and site-specific installations for major cultural institutions and museums, including MoMA, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim.

LOT-EK’s founding partners, Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano, have a Master Degree in Architecture and Urban Design from the Universita’ di Napoli, Italy (1989) and have completed post-graduate studies at Columbia University, New York (1990-1991). Besides heading their professional practice, they are currently teaching at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, in New York. They are also lecturing in major universities and cultural institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad.

LOT-EK has achieved high visibility in the architecture/design/art world for its sustainable and innovative approach to construction, materials and space, for the use of technology as an integral part of architecture, for addressing issues of mobility and transformability in architecture and for blurring the boundaries between art, architecture and entertainment. Its projects are published in national and international publications, magazines and books, including The New York Times, The London Times, Herald Tribune, The Wall Street journal, Wallpaper, Domus, A+U, Interior Design, Wired, Surface, Metropolis, Vogue, Graphis and more. LOT-EK’s first monograph, URBANSCAN, was published by PAP in February 2002. LOT-EK MIXER, by Edizioni Press, came out in 2000 and MDU Mobile Dwelling Unit, published by DAP, came out in June 2003.

LOT-EK’s sustainable approach to construction through the adaptive reuse of existing industrial objects and systems has been the basis of projects at all scales. Committed to ecologically-responsible, intelligent methods of building, our team takes advantage of the technological properties of existing industrial objects resulting from decades of expert development, to create architecture. We not only recycle the objects themselves, we also recycle the intelligence that went into their development. Beyond the inherent sustainability of our design methodology, LOT-EK is committed to researching and implementing innovative ways of conserving materials and energy. As with all technological elements, we are interested in highlighting sustainable technologies visually, as ingredients to emphasize overall design concepts.

PREFAB FUTURES III

Michael Meredith
Michael Meredith is Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He teaches in the architecture core design studio sequence. His professional practice engages interdisciplinary discourses, ranging from art to technology, producing a spectrum of design work which includes furniture, products, sound, exhibition design, speculative architecture projects and residences in New York, Massachusetts, Ontario, Texas, and California. He was a finalist for the design of the Pentagon 9-11 memorial and the PS1/MoMA Young Architects competition. Recent projects include the Le Corbusier Puppet Theater in collaboration with Pierre Huyghe, artist studio in Upstate NY, a proposal for the PS1/MoMA Young Architects Program invited competition, the Ballroom Marfa Drive-In , and the UTEC non-profit Teen Center in Lowell , MA. In 1998, he was a winner of the Young Architects Competition at the Architectural League of New York.

His design work has been published in numerous periodicals including A+U, Architecture, Architectural Record, Azure, Casa Brutus, Competitions, Mark, McSweeney’s, the New York Times, Oculus, Wallpaper, and Surface, books including Weaving (ed. Toshiko Mori), VERB: Natures, and featured in exhibitions at Cooper Hewitt, Columbia University, and Henry Urbach Architecture. His writings have appeared in A+U, Artforum, Domus, Perspecta (upcoming), and Praxis. He has produced two DVDs about architecture, Beyond the Harvard Box: Interviews and Notes for Those Beginning the Discipline of Architecture.

Meredith previously taught architecture at the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the Muschenheim Fellowship, and the University of Toronto, where he was the co-recipient of a Canadian Foundation for Innovation grant. He received his BArch from Syracuse University, and his MArch with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he was also awarded the Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. In 2003, he was a resident at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and in 2000, he completed a residency at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

Jeremy Edmiston
Jeremy Edmiston has been practicing, teaching and researching architecture in New York City for 17 years. Originally from Sydney, Australia, he moved to the United States when he won the prestigious Fulbright, Harkness and Byera Hadley scholarships all in the same year. His practice is based in re-evaluating the relationship between the built and natural environments in all its permutations. Since setting up an architectural studio here (SYSTEMarchitects), he has won the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architect award with Douglas Gauthier, a Lindbergh Fellowship, and a Department of Energy’s Center of Excellence Fellowship for his study into improving the environmental efficiency of high rise buildings.
Edmiston’s newest project is Burst*, a kit home which establishes a whole new paradigm for environmental residential building. In the summer of 2008, it will be exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art as part of its Home Delivery show, the first full scale architectural exhibition MoMA has mounted in 50 years. The house was designed in collaboration with Gauthier, with whom Edmiston worked for more than 10 years at SYSTEMarchitects, and in 2005 a prototype was built on Australia’s East coast. It won the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 2006 Wilkinson award, the most prestigious national award given to residential architecture and an Australian Timber Design Award. It was also featured on the cover of Metropolis magazine and in Time magazine’s Innovators series.

In 2006 Edmiston and Gauthier were finalists in The Ferrous Park Housing Competition, The Syracuse Connective Corridor Urban Design Competition, and the City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge sponsored by the History Channel.
Edmiston holds a Master in Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor in Architecture from the University of Technology, Sydney-graduating first in his class with three medals for design and academic work. Currently, he teaches thesis students at City University of New York’s architecture department. He has also taught at Pratt Institute, Syracuse University and has lectured at Yale, Columbia and Princeton Universities, as well as the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. He has contributed essays to Sites and Stations: Provisional Utopias and Techno-Fiction: Zur Kritik der Technologischen Utopien.

Joseph Tanney
Joseph Tanney founded Resolution: 4 Architecture with Robert Luntz in New York in 1990. Since its inception, his ten-person office has been internationally published and highly acclaimed, completing projects in the residential, commercial, and public realms. Tanney has both studied under and worked for Peter Eisenman and Charles Gwathmey, prior to the formation of Resolution: 4 Architecture, a.k.a. RES4.
The firm’s most recent preoccupation is THE MODERN MODULAR by Resolution: 4 Architecture, a systematic methodology of design that attempts to leverage existing methods of prefabrication for residential construction. These efforts are an attempt to offer an option of ‘Mass Customization’ to the to the single-family housing market, thereby aesthetically transforming the sub-urban fabric of the American domestic landscape. In 2003, his office won an International Competition for a modern prefabricated home, The Dwell Home. It has been noted by the Washington Post as the “highest profile modern prefabricated home in America”, and is considered the “Holy Grail” for modern prefab enthusiasts by the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to being featured in numerous publications and exhibitions, Tanney’s work has received critical recognition within the profession. THE MODERN MODULAR by Resolution: 4 Architecture has received a 2005 American Architecture Award by the Chicago Athenaeum, a 2006 National AIA Housing Award for concepts in Innovative Housing, and a 2006 Honor Award for Housing Design Research from the Boston Society of Architects and the AIA New York Chapter.

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