Columbia University
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
>>
Dean Mark Wigley
Faculty: Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D. and Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Ph.D.
Melissa Cowley Wolf, Associate Director, Alumni Relations
Benjamin Prosky, Director of Special Events
Phillip Anzalone, Technical Director, Avery Digital Fabrication Laboratory
Jill Fehrenbacher, Founder of Inhabitat.com


GSAPP EVENT - OCT. 20th-25th, 2008
Ecogram: The Sustainability Question
Even though “green” is everywhere, the concepts of sustainability and ecological design are still marginal in schools of architecture as well as in architectural discourse at large. That buildings and cities are significant polluters and catalysts of climate change is beyond question. Buildings and the building industry currently contribute at least 40-50% of greenhouse gases. As more than half of the world's population will live in cities by the end of 2008, most of them in developing countries where environmental controls are often weak or nonexistent, thinking about “sustainable development” seems all the more urgent.

This event will bring together a confluence of approaches that will not only inform but also inspire. We intend to introduce both the larger framework of sustainability --social, political, economic and environmental-- as well as the specific issues related to ecological design. The speakers we have selected range from scientists, environmental historians, engineers, architects, activists, journalists and educators.

One of the central questions this event would seek to address is whether sustainability, identified with protecting nature, with goals of resource preservation and minimal intervention, stands in opposition to architecture as an instrument of development and of artistic expression. If not, what are some imaginative, technologically sophisticated approaches to ecological design? Do  designers have the potential to make a positive contribution to new articulations of sustainability?

Other issues we aim to bring to the table include equity and ethics-- for instance, is sustainability a way of preserving privilege for the developed world while "outsourcing" polluting industries and "e-waste" to poorer countries? To what extent is change demanded of both architecture as a practice and of architectural education so as to adequately address (and critique) sustainability? What new models, such as "open source" architecture, can help create communities of concern, able to address both global issues and their local and incremental implementation? How can the values of environmentalism and sustainability be integrated into the ways in which architects and critics think?

PROGRAM 2008:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 20

PANEL: Design + Context
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
6:30 PM

Michelle Addington
>> - Professor, Yale School of Architecture
Dickson D. Despommier
>> - Professor of Public Health and Microbiology, Columbia University
Cameron Sinclair
>> - Architecture for Humanity
Matthias Schuler
>> - Founder and Director of Transsolar

Moderators: Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D.
>> - Terreform 1; Adjunct Professor of Architecture, GSAPP &
Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Ph.D.
>> - Adjunct Professor of Architecture, GSAPP

Exhibition at the Ross Gallery:
Ecology Design Synergy, Behnisch Architekten + Transsolar Climate Engineering

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22

KEYNOTE LECTURE
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
6:30 PM
Daniel Wood and Amale Andraos
>>
WORK Architecture Company, New York

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24

KEYNOTE LECTURE
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
6:30 PM
Kenneth Frampton
Ware Professor of Architecture, GSAPP

ALUMNI WEEKEND 2008
AVERY HALL SOCIETY LEADERS DINNER
8:00 PM
Special Event for the Leaders and Partners of The Avery Hall Society

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25
ALUMNI WEEKEND 2008

REGISTRATION AND BREAKFAST
Brownie's Cafe, Avery Hall
10:00 AM

WELCOME
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
10:30 AM
Mark Wigley, Dean of GSAPP

INTRODUCTION
Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Ph.D. (MsAAD 1996) - Adjunct Professor of Architecture, GSAPP
Mitchell Joachim (M.Arch 1997) - Adjunct Professor of Architecture, GSAPP

PANEL: Research + Culture
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
11:00 AM

Kyong Park
>> - Founder, International Center for Urban Ecology, co-curator, Project Shrinking Cities
Sarah Haga
>> - Director, Owner's Representative Studio, Jonathan Rose Companies
Nilda Mesa
>> - Assistant Vice President, Environmental Stewardship, Columbia University
Jorge Otero-Pailos
>> - Professor of Historic Preservation, GSAPP
Smita Srinivas
>> - Assistant Professor of Urban Planning; Director, Technological Change Lab, GSAPP

Moderated by Elliott Sclar - Professor of Urban Planning, GSAPP

LUNCH
TOURS, TALK, EXHIBITION
12:30 - 2:30 PM

PANEL: Education + Ecology
Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
2:30 PM

SHoP Architects, P.C.
>>
Bruce Lindsey
>> - Dean, Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design, Washington University
Kate Orff
>> - Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, GSAPP; Principal, SCAPE
John Peterson
>> - Founder, Public Architecture
Zoka Zola
>> - Principal, Zoka Zola architecture + urban design, Chicago

Moderated by Mark Wigley - Dean of GSAPP


___________________________________________________________________________________
Event Co-Directors:

Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD Harvard University, M.Arch. Columbia University, BPS SUNY at Buffalo w/ honors. Partner at the nonprofit organization Terreform 1  He is faculty at Columbia University and Parsons.  Formerly an architect at Gehry Partners, Michael Sorkin Studio, and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.  He is the winner of the Moshe Safdie and Assoc. Research Fellow Award, Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability at MIT. History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, New York. Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year 2007, Compacted Car w/ MIT Smart Cities Group.

Ioanna Theocharopoulou, architect and architectural historian, Ph.D. Columbia University, History & Theory of Architecture, MSAAD Columbia University, and AA Diploma, London, UK. She teaches at Columbia University, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and at Parsons The New School for Design. Her work focuses on urbanization and informal development as well as the history/ theory of sustainable design.


Ecogram is generously supported by Consolidated Edison Company of New York.

CONTACT: info@ecogram.org
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | GSAPP | ALUMNI EVENT 2008