‘HOOPS’ Opens at the National Building Museum

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by Deane

The National Building Museum hosts an exhibition of the photographs of Bill Bamberger through through January 5, 2020. I covered the exhibition opening for Architectural Record. An excerpt of the article follows.

Bill Bamberger introduces his work at “HOOPS,” an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

For basketball fans, the excitement of a game comes down to watching the players take their shots at the hoop. But in HOOPS, a new exhibition at the National Building Museum, photographer Bill Bamberger is the one taking the shot—sans players.

Featuring 75 large-format prints, HOOPS hones in on the informal arrangements of basketball venues around the world. By cutting out the players, Bamberger removes the idea of a moment frozen in time, to instead tell the broader story of place and environment, captured in vivid color.

The absence of people is a notable departure for Bamberger, whose work prior to this series includes portraits from the Rust Belt in the mid-1980s and post-genocide Rwanda.

In the tradition of the German photographers Hilla and Bernd Becher—a mid-twentieth-century duo whose oeuvre included multiple series of tightly cropped images of water towers, coal chutes, and other industrial relics—Bamberger narrows his focus to the ubiquitous basketball backboard. But unlike the Bechers, Bamberger widens his frame to include the surrounding environments of his subjects. Visual clues such as construction materials, condition, or landscape (Douglas fir versus camel thorn trees, for instance), suggest context and geography, offering the viewer clues about the unseen community each court serves. In perhaps cheeky allusion to the Bechers, the exhibition includes an image of a basketball hoop attached to a grain silo.

Read the full story at Architectural Record.

AIA|DC Tackles Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

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by Deane

At a panel discussion hosted by AIA|DC, Kimberly Dowdell, the president of NOMA, and William Bates, the president of the AIA, discussed their respective efforts at improving diversity and equity within the profession. It was my honor to attend and to cover the evening for Architectural Digest; an excerpt of that coverage is below.

Dr. Michelle Joan Wilkinson (left) moderates a panel discussion with
Kimberly Dowdell and William Bates.

5 Takeaways from the AIA’s Latest Discussion of Its Diversity Problem

Architects discussed the crucial steps toward building a more equitable profession, at a panel in Washington, D.C.

By Deane Madsen

It’s no secret that the architectural profession has a diversity problem. Of the AIA’s 94,000 members, just 2,270 are African American, and of those, 452 are women, according to data from the Directory of African American Architects. And, for now at least, the future doesn’t seem to be looking much brighter: Only five percent of students enrolled in architecture programs are African American, according to demographic data compiled by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

Last night, a group of architects, advocates, and curators assembled at the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to unpack and address some of these concerns. At an evening event titled “Embracing Our Differences, Changing the World,” AIA President William Bates and National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) President Kimberly Dowdell discussed equity, diversity, and inclusion with Michelle Joan Wilkinson, a curator of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, before a packed house. “It’s not a secret that architecture as a profession has fallen behind,” Bates conceded, adding that the percentage of black students in architecture programs is “not that different from what it was 50 years ago.”

Seizing upon guidelines for diversity and inclusion that the AIA released earlier this year, the speakers reflected upon the urgent need for more equitable representation in the profession.

Read the five takeaways in the full article at Architectural Digest

Metropolis Think Tank at Perkins Eastman Tackles DC’s Urban Planning

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by Deane

I was thrilled to be invited to attend and cover the DC edition of Metropolis Magazine’s Think Tank program. Moderated by Metropolis director of design innovation Susan Szenasy, this discussion brought together Matt Ginivan, a senior vice president of real estate development with JBG Companies; Mignon Anthony, who is chief operating officer of Alexandria City Public Schools; former D.C. mayor Anthony Williams, who currently serves as CEO and executive director of the Federal City Council; and host Barbara Mullenex, who is a managing principal with Perkins Eastman. An excerpt of Think Tank coverage follows.

The Wharf, Washington, D.C.

Like many other cities around the world, Washington, D.C., has undergone expansion and contraction tied to generational shifts in attitude toward urban living. But Washington is also a curious case in that its height restrictions limit vertical growth, which forces developers to consider alternative means of increasing density within a regimented city grid. In the 1960s, planners invoked eminent domain to transform swaths of Washington’s Southwest and Southeast quadrants, and the effects of that urban renewal linger in the forms of displaced populations fighting to regain a foothold in the capital as well as informal business districts that empty out after-hours.

Architect Barbara Mullenex likens urban renewal’s effect on the city to a forest clear-cutting, but sees policy as a vehicle toward managed restoration. “The highway administration divided cities and tore down the urban fabric,” she said recently at a Metropolis Think Tank panel discussion. Mullenex, who is a managing principal at Perkins Eastman, was involved in master-planning a massive development in the area, called the Wharf, that had prompted the talk.

Once a relatively dilapidated waterfront stretch between a fish market and a few motels and restaurants, the Wharf has been redeveloped into a busy living and dining destination that reconnects the adjacent neighborhood to the Potomac River. For Mullenex, who was onstage by thought leaders working in Washington’s metro region, the project “is kind of full circle of urban renewal.” She highlighted late “more enlightened policy making” that aimed to “develop policies that would allow for future re-growth or revitalization of those areas.”

While the federal government was re-shaping Southwest into superblocks of either agency offices or Modernist multifamily towers, another urban hub was taking shape across the Potomac, in Virginia: Crystal City. To Matt Ginivan, a senior vice president with developer JBG Smith, Crystal City once represented a Jetsons-age mentality in the way its infrastructure was designed to funnel people from homes to highways to parking garages and into office towers, connected by sky bridges. Contact with the natural elements was minimized. Now, Ginivan says his team at JBG Smith wants to change the paradigm. The question they’ve been asking lately is “How do we change it from a place where people are going in and out of it every day, to a place where people are living, and mingling, and experiencing the environment together?”The firm was also responsible for master-planning the Wharf, a busy living and dining destination in Southwest D.C. that reconnects the adjacent neighborhood to the Potomac River.C

Part of the answer has to do with strategic redevelopment that finds new uses for some of the existing stock of office blocks within Crystal City, especially now that it has been named one of the two sites for Amazon’s second headquarters (the Think Tank panel occurred just prior to Amazon’s announcement). This kind of redevelopment, where aging commercial corridors have been up-zoned to allow mixtures of retail and residential uses as well, is happening in cities across the United States. In Crystal City, a WeWork/WeLive outpost designed by Perkins Eastman has opened recently, combining shared workspaces with flexible living quarters. Another co-working space, 1776 Crystal City, rents out workplaces within its ample office tower floorplate. The area benefits from dual Metro station access and is a stone’s throw from Reagan National Airport, making it a transit-connected environment within easy reach of Washington’s traditional downtown, and beyond. Then there are the infrastructural improvements, such as the addition of a bus lane and a bike lane. “We don’t have the L’Enfant plan, the natural grid,” Ginivan said. “We have Route 1, and that’s still elevated in lots of areas. We have big superblocks. But there’s about a two-block stretch of Crystal City that feels like a vibrant, bustling business district.” And, with the advent of Amazon’s HQ2, National Landing—which is what local officials are calling the combination of parts of Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yards—is likely to get a lot busier in the near future.

Read the full story at Metropolis Magazine

Metropolis Think Tank Looks at Puerto Rico

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by Deane

It was an honor to be invited to attend and cover the DC edition of Metropolis Magazine’s Think Tank program. Susan Szenasy, who is director of design innovation for Metropolis, led a discussion on architects’ efforts at recovery in the aftermath of the 2017 hurricane season. Speakers included Marilyn Shapley, senior policy adviser, Mercy Corps; Erika Ruiz, director, Enterprise Community Partners; Armando Nazario, senior associate, Perkins+Will; Yanel de Ángel, associate principal, Perkins+Will. An excerpt of Think Tank coverage follows.

How Architects Are Helping Communities in Puerto Rico Rebuild

Panelists at this Metropolis Think Tank event at Perkins+Will’s D.C. office stressed the importance of remembering that there’s no one-size-fits-all fix.

It has been more than a year since Hurricanes Irma and María ravaged Puerto Rico. Even now, accurate estimates of the actual death toll—in excess of 3,000 fatalities, according to the latest available report—remain elusive. The commonwealth’s power grid still lies in ruins.

Simply put, “the island stopped working after the hurricane,” said Armando Nazario, a senior designer at Perkins+Will, at a recent Metropolis Think Tank panel convened at the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. The discussion, moderated by Metropolis director of design innovation Susan S. Szenasy, dwelled on the challenges of delivering aid to Puerto Rico’s unevenly developed and funded urban and rural communities, each with its own pressing needs. “We also don’t have the census data that helps support this [to make] each community self-sufficient,” Nazario explained.

Working with representatives from various international organizations, Nazario and his Perkins+Will colleague Yanel de Ángel, an associate principal, helped spearhead ResilientSEE, which aims to “build a resilient Puerto Rico.” Self-sufficiency, de Ángel affirmed, is key to meeting the group’s goal because “if you’re not feeling empowered, a sense of responsibility cannot be bestowed.”

For municipal rebuilding efforts, the panelists stressed the importance of remembering that there’s no one-size-fits-all fix. For some neighborhoods, residents want centralized community hubs with dedicated solar panels; in others, people are channeling resources into individual household solar systems. Other regions have looked to invest in water filters.

“You have to start that conversation with the community,” said Marilyn Shapley, a senior policy adviser with Mercy Corps, a nongovernmental aid organization. “We have to start with conversations of what that risk is, what their risk tolerance is, how their safety nets are in place, if they have them in place. It does take a village, and it does start with actually talking to every single village.”

Read the full story at Metropolis

Crosstown Concourse Wins Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award

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by Deane

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has announced that Crosstown Concourse, a mixed-use redevelopment of a former Sears Roebuck distribution center, won a 2018 Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award. This award comes the same week that the building’s original occupant, Sears, filed for bankruptcy.

It’s been a tumultuous ride for Sears, with the closure of distribution centers decades ago portending the former titan of retail’s eventual collapse. With the rise of online retailers has come the steady decline of brick-and-mortar shops, even the big box stores that once anchored suburban shopping centers. Where new business models rely more on carrier infrastructure and customer reviews than on physical showrooms, legacy businesses have struggled to keep pace and maintain relevance. If there’s a silver lining to the emptying out of all of this retail square footage, it’s in projects such as Crosstown Concourse, which successfully repurposes a 1.3 million-square-foot structure, transforming it into a one-stop-neighborhood filled with young disruptors of the type much more likely to purchase with one click than mail-order anything. As I wrote for Architectural Record back in February, the Crosstown Concourse redevelopment offers a potential template for oversized buildings that have remained standing long after the businesses that occupied them evaporated:

“As cities grapple with the respective futures of their industrial pasts, they would do well to look at Crosstown Concourse. For this development, the vision was strong and swayed a diverse group of prospective tenants to get on board. From an environmental standpoint, the transformation of the Sears building into a successful venture like Crosstown Concourse turned a white elephant into green one.”

The Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award jury included Mtamanika Youngblood, an Atlanta preservationist, Jeffrey Cody, a Getty Conservation Institute historian, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger.

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