| 12.05.22 |
| News from the Weitzman School of Design |
| When One Makerspace Leads to Another |
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| When architect and faculty member Scott Erdy needed a centerpiece for the lobby at the new Middletown Free Library, which his firm transformed from an abandoned school building into a multi-generational community center, he turned to Associate Professor of Architecture Andrew Saunders and students in the Master of Science in Design: Robotics and Autonomous Systems (MSD-RAS) program. Designed and fabricated at the Weitzman Robotics Lab, the relief wall celebrates creative exploration and the Library’s new makerspace. |
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| Sidebar: A New Library for Middletown |
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| The complex that now houses the Middletown Free Library started as a small schoolhouse, built in the 1920s to serve the students of Media, Pennsylvania. To design a new home for the library, the township turned to Middletown resident Scott Erdy, a lecturer in architecture and principal at Erdy McHenry Architecture in Philadelphia. |
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| Penn’s Climate Expertise on the World Stage |
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| A group of 30 Penn representatives co-led by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy traveled to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, for two weeks of negotiations at this year’s United Nations climate change conference, COP27. “We’re taking our research and bringing it to bear on what’s happening within the venue. But we’re also learning while we’re there and bringing those new ideas and relationships back onto campus,” says Cornelia Colijn, executive director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and one of two leaders of Penn’s delegation. |
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| Steiner Juries Design Competition |
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| Dean and Paley Professor Fritz Steiner served on the jury of an international student design competition from Urban Environment Design magazine. Chaired by Thom Mayne, past Cret Chair Professor of Architecture at Weitzman, the jury awarded 11 prizes for prototypes of alternatives to traditional agriculture that “fold” the rural and urban landscapes together. |
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| Reflecting on a Socio-Ecological Practice |
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| In the US, the suitability practice has resulted in two rating systems: the US Department of Agriculture’s Land Evaluation and Site Assessment System and the SITES Rating System. In an article in Socio-Ecological Practice Research, now available as a free download, Dean and Paley Professor Fritz Steiner traces his work in land suitability analysis and plan-making and suggests how reflection can help advance the fields of planning and landscape architecture. |
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| Urban Planning in a Challenging Political Context |
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| In Urban Planning in a World of Informal Politics, alum Chandan Deuskar (PhD’20) explores how politicians in developing democracies provide land and services to the urban poor in exchange for their support, demonstrates how this impacts urban growth, and suggests how planners can try to be more effective in this challenging political context. The book is the latest volume from the Penn Press series The City in the Twenty-First Century, co-edited by Eugénie Birch, the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research & Education and co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. |
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| Engineering Modern Architecture: August Komendant's Method of Structural Design |
| Carl-Dag Lige |
| Recorded November 21, 2022 |
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“First-Time Homebuyers Priced Out by High Mortgage Rates and Price Points”
Lance Freeman, the James W. Effron University Professor in the Department of City & Regional Planning, describes the clash between gentrification and the sense of community that people attach to their places.
Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien
“The Contemplative, Unnerving Beauty of the Sandy Hook Memorial”
Alum Dan Affleck (MArch’08, MLA’08) describes the process of designing a memorial to honor the twenty-six children and educators who died in Newtown, Connecticut.
The New Yorker
“Three artists are reimagining the American landscape”
A new three-person exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, which includes work by Associate Professor of Fine Arts David Hartt, is reviewed.
The Philadelphia Inquirer ($)
“Philadelphia Contemporary plans seafaring gallery on the Delaware River”
Plans for a two-story floating gallery, designed by the firm of alum Sam Olshin (MArch’86), are introduced
The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“With PennDOT studying transit options for Roosevelt Boulevard, a subway is back on the table”
In an op-ed, Jay Arzu, a doctoral candidate in city and regional planning, calls on federal and local officials to seize an historic opportunity to increase mobility and equity.
PlanPhilly |
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| FINE ARTS LECTURE |
| Na Mira |
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| Thursday, December 8, 6:00pm | Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 South 36th Street, Philadelphia |
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| The Story of Architecture: Buildings Last a Long Time |
| A lecture by Witold Rybczynski, the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor Emeritus of Urbanism, organized by AiA Philadelphia |
| Tuesday, December 13, 5:30pm | Center for Architecture + Design, 1218 Arch St, Philadelphia |
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