United States

Join us for the release of Field Guide to Life in Urban Plazas.

The guide outlines a research effort focused on New York City, the primary location of urbanist William H. Whyte’s “Street Life Project,” which formed the basis for his seminal book and film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980). The new guide seeks to understand how different types of public spaces have changed some 40 years later. What’s changed about how people use the public realm, and what makes for successful spaces?

The project looks at 10 plazas in Manhattan constructed or renovated in the last 15 years,

Videos

Succulent Walls tackle how architecture can respond to Southern California’s precarious relationship to water and lack of disaster preparedness. The work of a Master of Architecture (M.Arch.I) Research Studio taught by Heather Roberge, this collaboration between Mary and David Martin's MADWORKSHOP and UCLA Architecture and Urban Design prototypes a series of residential water catchment systems. By integrating a system for easily installed water storage and food production into the residential vernacular, the class of eleven graduate students hopes to transform our laissez-faire attitude towards this critical and finite resource into one of proactive self-sufficiency. Five group projects were distilled

The inaugural SAH Change Agent Award will be presented to the partners of the New York architecture firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro: Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin, at a reception at the Century Club in midtown Manhattan.

DS+R’s work involves an interdisciplinary approach to design that encompasses art, architecture, digital media, and large-scale planning, with a focus on cultural and civic projects. Their Manhattan work includes the creation of the High Line (in collaboration with James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf), the redesign of Lincoln Center, the current renovation of the Museum of Modern Art, and