Browsing: Columbia

A few months ago we interviewed Mark Wigley, Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

In 2005, Wigley founded Volume Magazine together with Rem Koolhaas and Ole Bouman, one of the most interesting architecture magazines addressing current society and cultural affairs.

So far, is one of the most passionate deans I´ve known when it comes to students, empowering them to go always further, which has resulted on a very innovative architecture school.

MArch from Columbia University sent us this interesting information. They are organizing an open international design ideas competition called Imagining Recovery, which is hosted with support from C-LAB and in collaboration with the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.

The competition asks designers to imagine what recovery can look like, acting to supplement the maps, charts and graphs of Recovery.gov with images of lived experience. Participants are asked to support this image with specific design of any type or scale.

The competition coincides with the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, and pairs design participants with students of the Global Public Policy Network to participate in a 10 day online forum to collectively write the brief, advocating a model of designers participating in the initial imaginings of recovery.

Submissions are due on April 29, 2009, Day 100 of the Obama presidency. The jury will address the public and issue awards on May 13, 2009, Day 114.

For more information, go to Imagining Recovery official website.

While in New York a few months ago, we interviewed several architects with a set of standard and specific questions, gathering different opinions on current state of practice in contemporary society.

This issues are also being addressed by the C-Lab, the Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting, an experimental research unit devoted to the development of new forms of communication in architecture, set up as a semi-autonomous think and action tank at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University, and important collaborators on Volume Magazine.

So when we interviewed C-Lab´s director Jeffrey Inaba and Benedict Clouette, it was a great conversation since we shared some concerns about architecture and society.

I hope you guys enjoy watching this interview as much as we did doing it.

More interviews coming soon.

p.s.: We also reviewed Volume #16.