 Ac rwyf i maen nhw wedi cael ei wneud i'r mod ar Aroplan. Mae hi'n rhaid i chi i ddweud i gyd o phoen nhw? Mae gennyddio i gyd yn ddweud eich gwych o'r pwyllwch yma o'r unig, a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio i chi i gyd ddweud i gyd yn ddweud i'r gweithio'r website. Rwyf wedi bod yn ddweud i'r gweithio'r gweithio'r ffordd yma, mae'n i ddweud i'r gweithio. If you just go to YouTube and type in Coupe Hierre you'll find them there. The recent ones, Emily Obermann was last and Helen Walters before that, Robert Wong and a tribute to Ava Zeiso at the beginning of this season, but we have up there last year's series of AIDS some choices of things to look at. And then, coming up on the 24th of May We have Scott Wilson, industrial designer from Chicago who's also become an entrepreneur inventing this product which turns an iPod into a watch and it's been sold very successfully through the Apple stores. He's a mixture of a designer and an entrepreneur. And then on the 14th of June we have Walter Hood who's coming in from San Francisco, the landscape architect. So a couple more really interesting ones. We also have one on the 3rd of May but we don't have a confirmation yet so it's a secret. But look on our website you'll find out what it's going to be. But right now I want to ask Annabel Seldorf to join us and show you her things and I'll rejoin her for a little conversation later. So please welcome Annabel Seldorf. Very bright here, very dark over there. Hello. Thank you very much for coming. These sort of talks always make me a little bit nervous. So I prepared with notes but we can't be too sure that I can also read my notes. So I'll be going back and forth and I hope I won't get too confused. Anyway, thank you very much for inviting me Bill. I thought that it might be interesting to introduce three different projects though they in some way represent a little bit of a sort of journey from the early days when I started the office which you can see right there. This is our current office at Union Square. I started as a sort of one man band I guess most people do and little by little we became a group of now 45. I particularly want to mention my colleagues and partners Sarah Lopergolo and Lisa Green who's with us here tonight. We do a lot of different work. Three projects as I said will show you tonight. The first one that I want to show you is a project that perhaps some of you have visited before the Neue Galerie, the Museum of German and Austrian Art on 86th Street and Fifth Avenue. We were commissioned with this project in 1997 and it was a very exciting moment for us because it started out with being a sort of small gallery renovation that eventually turned into a full-fledged renovation for modern-day museum purposes which included all of the things like sophisticated climates and lighting etc and it was at that moment the very largest project I had ever done and it was in addition interesting because there was nobody to advise us on how to do it because it was a brand new museum in New York City so while that filled us with pride there was a great deal of trepidation with did we know how to do this. Anyway in retrospect I think we sort of succeeded all right and it certainly wasn't a sole effort. There was a great team, Renee Price and Ronald Lodder were our great patrons and so we embarked on this renovation of a remarkable historical building. It was built 1914 by Coreran Hastings and was built initially as a residential as a private villa and was inhabited up until I think sometime like 1954 by various families. The Miller family who built it and later on the Vanderbilt. In 1954 the Evo Institute acquired the building and hosted both lectures in it but they also used it for document storage which is why they didn't particularly care about any of the historical details and while the building is 23,000 square feet the actual exhibition space is really much smaller is only 4,500 square feet. You can see in that section that there is a sort of hole in the middle of the building which served as a light shaft and we basically unearthed a covered skylight above it and made it a kind of balcony courtyard on the on the administration floor on the fourth floor. So just to explain the floor plans a little bit, the program called for a reception ticket area, a bookstore, a cafe, a design shop, a coat room etc etc and relatively speaking the layout of the building had to remain more or less what it was except there was a variety of adjustments. We had to make sure that we could accommodate the handicapped which meant that we had to introduce a small ramp on the outside but also a little lift in the entrance that would bring people to the elevated ground floor level from where we then introduced a new elevator. So all of these adjustments in some way meant that there was interference with the original fabric of the building and of course we started out being very respectful of the buildings architecture by the famous Carrera and Hastings architecture you would know the public library, the Frick and many other buildings but and there were remarkable details beautiful paneling, wonderful cornices, arches, marble floors, that beautiful railing that you see in the picture behind on the screen. It wasn't always as coherent as one might think. We found that there were arches of different proportions and all of a sudden we were faced with something that I always think is very interesting, it's not just a straight restoration, it's not just a straight renovation either because you you have to start thinking critically about the historical material, not everything that you find is good or not everything makes sense in the new context. So now when I go to the Neuall Gallery I'm actually quite pleased that I can simply look at the exhibitions and don't have to think anymore about like does this belong in this category or in that category is it broken and we have to rebuild it and are we going to rebuild it in exactly the same manner as we found it or is there reason to do it in a different way and I think that ultimately what was interesting was that it felt like it was absolutely meant to be there for example when you are the code room downstairs you sort of enter through an arch and that arch is new but it made perfect sense because it was symmetrical to the arch that leads into the bookstore whereas before there had been somebody had put in an elevator in the probably early 20s or so and so you know they're a myriad of stories and for the first couple of years I for a long time really every time I went around it was like oh no that doesn't not so good and now I can sort of see it as a whole project and I'm sort of very pleased that that there is that distinction there is certain new things like the elevator that we ultimately put in the in the building which goes through all of the floor from the basement all the way to the top floor and that was sized to not only accommodate handicap people but also to bring up art you know crates cases etc the bookstore was the former library and we used all of the cabinets some of them had to be rebuilt some of them had to be sort of modified and we inserted a central sort of reception element and nowadays I think it is one of the more success successful specialized bookstores and I love to see how the sort of rather modern insertion of the furniture that we designed kind of ages along with everything else and for us it was always important that there was a little bit of a juxtaposition of something that's clearly modern that is sort of very definitively designed and as opposed to the sort of older woodwork that's much more ornate and that's much more elaborate if you will the cafe on the other hand was perhaps one of the more pleasurable rooms to design because it involved many trips to Vienna and and many slices of cake in the various cafe houses and I'm only half kidding about that that really was a wonderful experience to sort of go with the curators and learn about Vienna learn about the culture I myself am German and we know nothing about cakes but the the the really marvelous thing was that we had an opportunity to go measure every banquette in every cafe house and sort of see like do you sit upright do you want to sort of sit like this and then eventually make the make the seating fit the room we had actually an autovogner fabric reprinted which we did with a company that's called Buckhausen and they offered to open their archives to make these special reprints it was really a very very special thing because not only was did we deal with this wonderful old building but we had in addition the support from the curators the director obviously Ronald Lodder who was generous with his knowledge and his time and with the idea that he could offer this to the public so there it is there is a picture of the elevator that I mentioned earlier that was this one very modern element we put into the building as a sort of architectural element simply because you couldn't pretend that this was a 1910 elevator it wouldn't have made sense there was only one location where it could be so we opted to say this is clear and distinct from everything else and and there it is um lighting air conditioning in these exhibition spaces was extremely difficult without touching the substance and this is one of the main rooms that undoubtedly you know if you have gone to visit a daily bloch power the famous climp painting it's this room was called the music room at one time and there where there are paintings now used to be wood panels with mirror inserts because it was called the music room and the mirror was not only sort of a visual effect but in addition it had an acoustic effect so we took all of that away and in the first round we thought that we would have freestanding partitions to accommodate as many paintings as possible this being one of the main exhibition spaces but then later on we recognized and when I say we really mean that it was a collaborative effort between everybody who was involved Rene Price the director Ronald Lauder the president and and the various curators who who are still working with the with a new gallery and we all decided that the marble framework that that accompanies the the um the original mirrored panels was so beautiful and the stone was so nice that it had to be maintained and today when you look at these climp and other paintings Sheila etc paintings that hang in this room you think it couldn't have been any other way it is absolutely wonderful that way and I think it's testimony to the original architecture being just fantastically proportioned and sort of wonderfully balanced in the paneled room which at one time must have been one of the main living rooms um we installed vitrines that come from the Victoria and Albert Museum again we played around endlessly but like what kind of vitrine would be the vest vitrine I very definitely wanted a modern vitrine there were some 1930s vitrines designed by Joseph Hoffman that we looked at that were very beautiful we went back and forth and in the end it seemed that these that we saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum were actually very beautiful they're very versatile they made a contrast to to the wood paneling and I still think they fit perfectly I didn't have any design to do I just had to sort of draw the rectangles in the plan on the other hand the top floor the top exhibition floor which is the third floor and it is the floor that's dedicated to changing exhibitions there was absolutely no detail left it had been the floor where documents were housed and they just had stacked empty boxes of archival material in these on these floors so we were able to rebuild it completely and on one hand we wanted there to be spaces they were as nicely proportioned as the ones below but being that this was the bedroom floor in the former residential layout um we essentially created three large rooms with a connecting hallway and had a little bit of liberty in making a sort of slightly more modern design having said that however you've probably all seen the different exhibitions that the new gallery hosts and you've seen many different iterations of it I never failed to be amazed how different that floor can look so um that is what it looks like today and um and it was a very wonderful experience and one which supported many more art projects and the next one that I'll want to show you is a project for David Swerner who um is an art dealer uh German of origin he actually grew up in the same town and so we go away back we're old friends and have worked together on many many projects notably his first gallery his second gallery his third gallery and um here you see the gallery that we have designed for him in an existing building in an existing garage building in Chelsea and um essentially there were three galleries he took one space and then he said you know what I've added the space to the right I've added the space to the left all of them uh are I think quite interesting because they feature a very very remarkable scale and in all of them we inserted daylight I mean skylights to afford daylighting for for a contemporary art and the subject that I really enjoy working on in these gallery type or exhibition spaces art spaces is the interplay of proportion of space and light um and how one informs the other so um having had this collaborative relationship between David and and Seldor for architects he embarked on a much larger project which is under construction right now on 20th street between 10th and 11th avenue and um is a project that is very dear to us because it's big actually that's not the only reason why it's dear to us it's dear to us also because it's uh we're attempting gold lead status meaning it's one of the first buildings uh dedicated to an art gallery that really attempts to sort of have as many sustainable features uh as we can possibly afford those features are uh mostly I mean there are many many different aspects to it there is a green roof there's daylighting daylighting is a very very important thing it's obviously very important for an art space but it's a well insulated art space that at the same time daylights and uh in the upper floors the offices um we have natural ventilation this particular building features a very large 48 by 45 foot column free space um that has these four sawtooth skylights and is a pretty remarkable 18 foot tall exhibition space um along the street there is uh a welcoming opening open shopfront there'll be some greenery uh that grows up the building and um use of local wood windows and that's again one of the features that obviously contributes to having sustainable quality is to sort of use local materials to the extent possible and um right there it is we're sending people up the stairs uh meaning the more you encourage people to walk the stairs the more points you get from lead so and I can't wait to send people up the next 20 story building just kidding um did I forget anything I think um the think well here you see an image of the of the the main gallery space with the large skylights I think it's going to be a really beautiful thing um the facade oh there you see it's under construction now there's the steel for those skylights um it's really happening the facade is of uh cast in place board form concrete and that too is a little bit unusual again there was a lot of local expertise that we that we uh required it's very difficult to do concrete work in New York we had no experience with it up until now um and that was a wonderful learning experience for us and I think it'll make for a very strong and uh monolithic facade which sort of suits the suits the subject very well I think so now the project that um I will really need my notes for um that is perhaps one of the dearest projects we're working on right now um is Sunset Park Materials Recycling Facility in Brooklyn perhaps you've heard of it uh it's remarkable for a variety of reasons and then I'll read a couple of notes before I sort of dive into the into the slides um this facility is a processing center for New York City's recyclables and it's a public private partnership between Sims Municipal Recycling and the City of New York Sims is a division of Sims Metal Management a multinational company that has been in the business of recycling for over 30 years and uh is is probably one of the largest companies of this kind in in the world they have won the city's contract to handle the recycling of metal plastic and glass as we negotiated the planning for this for this recycling facility many agencies of the city were involved uh the department of sanitation the economic development corporation the department of environmental protection and ultimately uh as this is very much in the focus of the mayor's efforts to revitalize the waterfront of Brooklyn uh it was subject to the public design commission which eventually um gave us a price for design excellence I thought it was very remarkable that they gave us a price uh before the building was built I hope they won't reneg on it later on it's located on a very prominent site however where you see the little green circle on a waterfront site in Sunset Park in Brooklyn it was called the former bush navy terminal and it really is conceived to be a recycling sort of showcase uh dovetailing with a growing public awareness for sustainability and and an interest that has is there too far unknown everybody's looking at what has happening at the waterfront and in this neighbor in particular uh neighborhood in particular a lot of things are going on so yeah this is one of my favorite pictures showing those uh early 20th century buildings that that go along the waterfront with those wonderful classic water towers unfortunately since then they have been removed and it looks like they're not replacing those water towers um yeah so Sunset Park is undergoing a vibrant revitalization and probably recently you have read in the paper that very nearby there is one of the largest urban agricultural farms going up on the roof of one of those large buildings the site is is on a pier uh it's about 11 acres comprises 11 acres and it's facing the goanna's canal as I said already um with spectacular views of lower Manhattan and uh Red Hook the facility is intended to do something that really is is quite revolutionary it'll minimize truck traffic through a primary reliance on barge and rail and that is a strategy that will eliminate 250 thousand miles of annual vehicle traffic from city roadways that's pretty remarkable so here you see the overall plan of the facility and we worked closely uh with the team at Sims to devise a master plan that you know first and foremost is informed by the location of the of the functions of the main buildings the tipping building uh the processing building and the bail storage building which you see on the uh along the water's edge on the southern side of the of the drawing um one of the great efforts consisted in devising ways to separate all the the different kinds of circulation the incoming trucks and and trains had to be separated from visitors school buses people who work in the buildings and at the same time we wanted there to be a clear logic a clear understanding and an opportunity for views toward like I said Manhattan and Red Hook um and we wanted there to be as much greenery as possible um it's not just this diagram that where the green jumps into your eye more prominently but actually uh there is a lot of green space some 30% of it and it is devoted not only to plants there's a dense fence along the what is it the eastern edge of the site um but there is also open green space that contains bioswales for water storage I mean water retention so maybe go to the next um there you see the the the overall building is 125 000 square feet and it's comprised of several structures I mentioned that earlier the tipping building where materials are offloaded both from barges that come in from trucks or from rail cars and um then the processing building which you sort of see on the other side here you're looking at the tipping building on the right left hand side of the of the slide the sort of tall space which contains needs to be tall because there are cranes and materials are being being moved around and on the right hand side uh is the processing building where materials are sorted and eventually packaged from the water here you see the big tall tipping building um and to the other on the left hand side the administration and visitor center um it was very important to the client and continues to be very important to the client that uh we that this facility be also used for education so on the lower floor there are offices but the second floor is dedicated to exhibition for children of all ages who come in and are taught about uh about recycling they can go across a bridge and actually on a viewing corridor inside the tipping building uh learn firsthand about what recycling looks like and um we're all very excited that this is is something that is becoming such a public um opportunity um all of these elements of course are very much dedicated to their functionality um there's a great effort made by by a big team of people to not only create visually appealing relationships and I was in charge of that but also make the building efficient sustainable the the construction of the buildings they're all pre-engineered buildings you're probably you have seen in suburban places many of the big box buildings but um the reason why we employed this kind of construction technique is because it allowed us to have column free space which was able to be erected very quickly um it's actually remarkable to to watch the erection of this building sort of you can literally stand there and watch them lift up these enormous pieces of steel but um for for everybody it was very important that these that the steel elements of these pre-engineered buildings are 100% recycled and the company that does this work is a company in indiana they are called Nukor and we went to visit their facility and it is really a fascinating thing to see the sort of made all in america where the steel gets melted and they shape the the steel um beams and columns and eventually ship them to the site where they are numbered and then they get erected one two three by a team of professionals and um that was really a wonderful learning experience for us to see that there's a sort of architectural identity that can be created by using a technology that is otherwise um I guess you could call it anonymous what we did is we decided at least in the tipping building to expose the structure make it visible on the outside for both architectural prominence but also to sort of be indicative of what was going on on the inside of the building and um you see that big hole there that's where the tipping building is going to go it's not yet up but just wait a little while and then I hope that you'll come and visit um one other aspect that uh we're very excited about is that we're going to have probably the largest assembly of solar panels on the roof of that large building and um and another aspect is the wind turbine which is on the sort of north western edge of the site that's going to go up and it's probably New York City's first wind turbine um it'll generate about 25% of the building's electrical consumption which is pretty significant if you imagine the kind of equipment that's inside a building like that um so I think it's also important to say that when you build on a pier like that um there's solid fill that has to go in and sims was able to generate their own recycled material and use glass that they produce in a different facility in New Jersey as infill material in addition to the asphalt paving that was there before that has you know was was reused so to speak along um with mole rock from from the second avenue subway so it's a funny thing um there will be a storm water tank that collects rain water to irrigate all that green space and um all sorts of other sustainable and energy efficient things like energy efficient lighting automated switching occupancy sensors skylights for daylight all of the strategies that we know to use to make for a more agreeable and more sustainable um building and and overall use um hoping that we can raise awareness with this building for greater and better use and um we're hoping that people will will come and look at that and there it is thank you I started too much I'm sorry um you know coming back to the noia gallery for a moment I mean one of the things I love about that is the um relationship between that filigree staircase which has got this sort of railing which is so delicate and then in fact you put this completely solid black reception desk you know it's like this wonderful contrast and it went so beautifully with the marble floor too I agree all right um think thinking more about the cafe there because the cafe is such a delight um you know that uh we call those rich cakes danish pastries but in Denmark they call them viennese bread oh that's right yes so um I think perhaps the the arrival at Vienna is an important element of that design on the other hand one's been in cafes all over northern europe you know it could be in any part of germany or perhaps scandinavia and it has that sort of european quintessence of this is a european cafe and you managed to achieve that when you go into that cafe in the noia gallery you really feel you're in a little corner of europe and I just wondered if you could comment on how what those qualities are what is it that makes it feel like a a european cafe as opposed to something that's more local well I actually think that probably first and foremost it's scale I think that the way the chairs and the tables are sized um I think I think that's a that's a very important thing but it's more than anything a number of of aspects it's the banquets that are not too big it's um a dedication to sort of showing the food I think there is a carefulness about the place and it's not just a matter of design it's a matter of the design that comes together with the quality of the food and the way in which it is presented and and served for example you'll have those tiny little oval trays and if you order a cafe you'll get it with a glass of water and there is a sort of extra care yeah and all of it goes together I think it's not as large it's not as fast it's time I think is a very big effort aspect in all of this well if you haven't been there I highly recommend that you take the time and enjoy it over a slow long lunch um without the necessity to dash back to your everyday life that's a wonderful thing it does it does make you feel like you want to stay a while right I know many people who say that they go there for breakfast just go read the paper and sit there by yourself um whenever I go there seems to be a long line and you can't get a seat but but you can I wasn't going to brag actually it's you know the whole noia gallery it's fascinating to hear it's 15 years old because it feels so similar to us at the Cooper here it in that we're just in the middle of this renovation and taking the mansion and expanding the gallery spaces and doing something that is going to have rather similar challenges I think to the ones that you described for the design of the whole building and we're fascinated to see the result of that although we still have a couple of years to wait before the gallery is actually open again but we're already in the townhouses and one of the things that's good about that if you're looking for green exercise for your your gold stature is if you have a very slow elevator we find that we have a very slow elevator so people tend to walk up and down the stairs just because they can't be bothered to wait so that's the opposite of the slowness of the the cafe but it works it works I believe that on the sunset park though I mean that's such a huge and magnificent systemic kind of solution and you know when one thinks about everything sustainable um particularly northern Europe um germany and austria and scandinavia seems so far ahead of um of habits that people have in terms of bottle recycling and and the the idea that it's a normal thing it seems to be now for 20 30 years whereas here it seems relatively fresh um but could you tell us a little bit more about the level of systems rather at that sort of scale like sunset park although a lot of those in Europe as well or is it more unique um well I think it's it's probably the biggest of its kind in America um there there may be facilities that are if not equal probably close to that in scale but it's very interesting that I think a lot of what uh what is remarkable about this facility for for me is obviously for personal reasons it's the sort of learning about recycling learning about sustainability um changing uh the public the public's awareness um but also sort of changing New York City in that way you know there are greater efficiencies than just meet the eye and making this something that uh New Yorkers can be proud of both for hopefully architectural reasons but also because of how the whole thing works you'll be interested to know that a great deal of the technology that's going into the building actually comes from Holland and um and there are more and more companies as you mentioned in in Europe there is a sort of dedication to recycling that goes back quite a ways but I think that what Sims is introducing here is really probably just the beginning and hopefully they'll be doing many more projects bigger projects and hopefully they'll always ask me um no but joking aside I think that uh that this really is the beginning of it and um and we will see more and more of these kinds of facilities because that's what we need to do so your office is actually even you know 24 years old now I mean what are you going to do to celebrate your 25 years I'll take a holiday maybe um yeah that's it's terrible I I've been in America for a long time and I've uh gotten used to now saying I'm here for more than 20 years um so yeah and you came from Cologne Cologne that's right which has one of the most beautiful cathedrals I don't know whether you've been up the spies of the Cologne cathedral it was bombed very severely in the second world war and the gradually has been restored and it's just such a magical place well it's actually interesting to say that the restoration of it is very different from the kind of restoration I talked about at the Neue Gallery because it is dedicated to completely making things the way they were planned or the way they were once built and there is an enormous shop an enormous stone mason's shop um where people learn about carving stone and sculpture and um it's quite famous because it there are many people who work there and they will it will never end I think is really what one can say once they're done with this corner they have to start at the other corner and and you have a line of furniture which I gather was instigated by your grandmother yes that's right was she a designer or um no my grandmother was an opera singer oh really and um I spare you because in my free time I try myself tonight I could I'm not sure that you want that but um yeah my grandmother at a time when when sort of people were rebuilding had the very good idea to start this business which was not so much furniture initially but was more sort of interior design and it included furniture and when I was a kid we grew up with these furniture shops all around us and um that was rather fun because it made for a very good playground but um that company sort of closed and um and changed a little bit my father and and his siblings took over the company and sort of turned it into more of an architecture business and architecture and planning business so when um when I started my own office in New York we found ourselves doing small scale renovations and there was always the odd table missing and this and that and um I thought oh I can design a table um well you know better than anybody how difficult design is and while it's analogous to architecture it really is a very different thing and so we learned over many years how to do furniture and then we started to re-edit some of the work not so much that my work of my grandmother but many of the furniture pieces that my father designed in the 60s and 70s but he was more of an architect was you I mean no he sort of came to architecture through furniture design and through interior design because Cologne is very much a center for furniture in Germany isn't it I mean yeah in fact the reason I went there regularly in the 70s was before the Cologne Furniture Fair which was where everybody in Europe collected to see the latest furniture both modern and traditional yeah so but he but he was he you know what did he think about you wanting to be an architect or not wanting to be an architect or being a rebellious teenager or leaving for America or something um well I think that he thought I was kidding when I said I was going to America and neither he nor my mother were terribly concerned because they didn't think that I'd get into a school anyway um so I guess they weren't terribly pleased when I left but you went to Pratt I went to Pratt Pratt that was pretty grim grim at that time wasn't it it was grim that's absolutely it's lovely now mind you but but because my parents weren't so interested about where I would go they sort of said yeah yeah you're not going to get in anyway it's just um they didn't mind that I applied to only one school and that was Pratt and I obviously didn't apply because I thought it was grim I thought it's the only school that'll take me in New York and in fact it turned out that way so so were you happy with that experience was it something you've got a lot out of it's like so many experiences that so many experiences since you didn't have another one you might as well be happy with it after that you went to Syracuse right uh yeah I didn't spend much time in Syracuse I got my masters with Syracuse and spent a year in Italy which definitely is incomparable to anything right and what triggered the first decision to make an office I think I just wasn't a very good employee um I really did think that if I had my own office I could work at night and sort of go to museums during the day and it didn't last very long obviously that idea but it was sort of what motivated it and did you think of it as architecture or interiors a mixture of the two furniture I mean what was the so original ambition in your construct no I thought of it as architecture um but I was sort of timid in some ways I was very happy to do small projects at first because I had to like figure out how to do them and if it had been too big it would have been too big for me to figure it out and so in a in a way I was actually quite pleased to first do somebody's kitchen and then somebody's kitchen and bathroom and then their kitchen their bathroom and their living room and um gradually sort of grow into into sort of large or scale and do you think interior design is best done by people with architectural training or I mean there's a lot of separation between the disciplines where the people who just learn to be interior designers you know they don't they don't do buildings whereas architects often do interiors right yeah yeah no I definitely come from from a tradition that thinks that architects know best but but on the other hand my father who wasn't a trained architect in the first place I remember that when when I deliberated what I wanted to do he said don't study interior design because study architecture instead because you can always do interior design as an architect but you can't do it the other way around and I think that is true I've seen pictures of the interior of your own apartment that you is a fairly recent project I believe isn't it I mean I don't know quite how but very very beautiful she has this incredibly simple white surrounding and then very eclectic pieces of furniture from Europe from China historical very new as well and then these beautiful marble floors which I hear you like to pat around in your bare feet yeah great yeah it's very they're very nice floors oh come on tell us more why sometimes I roll around on the floor but no that's what happens at night then all right I hope with a martini or something definitely yeah um yes I you know the fact that you're president of the architectural league league um I think is evidence that you have a very strong sort of intellectual influence on the architectural community here and the interesting thing to me about the league is that it is interdisciplinary it's not just architecture that's right there's people from different backgrounds but it is relatively local I mean it's New York isn't it's not national it's it's not national as a as the seat of the architectural league of an organization that's been around for 130 years is in New York City but I think what makes it remarkable is their their dedication to excellence in design architecture and related related disciplines for example landscape design graphic design etc and but what they do is they bring in people from all over the world and I am very much pleased and flattered as you can imagine to have been elected as the president of their board but first and foremost what's wonderful about it is that you learn so much and if you're the president you have to show up so um you because you can't say that on the marble floors of your martini you have to go and learn stuff what can I say um but yes the interdisciplinary quality is one thing that's very interesting but I think more than anything it's a generally open mind uh to to find excellence and um I hope that you'll come and join us at lectures symposiums panel discussions exhibitions etc well actually I had a more kind of question that comes from us at kubi here it and if we want to become more of a national resource to help design in a more general way um you know the people mostly think of the design disciplines somewhat separately from architecture you know that you think of graphic design industrial design all those things as being in a group and architecture has a little bit of separation perhaps just a scale difference so my question really is about whether it's easy to think as you know as president you're representing the architecture community architectural community as a discipline what can we do to help and what could what could a national design resource do to help that community do you think well it's a very interesting question because I think that in a museum you exhibit things people are used to looking at coffee pots and I don't know lampshades looking at architecture in a museum is much much more difficult architecture exhibitions often involve looking at drawings and people glaze over and sort of go like whatever looking at photographs of architecture is never as good as looking at architecture so therein lies a problem there of course architecture museums as well so then design museums resort to architects who designed coffee cups super interesting quite a lot of them quite a few it's true I myself designed one no I never have I never have but exactly not to self but involving the architectural community I think is a very interesting thing that could be done in a multitude of ways it would help the architectural community to come up with sort of different concepts whether they are films documentaries there is actually architecture and film as you as you know is is very sort of sympathetic to each other first of all you can see buildings in three dimensions but also I think dialogue between architects probably many of you have seen my father the architect the film about Louis Khan which I think for whether you like it or not was a very very moving film and one learned about the passion about architecture and about the fact that there is more to architecture than meets the eye but also I think it's sort of more about the sort of human aspects of it I don't know whether film is the only way but there is you know and any number of ways but but you have an opportunity to address a larger public people come to you who are not necessarily knowledgeable about architecture and to sort of expand everybody's horizon and offer the opportunity to learn about architecture I think is would be a marvelous way through panel discussions tell the stories yeah some sort of narrative or conversation yeah that's encouraging it's a lovely thing to be asked to do so I'm talking about conversation why don't we bring the microphones up and then people who are here could join in and ask some questions make some comments if you you know if you can just come to the front and use the microphone and please say who you are so that our online audience can know that before you say anything else um by the way well while we're waiting for somebody to come up um I saw this wonderful photograph of a little couple of little cabins you did in Canada the thing that was striking about this photograph was that you couldn't see the cabins it was like in the mist you just got this little walkway that went up towards them vanishing into the mist I mean is this standard for you to be so modest about your work that you hide it completely I had to give a presentation at landmarks and I was criticized for being not bold enough um yeah hi my name is Melinda Cosentino and I noticed through your talk tonight you used the word learn in every context as you were talking so I was wondering as you designed the sunset space what particular elements did you bring to play in the educational space that you'd like to talk about in detail thank you um well here we are talking about my modesty etc etc I also have a mighty big ego um so I think uh it starts with thinking and it starts with iterative process with dialogue with asking questions and asking the right kinds of questions and thinking about education with a degree of common sense probably also a degree of infantility I mean if you can imagine you would you were a kid what would you want to see what would you want to learn what are the questions that would rivet you to find out about um it's actually that kind of thing uh that then sort of generates the next level of answers and the next level of questions and um does that answer it well I was hoping uh to hear in a little bit more detail about some of the decisions that you made in the specific spaces uh regarding that process um well in that particular case we're working with an exhibition designer um help me on what they're called whirlwind I'm like can only think of my own name um no I'm sorry um a wonderful exhibition designer a company called whirlwind and um there was a lot of dialogue about how they felt that children should be brought in uh what kind of content they would see um and I should not take any credit of it it's really all theirs um though I will say that it was again it was a lot of dialogue and discussion that sort of led through bringing the architecture together with the ideas about the exhibition design and I should have mentioned them earlier because they are really great contributors talking about infantile I think that's a nice way of expressing it and I remember um but I in my IDO days there were some collaborations with Etri Sotsas he was doing the design and IDO was doing the engineering and I remember him saying and before going into a client meeting remember to ask the stupid questions I thought that was pretty good advice so do we have somebody else yes I wanted to ask you a question uh it's very future oriented because I know architects can imagine things the rest of us can barely begin to say um so my name is Carrie Idina Carmel I wrote a book called Style Makers and I'm very curious about whether your vision of the future um involves more of an intersection between art design architecture all those things um well I guess that I could say it would be my wish that there is more of an intersection of that but I am optimistic in the sense that people become increasingly interested not only in design but also in architecture and participate in in the dialogue about those things um it's it's a really big topic I think because it seems to me that with all of the opportunities to look at three-dimensional design everybody feels more readily um capable of saying this is how they want it and it becomes increasingly gestural which for me is not necessarily always the the be all and end all I always wonder when you see those exuberant uh uh organic shaped spaces how they actually inform our everyday life since we still seem to be sleeping horizontally and right I sort of imagine that if we could make those organic spaces really soft everybody could lie down whenever they just feel like it it's not like a marble floor though is it that's why I have the marble floor yeah I think this interesting this sort of whole right brain left brain thing that people are talking about a lot about the mix between creativity and logical thinking and obviously design's always been embracing both um of course everybody embraces both the scientists does as well but there's a more kind of equal split possibly in the creative disciplines but how that relates to whether people want to do art in the way that you were describing or whether they want to think of themselves as problem solvers and whether being an artist as well as a designer informs the designer is it more of a kind of relief which comes first right yes what do you think um I think that's different for everybody and I admire and uh I'm completely fascinated by people who sort of start without the the the purpose um for me condition and purpose is what sort of generates any kind of thinking and uh I understand that a great deal of what happens in contemporary architecture and design for that matter is is inspired by sort of losing the boundaries and uh taking more liberties and and um and being less constrained by by the cartesian grid or any grid for that matter I on the other hand still like the grid I I uh I get my best ideas from sort of thinking it's like well how would you use that is that too big or too small um and I think too big or too small is informed by the human body and you know how large a handrail is is about like is it nice in your hand and and the tactile experience of of material and space uh is a generator of inspiration so but I but I readily admit that that's a very personal thing an inch is a thumb a foot is a foot a pace is a yard yeah so on yeah hello I'm Cara McCarty and um I'm a huge fan of your um recycling center and I can't wait to see when it opens next fall that makes two of us but I'd love it if you could just say a little bit more about the commission itself because it's so unusual to have a a high a high profile architect do such a such a commission usually recycling centers are sort of quick and dirty solutions they're often hidden and um and designed by architects or contractors so I'd love to hear a little bit more about the commission itself well um that's a that's a multi part answer I think first and foremost it has to be said that sims metal management is a is a terrifically forward thinking company and uh they were really or are the drivers in in every uh in every way to sort of uh push forward thinking about sustainability they love their recycling um and their pride in this project was something that they wanted to see expressed in contemporary architecture among other it also is true that the mayor in their in their effort to sort of revitalize the the waterfront and by them by the mayor's office requiring this project to be subject to the public design commission there was a particular ambition from the from the government side um I don't know that I was that prominent an architect but um we were hired the way those things always go somebody suggested that we participate in an RFP and there I know that there were a couple of other architects and I think it was really just our enthusiasm and our sort of like we really want to do this that ultimately uh convinced the client and perhaps I think I want to think that it was some of the imagery that we used the last picture that I showed you of the facility at night um is this sort of resounding idea that it's a 24 hour place that is great vibrant and and present and a contribution to the city at all times and working with a vocabulary that um this is there are no marble floors in there um but sort of using industrial materials and using the technology and the the construction means that are available and affordable because you know that among other things is is a very big issue when you're building a big facility like that is to sort of uh entertain and and respect budgets and learn to understand that you know if you wanted that quarter inch reveal that I am used to doing on somebody's but I know library or so uh you can't afford that at a big scale because that's not how it's done so um again there comes that word learning in again is like you sort of it's a it's it's switching gears but it's not fundamentally a different kind of thinking so just it all it takes is a great politician um a great company and a stockytecht right there's another last one I sort of want to build off of um the last question I'm Katie Scall and I had the pleasure of working in Annabelle's office a few years ago um just wondering if you can speak a little bit to you know the three projects you mentioned are very different projects but the clients are also very very different um you know working with David's Warners I can imagine very different from working with multiple city agencies so if you could just speak to how that influenced the design process well I do have to admit that I don't work very closely with the city agencies that the client really Tom Outerbridge who is in the audience um really bears the brunt of all of that um and while we supported submissions and and the process along the way um I think it is an interesting question in as much as when you're working on a public project like this it is subject to so much scrutiny that it slows the process down and um that is at times frustrating and perhaps even a little bit frightening because you think like well how are you ever going to get something done um it is so so difficult to get things through all of the channels required to to live up to all of the permits though in general it has to be said that that building of any kind is increasingly um subject to hair-raising bureaucracy and um so yeah there's that uh working with the client actually astonishingly was the same it's really always about dialogue it's always about exchange our work I think is very much informed by really truly understanding and listening to to what the practical requirements are and what the thinking behind um those requirements is to really sort of critically think through program issues and and find uh a creative way to to process those programmatic requirements um yeah yeah I think it's very unfair to call you a stark attack because and if you think about the the nature of the contribution you've described this evening it's been so much about thinking and problem solving and learning and and considering everything in a way that's informed by the context at a very sort of deep level informed by the dialogue with the people you work with so it's that kind of quality that brings the success to your work I think and um and the association people have with star is the sort of inspirational instant result and which is quite the opposite perhaps to your kind of practice so I'd like to thank you for making such a contribution to our whole society as well as this evening thank you very much