This project for the Scenic Hudson Land Trust turns an 1860s barn into the River Center, an arts and environmental education center in a renovated historic barn. The renovation preserves its simple, elemental form and transforms the interior into a loft-like art studio with a multipurpose space for lectures and exhibitions, two classrooms, and support spaces. The barn`s existing post and beam structure is exposed alongside durable new materials like plywood wall panels, recycled fiberboard tack surfaces and large sliding room dividers. The building achieved LEED Gold certification. 

Scenic Hudson's River Center

The Flea Theater is an off-off Broadway incubator that supports emerging talent and the broader New York performing arts community. An ambitious adaptive reuse, the three-theater complex celebrates the friction between old and new. The new building intertwines three theaters &ndash; the Sam, the Pete, and the Siggy &ndash; with offices, costume shop, dressing rooms and a green room, providing infrastructure to support active performing arts throughout the building. Each theater is defined by a simple and neutral palette for scenic flexibility, and fitted with pipe grids, equipment, and lighting. The building is certified LEED Silver. Founded in 1996 by three of New York`s most acclaimed downtown theater artists&mdash;director Jim Simpson, designer Kyle Chepulis and playwright Mac Wellman&mdash;the award-winning Flea Theater was originally formed out of the purely artistic impulse to create &ldquo;a joyful hell in a small space&rdquo;. Brash, energetic and dedicated, we quickly became a downtown beacon for creative artists of every discipline, and for audiences seeking bold and inventive work.

The Flea Theater Complex

The comprehensive renovation of Tate Library at Ethical Culture Fieldston School (ECFS) transformed the signature 1970 building into a learning commons that is a hub for the entire campus. In support of ECFS`s mission of ethical learning, academic excellence, and progressive education, the building`s new open, spacious interior provides greater access to books, information, and technology to enable multiple modes of teaching and learning. Maintaining the integrity of the original stone and concrete building, the exterior renovation includes new windows with &ldquo;bird-friendly&rdquo; glazing and a new main entrance facing the campus quadrangle.  

Tate Library

Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Tate Library

Within a landmark Cass Gilbert designed warehouse in New York City is a new home for Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST), the world`s largest LGBTQ Jewish congregation and a progressive voice in Judaism. The new synagogue embodies the community`s core values through an architecture of accessibility, transparency, and warmth. The renovation created spaces for worship, community life, and social justice activism. The first floor includes a multipurpose lobby, offices, and a sanctuary defined by a ribbed concrete wall that is canted to admit daylight. 

The Cass Gilbert

Congregation Beit Simchat Torah

The Gateway Building at Brooklyn Botanic Garden welcomes guests and reactivates the Flatbush Avenue entrance. An ambitious renovation to the south end of the 52-acre landscape led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates includes a series of buildings and spaces we designed. The building features a handcrafted brick fa&ccedil;ade and a distinctive zinc sculpted roof. With admissions and comfort station facilities, the building`s long parallelogram form holds the street corner alongside the McKim, Mead, and White-designed arch at the former entrance at Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard. 

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Gateway Building

 A strategic intervention, this Addition re-centers the Princeton School of Architecture. Enclosed in glass and steel, the Addition links the School`s two-story south wing, where its administrative offices and library are located, to the three-story north wing`s studios and classrooms. Princeton students have nicknamed the building the &ldquo;Hyphen&rdquo;. The Addition contains a new lobby, student lounge, elevator, and cantilevered steel stair. Plan and section take their dimensions from the existing 1963 building: the Addition aligns with the existing floor levels and, on the exterior, translates the rhythm of the existing building`s window bays. Large glass panels, with varying ceramic frit patterns overlaid like folds in a curtain, comprise the Addition`s envelope. The frit pattern affirms formal characteristics seen in the building, uniting the glass and steel Addition with the existing building, while also providing solar shading for the third floor lounge. The elevator shaft, painted shades of blue, forms the background against which the stair and the frit pattern are seen. The project scope also included renovations throughout the existing building to update the School of Architecture with a new model shop and facilities for a three-dimensional printer. 

Princeton University

Princeton University School of Architecture

The Architect talks about the design process.

Donald Judd purchased 101 Spring Street, a five- story cast-iron building designed by Nicholas Whyte and built in 1870. It was the first building that Judd owned, and he had an intense appreciation for its architecture and the surrounding SoHo neighborhood.

The comprehensive renovation of the 19th-century warehouse where the artist Donald Judd lived and worked encompassed a complete rebuilding of both exterior and interior. It was here that Judd first developed his conception of spaces in which art was permanently installed, in contrast to the temporary, generic conditions of a museum or gallery. After extensive research and within tight physical constraints, ARO installed extensive environmental and life safety systems with minimal visual impact, thereby preserving Judd`s original intent. Restoring the exterior involved the removal, cleaning, patching or recasting, priming, and repainting of over 1,300 cast-iron pieces.Architecture Research Office is the architect for the restoration of 101 Spring Street, the nineteenth century cast-iron warehouse in which the artist Donald Judd lived and worked from 1974 until his death in 1994. The building is notable for both its elegant, extensively glazed exterior and for the significant transformations that Judd implemented to the interior. The project includes the repair and preservation of the historic exterior fabric, together with extensive life safety, fire suppression and climate control improvements to enable the building to function as a museum and offices of the Judd Foundation.Donald Judd wrote of the building thus: &ldquo;In November &lsquo;68 I bought a cast-iron building in the Cast-Iron District of New York City. The building was built in 1870 and designed by Nicholas Whyte, whose only other cast-iron building is in Brazil&hellip; The given circumstances were very simple: the floors must be open, the right angle of windows on each floor must not be interrupted, and any changes must be compatible. My requirements were that the building be useful for living and working and more importantly, more definitely, be a space in which to install work of mine and of others&hellip;.The renovation of the building and the permanent purpose of the building are precedents for the larger spaces in my place in Texas, Chinati de Mansana, for the Chinati Foundation, and will be for Ayala de Chinati.&rdquo; Unlike most museums, 101 Spring Street affords the visitor the opportunity to understand Donald Judd`s creative process, as it was his home and source of inspiration. The building was a testing ground for Judd`s philosophical and artistic explorations. Therefore, the entire building is latent with the potential for teaching about his art. The goal of our efforts is to implement required building improvements with minimal visual impact so that the delicate relationships between the building, context and content are maintained.

Inside the Judd Foundation Building in SoHo

Donald Judd Home + Studio

Architect Adam Yarinsky talks about the restoration of 101 Spring Street, the nineteenth century cast-iron warehouse in which the artist Donald Judd lived and worked from 1974 until his death in 1994. The building is notable for both its elegant, extensively glazed exterior and for the significant transformations that Judd implemented to the interior. The project includes the repair and preservation of the historic exterior fabric, together with extensive life safety, fire suppression and climate control improvements to enable the building to function as a museum and offices of the Judd Foundation.

He has served as the Eliel Saarinen Professor at the University of Michigan, the Thomas Jefferson Professor at the University of Virginia, and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale University. He has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University, Syracuse University, Parsons the New School for Design, and Washington University in St. Louis. Adam has lectured widely throughout the United States and abroad. His writing has appeared in A+U, The Architect&rsquo;s Newspaper, 306090, Dimensions, Places Journal, and elsewhere. Adam served on the board of Places Journal from 2012-2018, and he is on the University of Virginia School of Architecture Advisory Board. 

For more than forty years, the Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices and League Prize programs have recognized designers across North America with distinct visions and the potential to inﬂuence the disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design. This panel gathers alumni of both prizes working in Houston, Austin, and other cities in Texas to share their subsequent career trajectories, including current projects, in a multigenerational conversation.The League Prize (LP) is a juried portfolio competition organized around a theme for young architects and designers who have been out of school for ten or fewer years.Emerging Voices (EV) is an invited competition for North American ﬁrms and individuals with distinct design voices and signiﬁcant bodies of realized work.

First Financial Bank (formerly Irwin Union Bank) at West Hill Plaza was designed by Carlos Jimenez with Todd Williams and Associates serving as associate architects. Completed in 2001, the branch bank was a prototype design intended to maximize site and technological adaptability. The building’s square plan places tellers, vaults, restrooms, private offices, and storage around the building's central space. The building's plan can be rotated to meet constraints of different site conditions.

The Cummins Child Development Center was designed by Carlos Jimenez with CSO Architects serving as associate architects. Jack Curtis designed the landscape. Completed in 2001 with an addition in 2004, the facility provides child care services for up to 228 children of Cummins employees. The single-level building is constructed of metal siding and brick. Interconnected classrooms are located along a continuous corridor that wraps around a playground area. Windows along the corridor allow parents to observe their children in the classrooms. The building’s entry is marked by blue metal panels and a projecting metal canopy. In 2004 four classrooms and another outdoor play area were added. As a result of damage after the 2008 Haw Creek flood, the building’s interiors were substantially remediated.

Farish Gallery, MD Anderson Hall Rice School of Architecture

ALNY x HOU: An Intergenerational Conversation

 Stephen Cassell is Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University, has twice served as the Shure Professor at the University of Virginia and as the Friedman Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Stephen is the former Chair of the Board of the Van Alen Institute. He was also a member of the New York City Green Codes Task Force and was on the Leadership Committee of the Lower Mississippi River Delta Design Initiative. 

Carlos Jiménez teaches both undergraduate and graduate studios and a seminar on the ethical and sensual dimension of materials. He began his teaching career at Rice as a visiting critic in 1987 and as full time faculty in 1997. Professor Jiménez was born in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1959 and moved to the United States in 1974. He graduated with honors from the University of Houston College of Architecture in 1981, receiving best thesis and best portfolio awards. He established his own office, Carlos Jiménez Studio, in Houston in l983. He has taught at numerous universities, including Texas A & M University, SCI-ARC, U.C.L.A., University of Houston, University of Texas at Arlington, Williams College, University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (Eliot Noyes Visiting Design Professor), Tulane University (First Favrot Chair in Architecture), University of Texas at Austin (McDermott Visiting Professor and Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair in Architecture), University of California at Berkeley (Friedman Visiting Professor), and University of Oregon (Pietro Belluschi Distinguished Visiting Professor). He has been and is a frequent lecturer, Juror and Visiting Critic at universities and cultural institutions throughout the Americas, Europe, Japan and the Middle East. He is a long-term jury member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2001-2012).

This event will take place in-person at Rice University’s Farish Gallery in Houston, Texas. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required.

This special program will have three Principals from&nbsp;Architecture Research Office share their favorite, home-crafted cocktails with Mark Lamster of the Dallas Morning News.&nbsp;

Center for Architecture

Cocktails & Conversations: Architecture Research Office and Mark Lamster

Kim is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University&rsquo;s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and has also taught at the School of Constructed Environments, Parsons the New School for Design, and Barnard College (2001-2011). She has lectured widely throughout the United States and abroad. She is on the Board for AIA New York and the Center for Architecture as the Immediate Past President of AIA New York. 

Mark Lamster is an architecture critic and academic. He serves as the architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News and has been recognized for his contributions to the field of architectural journalism. Lamster is also a lecturer and Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His work in journalism extends into the realm of biography, with his book on the late architect Philip Johnson, “The Man in the Glass House,” being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. In 2021, he was awarded the $50,000 Rabkin Prize for arts journalism, further cementing his status as a leading voice in architectural criticism. Lamster’s writing often appears in national publications, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Stephen Cassell, principal architect at Architecture Research Office, explains how ARO, in partnership with Della Valle Bernheimer, designed and built an energy efficient, sustainable house for a low-income neighborhood in Syracuse, NY. 

Stephen Cassell, principal architect at Architecture Research Office, discusses ARO's ongoing renovation of the north section of Union Square. Renovations include rehabilitating a former music pavilion and adding a much needed public bathroom. 

 Barry Bergdoll, former Phillip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA talks about the issue of rising current in Palisade Bay and its impact on the architecture and the urban environment. 

 Stephen Cassell, principal architect at Architecture Research Office, discusses his firm's proposal to reshape the New York City harbor in response to global warming and rising water lines. 

Jean Parker Phifer, NYC architect and author of Public Art New York, reads a selection on the US Armed Services Recruiting Station located in Times Square.

Stephen Cassell, principal architect at Architecture Research Office, discusses ARO's renovation of the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Times Square.

Adam Yarinsky

SITES

PLAYLISTS CURATED by Adam Yarinsky

Podcasts