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

MoMA and PS1 fostered an architect-in-residence program to focus on innovative design solutions to the anticipated 3-6 foot sea-level rise in Palisades Bay over the next 40 years. &nbsp;

As part of its 2010 exhibit “Rising Currents: Projects for New York`s Waterfront,” the Museum of Modern Art commissioned ARO to re-imagine Lower Manhattan in response to rising sea levels. This proposal rethinks the relationship of the built city to the water`s edge, creating a network of tidal salt marshes and parks to protect the urban infrastructure from storm surge. Two years later, after Super-Storm Sandy hit New York, the prescience of the project and the importance of its ideas came to the fore.The Museum of Modern Art invited Architecture Research Office and dlandstudio to participate in this 2010 exhibition. Based on ARO's previous research into climate change's impact on the city (with structural engineer Guy Nordenson's Latrobe Prize fellowship team), the exhibition presents the work of five teams of design teams who have each reinvented sites throughout New York City in response to rising sea levels. The site assigned to ARO and dlandstudio is Lower Manhattan. ARO's proposal consists of two basic components that form an interconnected system: porous green streets and a graduated edge. Their new conception of what a “street” is will not only provide productive park space within the city, it creates a network of absorptive green surfaces. On the edge of the island, three interrelated high-performance systems are constructed to block higher sea levels and mitigate storm surge force and flooding: a productive park network, freshwater wetlands, and tidal salt marshes. The above- and below-ground performance of the city can be supported by a newly integrated and mutually beneficial infrastructure.

Water Street runs parallel to the shoreline and is designed to hold storm-surge volume and drain back to the harbor.

Hanover Square: within the area affected by a Category 2 hurricane, the roadbed is rebuilt as a network of porous green streets to absorb rainfall and channel storm surge inundation out to the harbor.  

West Street is reconstructed and renamed Western Parkway for its green space, a light rail transit loop, pedestrian walkways, and bike paths.  

The east side of Lower Manhattan is extended with landfill by one block to create an esker, or ridge, parallel to the shoreline. Architecture Research Office

 Coenties Slip: A linear forest below street level runs along the East River to the Brooklyn Bridge, providing a first line of defense against storm surges.  

The proposed site extends around the tip of Lower Manhattan. 

Rising Currents: Projects for the New York Waterfront

 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. 

The U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square signs over 1,000 applicants every year. It has been on this spot since 1946, and was granted indefinite free use of the land it is on in 1950. The current building, which was constructed in 1999, resembles a three-dimensional U.S. flag.The US Department of Defense commissioned ARO to replace their busiest recruiting station, a 500 SF structure located in the heart of Times Square. The challenge was to create a symbol of service that would not be dwarfed in a sea of commerce. ARO designed a carefully detailed stainless-steel building with an American flag of colored fluorescent lights (now replaced with LED lights) illuminating each long facade. The building has become an icon. In 2006, the Municipal Art Society of New York City designated it one of 30 buildings erected in the past 30 years worthy of landmark status.

Times Square

US Armed Forces Recruiting Station

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.

 The R-House project was designed to create an affordable, innovative paradigm for minimal energy consumption embodied in architecture that nurtures the spirit and engages the community. Its compact exterior belies expansive and luminous spaces within. The design meets the German Passivhaus standard, requiring only the equivalent energy of a hair dryer for heating. Designed for high economic and practical performance, R-House strengthens the physical and social structure of Syracuse`s Near Westside neighborhood. The project was awarded the 2010 R+D Award from Architect Magazine and the 2010 AIA Merit Award from AIA New York City. 

R House

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. 

 Union Square has undergone many renovations over the last few years. In 2009, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates implemented a new paving and planting scheme and constructed a large innovative playground at the northern end of the park. Architecture Research Office is currently renovating other aspects of the northern end of the park. Through improvements to its architecture and landscape, ARO will be adding a new Comfort Station, a seasonal caf&eacute; within the historic Pavilion, and an operations office. The design weaves the park's familiar existing elements with new construction that will expand the ways in which New Yorkers can make use of the park. ARO's renovations have been awarded the 2010 Norman Buchbinder Award for Community Service, Union Square Partnership. 

 Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

Union Square Park Pavilion

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. 

 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. 

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

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. 

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.

The Architect talks about the design process.

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.

Stephen Cassell

SITES

PLAYLISTS CURATED by Stephen Cassell

Podcasts