Beyond the Square featured in (Ibidem) Planum Readings

Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings edited by Deen Sharp and Claire Panetta is featured in the latest issue of (Ibidem) Planum Readings. 

Deen Sharp's article "Difference as practice" featured in Progress in Human Geography

Terreform co-director Deen Sharp's article "Difference as practice - Diffracting geography and the area studies turn" was published in the most recent issue of Sage Journal's Progress in Human Geography.

Deen's abstract: After decades of geography and area studies drifting apart, I argue there has been an area studies turn in geography. The long divergence between the two, however, has resulted in a certain misunderstanding by geographers of what area studies scholarship is and what this field can contribute to the discipline. Area studies should not be considered as an approach that merely concentrates on the representation of difference but rather as a milieu in which difference is practiced and geographical concepts can be ‘diffracted’. Area studies can offer geography new ways to think about its place in, and entanglement with, the world.

Terreform joins The Global Alliance for Urban Crises

We are excited to announce our partnership with The Global Alliance for Urban Crises. 

The Global Alliance consists of more than 70 multi-disciplinary organizations (including the IRC, UNHCR, UNICEF and more) that work towards preventing and effectively responding to humanitarian crises in urban settings. Learn more about the Alliance and their members on their website.

Franklin Avenue Rezoning Shadow Analysis

We were approached by MTOPP to ascertain the effects of two proposed developments in the neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Together with Scalar Architecture, we illustrated the impact of shadows that would be produced by the developments.

We found that the developments would result in adverse shadow impacts. We recommended for a full EIS (Environmental Impact Study) review --- where the effects from both proposed developments are to be studied conjointly, versus independent development studies.

Project leaders: 
Julio Salcedo-Fernandez, B Arch, M Arch, NYSRA, EURA, LEED AP, Scalar Architecture
Michael Sorkin, Terreform Center For Advanced Urban Research

Team: Carlos Torres, B Arch, COLRA; Andrea Johnson, MLA, Terreform, Research Director; Cecilia Fagel, B Arch, M Design Management; Vaishnavi Reddy, B Arch

Updates

Scalar Architecture and Terreform testified at the Department of City Planning (DCP website, photos, DCP video)

Franklin Avenue Rezoning, Shadows, And Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Position (Bklyner)

Throwing Shade? Is Brooklyn’s building boom a threat to the iconic Brooklyn Botanic Garden? (Metrofocus/PBS video)

Shadows Used As A Tool To Fight Big Brooklyn Developments (NY1, video)

In the black: New shadow study of Crown Heights towers shows dim future for Botanic Garden, Prospect Park (Brooklyn Paper)

Shadow Studies in Crown Heights (Our Time Press)

Terreform and Scalar Architecture presented their findings at CB9 Public Hearing. (photo)

Crown Heights is one of Brooklyn’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods and it appears firms like Cornell and Continuum wouldn’t mind killing a few precious plants if it means lining their pockets with a different kind of greenery. (Indypendent)

“There has to be a point where we draw the line as communities,” said activist Alicia Boyd, who’s lived there for 19 years. Boyd says enough is enough, and she’s not alone. Thousands signed her Change.org petition. (CBS)

“It’s 17.3 acres of shadows that will be cast by these proposed buildings, it’s too much,” Ellis said. (PIX 11) 

In addition, Elizabeth Reina-Longoria, a spokeswoman for the Botanic Garden, said, “BBG is strongly advocating to maintain the site’s current zoning – which now caps building height to six or seven stories – which was put in place, in part, to protect the garden’s conservatories from building shadows.” (Brooklyn Eagle)

“These shadows actually go past the Garden and touch Prospect Park,” said MTOPP - Movement to Protect the People (amNewYork)

"If the NYCPlanning was concerned about 13 story buildings having a negative effect upon the BrooklynBotanic Garden," Unity for Flatbush organizers wrote in their call to action on Friday, "then clearly 42 would be catastrophic." (Prospect Heights Patch)

#URZonedOut contributor Sam Stein 
"it would take a “whole new system” to better look at the impact on neighborhood housings costs associated with new projects." (Forward.com)

Alicia Boyd from Movement to Protect the People discussed a developer's plans to build tall buildings around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden despite existing protections and an upcoming forum on shadows and sun glare on 6/20.  (WBAI 99.5 FM New York)

Terreform and Scalar Architecture presented their findings at MTOPP Shadow and Sun-Glare Forum. (Event info)

Open Studio: Terreform and Michael Sorkin Studio

Join the architects, designers, researchers, and editors of Terreform and Michael Sorkin Studio for an evening of drinks, informal conversation and a behind the scenes look at recent and upcoming projects. 

Wednesday, June 20, 2018
6-8 PM
180 Varick Street #1514, New York, NY, 10014

Space is limited, please RSVP to hilary@terreform.info

This event is in correlation with A'18 Conference on Architecture http://bit.ly/A18Terreform.

Terreform featured in the new issue of Oculus Magazine

Pick up a copy of the newest issue of Oculus Magazine to read Michael Sorkin's essay Sauve Qui Peut. 

The summer 2018 Issue, New York, Past, Present, and Future is available now.

Vyjayanthi Rao and Michael Sorkin at HAND’s 27th Annual Meeting

Michael Sorkin and Vyjayanthi Rao will be featured panelists at this year's HAND Meeting & Housing Expo.

June 12, 2018 | 8 AM – 3 PM
Omni Shoreham Hotel & Conference Center
2500 Calvert St NW, Washington, DC 20008

HAND’s Annual Meeting is the largest convening of real estate and community development professionals in the Washington region, bringing together over 1,400 practitioners. Themed Deconstruct Our Past, Redesign Our Future, this year’s conference will feature the compelling exhibit: Undesign the Redline. This interactive exhibit is a timeline of discrimination, segregation and housing policy in the United States, connecting the intentional and systematic racial housing segregation of the 1930s to political and social issues of today, through the powerful narratives of the people and communities affected by redlining and its legacy.

UR books at Left Forum 2018

UR will be selling books at this year's Left Forum, happening June 1-3, 2018 at John Jay College, NYC.  

Zoned Out! editor Tom Angotti will be at the UR table Saturday, June 2, from 2-4pm.

Come say hi!

Global Demands - A Panel Discussion Featuring Vyjayanthi Rao

Global Demands: Architecture research in a globalized world

Whether in the sphere of architecture critique or on the market of speculative real estate investment, architecture is increasingly becoming the subject of global circulation.

For contemporary architecture production this presents numerous challenges: How can we do justice to the complexities of global dynamics as well as very local peculiarities in our work?  Where do we start when the issue is alternative approaches to spatial renewal? The two architecture researchers Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer have invited fellow participants in their international projects to discuss these questions and to develop perspectives for the future.

Speakers: Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman (University of California San Diego), Rahul Mehrotra (Harvard GSD), Vyjayanthi Rao (Terreform, New York), Irit Rogoff (Goldsmiths, London), and AbdouMaliq Simone (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen).

Moderated by: Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer (Vienna University of Technology).

Monday, May 28, 2018, 7:00 p.m.

Architekturzentrum Wien – Podium, Architekturzentrum Wien, Museumsplatz 11070 Wien

2100: A Dystopian Utopia in Metropolis Magazine

Terreform UR's 2100: A Dystopian Utopia / The City After Climate Change by Vanessa Keith and StudioTeka was reviewed by Zachary Edelson in Metropolis Magazine. Read the full article here. 

http://www.metropolismag.com/architecture/2100-dystopian-utopia-book-studioteka/

Michael Sorkin featured on Midnight Charette podcast

Listen to episode #52 of the Midnight Charette podcast to hear Terreform founder Michael Sorkin discuss neighborhoods, gentrification, "smart" cities, city development, teaching design and more! 

Open Studio - May 16, 2018

Join the architects, designers, researchers, and editors of Terreform and Michael Sorkin Studio for an evening of drinks, informal conversation and a behind the scenes look at recent and upcoming projects. 

Space is limited, register here