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December 8, 2017
Elmhurst Library wins 2017 Architects Newspaper Best of Design Awards for Civic -Educational

2017 Best of Design Award for Civic – Educational: Elmhurst Community Library

Architect: Marpillero Pollak Architects
Location: Queens, New York

With over 80,000 users speaking more than 57 languages, Elmhurst is the second-busiest circulating library of the 64 in Queens Library’s network. The building’s massing maximizes the impact of an existing community park and highlights the civic role of two reading rooms that emit a welcoming glow after sunset. The main circulation spine extends the streetscape toward a group of trees in the block interior. A system of brightly colored “portals” supports orientation and interaction among programmatic spaces catering to diverse age groups, reinforcing the library’s neighborhood significance. The main architectural elements are two structural glass cubes that position patrons within the community park and on the urban thoroughfare of Broadway. The park cube makes legibile the operations of the library’s two main floors with a monumental stair grounded by a bookshelf, while the Broadway cube floats above the main entry displaying the work 955 Shapes by artist Allan McCollum.

“This handsome new library takes full advantage of its site with its richness in textures and colors, and provides a welcoming cultural and educational resource for this Queens community.” —Irene Sunwoo, Director of Exhibitions, GSAPP (juror)

Structural Engineer:
Severud Associates

General Contractor:
Stalco Construction

Percent for Art (Selected Artist):
Allan McCollum

Structural Glass:
W & W Glass

Material Supplier for Terra-cotta Rainscreen:
Boston Valley Terra Cotta

February 12, 2015
Linda completes SEED Training

Linda completed Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED) Training in Washington, DC with Design Corps.

SEED® is a principle-based network of individuals and organizations dedicated to building and supporting a culture of civic responsibility and engagement in the built environment and the public realm. The SEED Network connects similarly minded members of the public with designers from the fields of architecture, industrial design, communication design, landscape architecture and urban planning.

Design Corps creates positive change in traditionally underserved communities by using design, advocacy, and education to help them shape their environment and address their social, economic, and environmental challenges.

January 19, 2015
Roma 20-25 at GSAPP – Seminar

Roma_Forre

 

This seminar will articulate a conversation about how to creatively recombine a city’s productive tensions between the “real” world and “imagined” representations of its spatiality. Paradigmatic exhibitions on architecture and the city, spanning an arc of 35 years until the present, will provide base material for reinterpretation.

The National Museum of the Arts of 21st Century in Rome (MAXXI) is promoting such conversation about contemporary architecture and the city, by inviting 12 Italian universities and 12 foreign ones to study different areas of a larger scale territory surrounding Rome. The GSAPP is one of the 24 participating institutions. The challenge posited by “ROMA 20 – 25. New cycles of life for the metropolis” is to elaborate research topics that hold together the clarity of a manifesto and parameters for a design project, engaging a territory that extends more than 25 km from the historical city center, also adopting a temporal projection of 10 years ahead.

Official Roma 20-25 Site

November 17, 2014
A Stroll, A Fun Palace – Interactive Installation

This work is a collaboration between Sandro Marpillero and a group of students of the Master of Interactive Arts at the Università Iuav di Venezia, coordinated by Cristina Barbiani.

The project is about activating the Swiss Pavilion at the 2014 Biennale, with an interactive installation in relation to Cedric Price’s project for the Fun Palace (1961-64).

Sandro initiated this project as a parallel activity to his role of design instructor (with Angela Vettese, Valeria Burgio, Renato Bocchi) at the Biennale-related post-graduate level Iuav/Workshop If Clause – Archiving the Impossible, which was connected to the Swiss Pavilion’s “School of Tomorrow” directed by Lorenza Baroncelli.

View the exhibition booklet.

October 16, 2014
GSAPP Faculty Projects + Publications

MPA’s model of the Elmhurst Public Library (Queens, NYC), to be completed in six months, is on display at Columbia University in the 400 Level Gallery of Avery Hall, as part of an exhibition of faculty projects and publications. The new 30,000 sf building addresses the complex urban situation created by a 15-story apartment building that had obscured the site’s historical park, by re-establishing the institution’s visibility on Broadway. The project is the largest building realized by a small firm within the DDC’s Design and Construction Design Excellence Program.

October 9, 2014
OHNY 2014: MPA Live/Work Loft

MPA is participating in the 12th Annual Open House New York Weekend on October 12, 2014. For two days every October, OHNY Weekend unlocks the doors to New York’s most important buildings, offering an extraordinary opportunity to experience the city and meet the people who design, build, and preserve New York. Through the unparalleled access that it enables, OHNY Weekend deepens our understanding of the importance of architecture and urban design to foster a more vibrant civic life and helps catalyze a citywide conversation about how to build a better New York.

September 30, 2014
Lecture: New York City’s Inner Periphery

In partnership with three Italian Schools of Architecture (Venice, Ancona, Reggio Calabria) and the Parsons School of Design Strategies, Sandro presented the works that MPA have realized in context of the Bloomberg administration’s reshaping of New York City, referencing a recently published article on Lotus International: “Changing New York 2001-13. Design as Competitive Advantage.” Sandro’s lecture followed the one given by David Burney (past-Commissioner of the NYC Department of Design and Construction, now Professor at Pratt Institute). The title “An Inside Narrative in Two Acts: A Public Space + An Institution” referred to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvement Project at Queens Plaza and the Elmhurst Public Library (both in Queens), which include collaborations with artists Michael Singer and Allan McCollum. Public commissions at urban design and institutional scale were also discussed through other MPA  projects under construction, such as the New Stapleton Waterfront, and the Children Museum’s Lightweight Structures at Sag Harbor (both in Staten Island).

New York City’s Inner Periphery (Full Presentation)

About MPA

MPA’s multidisciplinary design practice, rooted in the strengths and sensibilities of its partners, spans architecture, landscape, and urban design, enabling us to mine the rich and often unseen potentials of a project and site.

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