Event
Book Launch: Alvar Aalto and the Future of Architecture
May 3, 2023
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Education Hall, New York Tech and Zoom
Online
May 3, 2023
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Education Hall, New York Tech
Online
This book intends to advance a dialog between history, theory, design, construction, technology, science, ecology, and sensory experience through digital design that enhances the assessment and values of our material choices.The book is not a how-to software guide but a critical look to inspire the future.
In the contemporary practice of architecture, digital design, and fabrication are emergent technologies in transforming how architects present a design and form a material strategy that is responsible, equitable, sustainable, resilient, and forward-looking. Bridging knowledge from academia into practice and vice versa can help architects become better stewards of the environment, make healthier and more accountable buildings, and find ways to introduce policy to make technology a critical component in thinking about and making architecture.
Alvar Aalto is our primary protagonist for channeling discussions related to these topics. Architects like ALA, Shigeru Ban, 3XN, Peter Zumthor, and others play the role of contemporary guides in this review. Aalto said, "building is not in the least a technological problem; it is an arch-technological problem." These terms from Aalto and the work of our selected contemporary architects and the potential of computer modeling and simulation make a case for the importance of comprehensive design.
Within this realm, we have organized the book into five chapters that discuss the Five "T's" of a contemporary architectural discourse; Topology, Typology, Tectonics, Technic, and Thermodynamics. These "T's" connect history through Aalto and develop conversations concerning historical and contemporary models, digital simulations ecological and passive/active material concerns, construction and fabrications, and healthy sensorial environments.
A discussion of the book including insights from practice with:
Velux Group: Tina Christensen, Senior Architect, D/A daylight & architecture. Architect MAA at VELUX and Nicolas Roy, architect, the VELUX Daylight Visualizer
Design Dialogues
In times of global crises, education, collaboration, and dialogs can represent positive “game changing” factors.
Through dialogue with international universities, industries, and practicing designers, the NYIT School of Architecture and Design Lecture Series will nurture dialogue on the education of the creatives of the future and will challenge the more conventional university curricula, and the narratives and communication strategies of the current professional practice.
Introduction and Moderation
Frances Campani
Associate Professor, New York Tech School of Architecture and Design
Speaker
Angela Amoia
Adjunct Associate Professor
Angela Amoia is a Partner of Amoia Cody Architecture and Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Design. Angela has balanced practiced and teaching since graduating from Columbia University with a master’s degree in Advanced Architectural Design where she started her research on Alvar Aalto. She has taught history, theory, architecture studios, including the comprehensive design studio, and participating in study abroad courses to Italy. In practice her role as project manager ranged in scale from skyscrapers to large-scale academic facilities and residential houses and loft buildings in internationally acclaimed NYC firms. She recently has completed a book entitled Alvar Aalto and the Future of Architecture with Robert Cody, partner at Amoia Cody Architecture.
Speaker
Robert Cody
Academic Coordinator, Teaching Associate Professor
Robert Cody is a registered architect in New York, LEED accredited, and a member of the AIA and NCARB. He has been the NYIT Professor of Practice since 2019, teaching and coordinating the comprehensive design studio focusing on community and building technology. In 2022 he published, along with his partner Angela Amoia, Alvar Aalto and Future of Architecture, and the NYC Green Density Zoning Handbook, relating teaching to practice, centered on housing and zoning policy.
He has been the New York Tech NCARB IDP coordinator, and AIAS faculty advisor since 2012. He currently serves on the NCARB ARE 5.0 Committee, and the NYC Town and Gown Executive Committee, and is the Director of the NYIT NCARB IPAL (Integrated path to Licensure). He started teaching at NYIT in 2005 and has taught design studios at all levels, building technology, architectural theory, and study abroad in Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia from 2014 to 2019. He was Department Chair from 2011 to 2017, Director of Undergraduate Programs in 2018, and Associate Dean in 2017.
Over his 30+ years of practice, he has been involved in numerous projects, both public and private, with notable firms working on projects varying from wood-frame houses, precast concrete office buildings, interior renovations, free-standing towers, healthcare, schools and community facilities, design competitions, physical construction, solar detoxification facilities, to The Museum of Modern Art.
Speaker
Tina Christensen
Senior Architect, D/A Daylight and Architecture, VELUX Group
Tina Christensen, Senior Architect, D/A Daylight and Architecture, VELUX Group, Architect MAA, was educated at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 1990.
Tina is the Senior Architect in the VELUX group since 2020. Lead of D/A Daylight and Architecture, an initiative with focus on the ongoing dialogue with students and professionals about the role of daylight in architecture, driving the key activities the International VELUX Award and the Daylight Talks series.
Read Bio
Speaker
Nicolas Roy
Architect, Senior Daylight Specialist, VELUX Group
Nicolas Roy is an architect and senior daylight advisor for the VELUX Group's knowledge centre for Daylight, Energy and Indoor Climate since 2005. He is a skilled Specialist in the field of building performance simulations and responsible for the development and dissemination of the simulation software Daylight Visualizer. From his start within VELUX, he has been a key contributor to the biennial conference VELUX Daylight Symposium. Nicolas contributes to several research activities investigating the effects of daylight on buildings and people, and new ways to prescribe and evaluate daylight. In 2016, Nicolas Roy received the Society of Light and Lighting Leon Gaster award. Nicolas obtained his Master degree in Architecture from Laval University in 2004.