On Monday, November 16, Stephen Kieran and Bjarke Ingels, head of the architectural practice Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), will discuss the differences and similarities in the energy-saving measures used by architects in the United States and Denmark in a panel discussion at Scandinavia House in New York City. The American and Danish architects will analyze the benefits, compromises, and challenges in creating and designing sustainable buildings and communities. Since the two countries vary greatly in size, climatic conditions, and commonly-used building materials and energy-saving features, the discussion will examine how each country can learn from the other. The moderator of the discussion is Suzanne Stephens, deputy editor of Architectural Record. The public event is co-presented with Architectural Record and the Consulate General of Denmark, New York.

See the Scandinavia House website for more information on attending.

PennDesign Fall 2009 Lecture Series Poster

Stephen Kieran discussed recent work in a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design on September 21. The lecture is now available for free download on iTunes U. A full schedule of upcoming lectures is available on the PennDesign website.

On Nov 6-8, Stephen Kieran will be a panelist at the international symposium, Re-Imagining Cities, Urban Design after the Age of Oil, presented by the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design and the Penn Institute for Urban Research, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation.

This event marks the 50th Anniversary of the 1958 "Conference on Urban Design Criticism" conference, also sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, which laid the groundwork for urban design education during the era of the redevelopment of cities.  That conference included Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch, I.M. Pei, Ian McHarg and others, many of whom were not widely known at the time, but who went on to educate a generation of urban designers.

The conference aims to focus discussion on urban design and development throughout the world, including the rapidly urbanizing cities of Asia and Africa as well as the more developed world.  Many of the leading thinkers about the impacts of global energy shortages and climate change will set the framework for discussion, including Robert Socolow, David Orr, and Saleem Huq.

Urban design educators from around the world will discuss the need to organize education to produce the next generation of designers capable of responding to the challenges. To this end, the conference participants will work to draft a manifesto for urban design education in the next era.

Anyone can follow the conference live online at Next American City, as well as on the sites of all of the participating bloggers:

Lloyd Alter, Treehugger and Planet Green
Ryan Avent, Grist
Nate Berg, Planetizen
Andrew Blum, Wired and Metropolis
Randy Crane, Urban Planning Research
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, Architect, Metropolis, and The New York Times Magazine
Diana Lind, Next American City

James Timberlake, Stephen Kieran and Arizona State University professor Max Underwood were co-chairs of the 2008 ACSA/AIA Teachers Seminar entitled Deep Matters: a path to meaningful and provocative architectural research at Cranbrook Academy, June 19-22. Architecture educators and practitioners from throughout the United States and Canada convened to discuss one of the most pressing issues currently facing architecture education: Architectural Research.

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