This exhibition highlights 16 award-winning works of landscape architecture from the 2016 Professional Awards of the Potomac Chapter, ASLA. The range of projects encompasses residential, private, and public practice, and a variety of project types that include parks, courtyards, plazas, historic landscapes, and public realm guidelines.

The exhibition illustrates the range in scale and scope of the landscape architecture profession and highlights the high quality of work being produced in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. The Chapter’s 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Darwina Neal, FASLA, is recognized in the exhibition.

For more information about the Potomac Chapter, ASLA, please visit: http://potomacasla.org/.

About the American Society of Landscape Architects

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is a national professional organization representing 17,000 landscape architects. ASLA has 48 state and regional chapters. Founded in 1899, the mission of ASLA is to advocate, to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of cultural, natural and/or the built environments for human enjoyment. ASLA works to increase the public’s awareness of and appreciation for the profession of landscape architecture. ASLA is an active advocate for the profession at the local, state, and national levels on public policy issues, including licensure, livable communities, sustainable design, surface transportation, the environment, conservation issues, historic preservation, small business issues, and providing outdoor access that exceeds the requirements of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The early visionaries in the profession of landscape architecture noted that the designs of outdoor spaces are created for recreation, inspiration, and essential respite from the emerging urban environment. City parks and green spaces within the urban environment, along with private residential gardens, helps to improve physical and psychological health, strengthen our communities and make neighborhoods more attractive places to live and work. The profession enhances the outdoor environment for both private and public enjoyment. ASLA and its members are at the forefront of efforts to increase respect for the land and our natural environment, particularly on issues of prudent land use and planning, urban design, sustainable development, waste and water management including stormwater, resource preservation, recreation, and land reclamation.

About the Potomac Chapter, ASLA

The Potomac Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects represents nearly 400 landscape architects in DC, Northern Virginia, and Suburban Maryland. The purpose of ASLA is to advance the profession of Landscape Architecture in the eyes of the general public. The Chapter is the main advocacy body to advance the profession on the local level by holding events, meetings, outings and providing information regarding the profession to the local media and schools. The Chapter may also interface with municipal governments regarding local issues that could impact the profession, or the public realm.

Credits

Organized by the Potomac Chapter, ASLA in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Supported in part by ABC Imaging, our printing sponsor.

This year’s DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival features a four-day architectural exhibit at the District Architecture Center in Chinatown, operated by AIA|DC.

Schedule of Events

Opening Reception: Keynote w/ Iman Fayyad, Harvard GSD | October 5, 6:30PM; Free; RSVP required; Refreshments provided
Talk with Gaza: 8:00 AM – 11:30 AM (Thursday, Friday) Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online
Performances at the Portal: Daily from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Doors open at 11:30 AM, $10, Tickets required
Conversations across the Diaspora: Daily from 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online

Reservations for ticketed DAC events can be made at DCPFAF
Reservations for portal conversations can be made at Shared Studios

The exhibition spotlights over a hundred years of Palestinian architecture from historic to contemporary Palestine across the diaspora. Guests will explore the concept of home as an architectural, environmental, communal, and human experience vis-à-vis the Palestinian narrative. Over 9.6 million Palestinians worldwide claim heritage to the same place - the same homeland. Palestine is a place physically inaccessible to most Palestinians, yet it remains a communal identifier that unifies a fragmented population in spite of distance and physical barriers.

In cooperation with Shared Studios, the exhibit centers on an interactive pop-up portal with audio-visual technology. Once inside, visitors have the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with the Palestinian community in other portals around the world. Guests will have the opportunity to sign up for a 15-minute slot every morning and every afternoon to talk with someone in Gaza, NYC, or Milwaukee. Free reservations are managed through Shared Studios’ website – you are welcome to come alone, with a friend, and for several sessions over the span of the four days. Every day at noon, the portal features collaborative performances between artists in Gaza and DC (tickets required).

Through photographic work, this exhibit also explores the many definitions of home by Palestinians - a people as varied as the diaspora is vast. It is through the process of seeking that we find within ourselves our homes and moments of humanity. Issues of migration, attachment to place, and place-making are relevant not only to the Palestinian people, but to all diaspora populations - including those communities right here in Washington, D.C.

Featured architects and displays

RIWAQ on cultural heritage and historical preservation; UNRWA on refugee and emergency response infrastructure; Senan Abdelqader on rebuilding and modernization; Decolonizing Art + Architecture Residency on experimental design as it pertains to the future of the Palestinian state; and ShamsArd Design Studio on environmentalism, landscape and vernacular architecture.

Sponsors

Spartan Flooring, Mohawk Flooring, Quinn Evans Architects, WISA Solutions

Organized by

DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival

This exhibition spotlights graduate and undergraduate level design work by students from the University of Maryland and Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, Iraq. Developed as a cross-cultural design studio by Gensler’s Washington, DC office, in collaboration with Madlen Simon, AIA, Shaimaa Hameed Hussein, and Marlene Shade, AIA for spring 2016, students were offered an unparalleled opportunity to examine architecture and design through the lens of a different culture.

Using digital and video technology, as well as social media, 16 students from Al-Nahrain University tackled a design challenge in DC’s Washington Circle and eight students from UMD proposed a design intervention in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. Together, the students explored the challenges they share and those unique to each culture, fostering greater communication and extending the relationship beyond the discipline. The studio also doubled as a design competition: by the project’s end, two students from each institution joined Gensler for an internship in their DC office this summer.

Credits

Organized by Marlene Shade, AIA, Associate Principle of Dewberry, Zahraa Alwash, JJ Rivers and Ahmed Khalil of Gensler on behalf of the University of Maryland and Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, Iraq in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Sponsored by Gensler.

Supported in part by ABC Imaging.

The Built to Scale exhibition has been extended through September 16!

Built to Scale celebrates the power of scale models and the important role models play in the creative and technical development of design projects.

Scale models are communicative tools in three-dimension that give designers the power to experiment, solve problems, and help clients imagine a design. Despite advances in computer modelling software, which renders the scale model outdated for some designers, the traditional—physical—scale model remains a tested instrument in the design process.

More than loose freehand sketches, intricate technical drawings, or sleek computer renderings, the maquette or scale model serves as an excellent representation that bridges the gap between spatial idea and spatial construct. Simply stated, scale models are unique to the culture of design as small informative objects with big exciting ideas.

The exhibition features over 30 study and presentation models selected by a small jury of AIA|DC Board members. Models represent working projects, completed projects, and theoretical projects. Traditional and non-traditional materials were used to craft the models.

Models are represented by Andy Blackmore, Azalia Mothamed, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Christopher Wallace, David M. Schwarz Architects, DP Conrad Architect, E/L Studio, Fentress Architects, Hannah Tsimmerman, Heba Bella, Hickok Cole Architects, Hsin-Yen (Emily) Lin, Kurt West, McInturff Architects, Michael Bollino, Michael Vann, Michael Winstanley Architects & Planners, Olivia Morgan, Peter Noonan, SmithGroupJJR, Studio Twenty Seven Architecture, Walt Geiger Studio with MG2 Corporation, Wiedemann Architects, LLC, William Arevalo, William Sullivan, and ZGF Architects.

Credits

Model selections juried by AIA|DC Board Members:

• Douglas Palladino, AIA
• William Spack, AIA

Organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery.

Made possible with generous support by ABC Imaging.

Additional support provided by Graphisoft; exhibition designed and modeled using ArchiCAD19.

Exhibition Opening and Panel Discussion

Thursday, March 7, 2013, 6:30 – 8 pm

Washington, DC traditionally has been considered a laggard in the design world—a city whose architecture tended toward safe, mediocre, and just-plain-boring work. The architects who serve on AIA|DC’s awards juries—brilliant practitioners who come from elsewhere in the country—might arrive here with that old image in mind. They leave, however, realizing how outdated it is, given the beautiful design work now being done by DC-area architects.

Explore more than 20 award-winning projects from recipients of the 2012 AIA|DC Chapter Design Awards in this annual exhibition at the District Architecture Center’s SIGAL Gallery through March. The exhibition features designs honored for excellence in architecture, historic resources, and interior architecture, as well as designs recognized for citations in sustainable design and urban design. Over 200 projects were submitted and reviewed by jurors. Neither the juries nor the President of AIA|DC knew which firms were responsible for the submissions rendering their judgment on architectural merit alone.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

Exhibition Opening

Wednesday, June 5, 2013, 6 – 7:30 pm

"Concepts" presents award-winning projects from the 2013 Washington UNBUILT Awards, an annual competition conducted by AIA|DC since 2009 which recognizes excellence in both theoretical projects and unbuilt commissioned projects. The program is open to registered architects, landscape architects, planners, interior designers, associate architects and students in the Washington metropolitan area.

The awards program is divided into two categories: theoretical projects refer to exploratory work without a client such as design competitions, hypothetical or research-oriented assignments, and student work; unbuilt commissioned projects refer to unexecuted work or work that not yet constructed in various project types including buildings, interiors, monuments and memorials, planning, public art, public space, transportation infrastructure, and urban design.

The 2013 Washington UNBUILT Awards winners:

Awards of Excellence:

• Andrew Baldwin, Lacrosse as Sacred Iroquois Tradition: The Architecture of Cultural Representation

• Edward R. Ford, Park and Recreation Structures Revised

• Ghazal Abbasy-Asbagh, Refolding Muqarnas: A Case Study

• KGD Architecture, Civic Threshold

Awards of Merit:

• c2 architecture studio + HOK, infoCUBE: light monitors

• Cunningham | Quill Architects, St. Elizabeths Water Tower

• Edward R. Ford, Trinity + One

• Jacob Bialek, Modular Personality: Vertical Integrated Student Housing

• KGD Architecture, Office Building of the Future

• LEO A DALY, China Mobile

• McGraw Bagnoli Architects, Green Machine

• Philip Goolkasian, South Capitol Natatorium

Credits

Orgranized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging. Produced in part with generous assistance from the award winners.

Opening Reception

September 10, 2014, 6 - 7:30 PM

In 2004, under the administration of then mayor Anthony Williams, members of the District of Columbia Public Library board toured the country to explore library systems and research current trends in innovative library design. The goal: to gather information and form ideas for the improvement of DC’s aging centers for learning. Ten years later, under the skilled management of Library Director Ginnie Cooper, the DC Public Library system has exceeded these expectations to become a visionary example in both form and function of what a 21st century library can be.

The exhibition provided a glimpse of the DC Public Library system’s revitalization established by the Library Building Program. It explored how it is invigorating communities, how it is molding the city as a center for civic architecture, and how it is fashioning a new age of public service.

Featured in the SIGAL Gallery were twelve of the seventeen neighborhood libraries completed or underway since the Library Building Program began, a retrospective view of the system’s Carnegie Library, and a prospective outlook of the city’s central library – Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

Chapter Design Awards Celebration & Exhibition Opening

Monday, December 16, 2013, 6 – 8 pm

More than 200 projects were submitted this year to the annual AIA|DC Chapter Design Awards Competition. Of those submissions, 38 projects were selected as winners by a jury of practitioners from around the country who knew nothing prior of the projects or their designers. The use of a blind competition levels the playing field for all and this year’s winners provide a clear indication of where the profession is headed.

The exhibition features designs recognized for excellence or merit in architecture, interior architecture, and historic resources categories with a special citation and folly award for two very unique projects. Presidential citations were also given to projects in sustainable design, universal design, and urban design classifications. The exhibition is arranged in connection with the winter edition of ArchitectureDC magazine where the projects are published. Additional project information will also be available at architecturedc.net, including plans, sections, elevations, and renderings.

For a full list of this year's winners, please click here.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery

Opening Reception

Monday, September 29, 6 – 7:30 PM

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present "The 11th Street Bridge Park: A New Civic Space," an exhibition of visionary designs from the 11th Street Bridge Park design competition, a contest recently held to envision DC's first elevated public park over the Anacostia River.

In a public-private collaboration between the District of Columbia government and the Ward 8-based non-profit known as “Building Bridges Across the River,” funds were raised for the nationwide design competition. The competition challenged design teams – comprised of architects, landscape architects, engineers, design specialists, consultants, and advisors – to re-use existing piers from one of the old bridges to create a new civic space that would support the community’s environmental, physical, cultural and economic health.

Of the more than 80 entries, four design teams were selected to envision the new civic space for the competition’s ‘Stage III’ phase:

• Balmori Associates / Cooper, Robertson & Partners

• OLIN / OMA

• Stoss Landscape Urbanism / Höweler + Yoon Architecture

• Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) / NEXT Architects / Magnusson Klemencic Associates

Explore each team’s community-inspired design proposal presented with imaginative renderings and detailed drawings. Discover ideas for new activities in the park connecting Anacostia and Capitol Hill: café and restaurant, environmental education center, kayak and canoe launches, performance space, and play space.

Consider that park visitors might also be able to explore the region’s history through interpretive public art displays, attend outdoor festivals, and buy produce from nearby farmers markets. The possibilities are widespread, but also driven by community input from over 300 meetings to date.

The competition was judged by a group of distinguished experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, public health, and community engagement:

• Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H. Dean, School of Public Health, University of Washington

• Toni L. Griffin, Founding Director of the J. Max Bond Center for the Just City, Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York

• Carol Mayer-Reed, FASLA, Partner in Charge of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, Mayer/Reed

• Michaele Pride, AIA, NOMA, Associate Dean for Public Outreach and Engagement, School of Architecture and Planning, University of New Mexico

• Harry Robinson III, FAIA, AICP, NOMA, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Urban Design, School of Architecture and Design, Howard University

• Patricia Zingsheim, AIA, CPM, Associate Director of Revitalization and Design, D.C. Office of Planning (Alternate Juror)

• Donald J. Stastny FAIA, FAICP, FCIP, Design Competition Advisor

A complete exhibition is presented at the District Architecture Center with abbreviated exhibitions at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and the THEARC.

Discover more about this project at: http://www.bridgepark.org/.

Credits

Organized by Building Bridges Across the River at THEARC in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Generous support provided by Corporate Office Properties Trust, District of Columbia Office of Planning, Goulston & Storrs, Horning Family Foundation, LISC, Prince Charitable Trusts, and The Educational Foundation of America.

Additional support generously provided by ABC Imaging.

Sorg Gallery

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present Suman Sorg: Paintings, an exhibition of selected paintings by Suman Sorg, FAIA, founder and principal designer for Sorg Architects. Located in Washington, DC and New Delhi, India, Sorg Architects is an award-winning international design firm with an extensive portfolio of civic, commercial, educational, institutional, and multi-family residential projects.

In her professional work as an architect, Ms. Sorg has developed a philosophy of design characterized by a strong commitment to thoughtful modern architecture that explores the spatial, material, and visual experience of place. In so doing, she carefully examines the unique characteristics of site, climate, culture, and community, along with programmatic requirements from the client, and looks to this intersection as the catalyst for her architectural concepts.

Like many architects, Sorg complements her professional work with personal work that is both challenging and creative. Painting is just one medium that satisfies this outlet.

The subject of Ms. Sorg’s personal work in painting remains fixed on architecture, but not in the most obvious way. Rather, it looks beyond buildings to touch upon the architectonic aspects of abstraction, color, geometry, and the human body. For inspiration, Sorg is often drawn to the memory of textures and fabrics from Northern India where she grew up.

This show serves as the inaugural exhibition for the District Architecture Center’s Sorg Gallery, a new gallery named for Suman Sorg, FAIA and Sorg Architects.

About Suman Sorg, FAIA:

Suman Sorg’s professional work has been recognized with numerous honors, including 28 awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). She has lectured extensively for the AIA, the National Building Museum, the Urban Land Institute, the Center for Architecture in New York, the U.S. Department of State, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Ms. Sorg is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, serves on the Board of Trustees for the National Building Museum, and is a Peer Reviewer for the U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program.

Ms. Sorg began her studies at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India, and completed her Bachelor of Architecture at Howard University in Washington, DC. She later studied Design and Historic Preservation at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery in cooperation with Suman Sorg, FAIA and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

Lighting support made possible by Atmosphere, Inc.