SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery

Opening Reception

Wednesday, October 29, 6 - 7:30 PM

In 1984, The Washington Post began publishing a weekly column in the Saturday Real Estate Section called “Shaping the City.” Written and illustrated by Roger K. Lewis, FAIA, the column addresses a broad range of topics and issues relevant to the built environment, among them architecture, historic preservation, housing, smart growth, sustainability, transportation, and urbanism.

Lewis’ column is the only one of its kind in the United States, focusing on big-picture stories that affect the form of cities and surrounding regions. On occasion, it highlights controversial and sometimes arcane issues, including federal, state, and local public policies.

The column reaches a broad audience of real estate and building industry professionals throughout DC, Maryland, and Virginia, among them developers, realtors, architects and engineers, attorneys, construction industry workers, and bankers and investors. Of equal importance, it also reaches federal, state and local government officials who set policy and regulate development.

Lewis and his “Shaping the City” column have won numerous awards throughout the years.

Since 2007, Lewis served as a regular guest discussing “Shaping the City” issues on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, broadcast by American University Radio WAMU 88.5.

This exhibition presents more than 80 cartoons illustrated by Mr. Lewis over 30 years. The humorous, yet informative and insightful cartoons, which serve as the column’s visual marquee, will make you laugh, think, and question the world around you. Explore his work and discover some of the humorous, controversial, and sometimes arcane issues that help shape the city!

About Roger K. Lewis, FAIA

Roger K. Lewis, FAIA is a practicing architect and urban designer, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, author, and journalist.

In 1964, Mr. Lewis received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the Peace Corps where he served for two years as a volunteer architect in Tunisia. Thereafter, he returned to MIT where he received a Master of Architecture. From 1968 – 2006, Lewis taught architectural design at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, which he helped to establish. Lewis began his architecture and planning office in 1969, a practice that received numerous awards for a wide range of projects, including planned communities, affordable housing complexes, private homes, public schools, recreational facilities, and civic art centers.

In 1998, the U.S. General Services Administration appointed Lewis to its Design Excellence National Peer Committee, which reviews the design of federal projects throughout the country. Today, he periodically serves as a GSA design consultant.  For more than 20 years, Lewis has also been a member of the government-appointed Design Review Board for "Carlyle" and "Eisenhower East," two redevelopment areas of Alexandria, Virginia.

Mr. Lewis has served as Professional Advisor organizing and guiding a number of significant and successful national and international design competitions that culminated in built projects.  Examples include the University of Maryland College Park performing arts center; the Catholic University of America law school; the Silver Spring, Maryland, civic building and plaza; the State of Maryland World War II Memorial; the University of Baltimore law school; and the District Architecture Center.

Professor Lewis is the author or co-author of numerous professional journal articles and books, among them “Shaping the City,” published in 1987 by The AIA Press; The Growth Management Handbook; and the 2013 third edition of Architect? A Candid Guide to the Profession, first published by The MIT Press in 1985.

Lewis is currently president and chair of the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation where he is leading the effort to create a modestly scaled commemorative work in the nation's capital that will honor the historically significant of the 1961 founding of the Peace Corps.  In November 2013, the Washington Architectural Foundation presented Professor Lewis its eighth annual John "Wieb" Wiebenson Award for Architecture in the Public Interest, recognizing Professor Lewis as "A Champion of Design for the Greater Good."

Credits

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

SIGAL Gallery

Opening Reception & Awards Ceremony
Tuesday, December 16, 2014, 6 – 8 pm

The District Architecture Center proudly presents Showstoppers!, an exhibition of award-winning projects from the 2014 AIA|DC Chapter Design Awards. This year, more than 200 projects were submitted to the competition. Of those submissions, 30 projects were selected by a jury of practitioners from around the country and Canada. As in previous years, the jurors knew nothing of the submissions before travelling to Washington. AIA|DC believes a blind competition levels the playing field for those who participate.

The exhibition features designs awarded in architecture, as well as recognitions of excellence or merit for interior architecture, historic resources, and urban design/master planning—a new category. As with previous competitions, honorable mentions and presidential citations were also awarded to commendable projects.

The exhibition coincides with the Winter 2014 edition of ArchitectureDC Magazine where the winning projects are published.

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

Credits

The exhibition is organized by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery

Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 14, 6 – 7:30 pm

Using Historic Congressional Cemetery as a theoretical site, students from The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning will present design proposals for a rarely talked-about, yet intriguing topic that inevitably touches us all: architecture of loss, life, and learning.

Each project focuses on the emotional and spiritual dimensions of architecture expressed through color, light, materiality, and texture, characteristics thoughtfully balanced with the economical and functional requirements of this building type. The studio further explains, “The Aedes Mortis confronts death, mourning and loss head-on. The Aedificium Memoriarum presents an interesting challenge for designers to extract the essence of the poetic and the spiritual, to celebrate the figurative and literal weight of the gravestones, to fulfill the expectations and requirements of the conservation labs, and to address its “front yard” of the field of cemetery markers.”

The comprehensive studio, led by Associate Professor Julie Ju-Youn Kim, partnered with leading professionals and their firms to support goals of integration in the studio. The partners include Duncan Lyons, RIBA, Gensler; Anik Jhaveri, AIA, JACOBS; Scott Kilbourn, AIA, Perkins Eastman; Robert Berry, AIA, RTKL; Doug Dahlkemper, AIA, SmithGroupJJR; and Rod Garrett, FAIA, SOM.

This exhibition is organized and made possible by The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery with generous support from ABC Imaging.

Sorg Gallery

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present "Cover Stories: ArchitectureDC Magazine, 2003 – 2014", an exhibition of engaging cover stories published by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|DC) since 2004.

ArchitectureDC is a magazine for consumers of architecture and design throughout the Washington metropolitan region. AIA|DC created the magazine to promote the work of its members, preview new architecture that impacts the region, and bring attention to new trends in home furnishings. ArchitectureDC was formerly known as AIADC Magazine from 1999 – 2002 and published by Dawson Publications, Inc. through 2003 when the name changed.

The magazine is published quarterly and distributed to over 22,000 subscribers. Readers discover stories about award-winning commercial, institutional, or residential projects, in addition to cutting-edge trends in the architecture industry and new developments affecting small towns and big cities throughout the region.  The magazine received a Gold Circle Award in 2008 from the American Society of Association Executives for excellence in print publishing.

This exhibition unveils many of the covers that brought ArchitectureDC recognition and continued readership throughout its tenure. Covers are arranged by composition and organized by themes: Sites for Moving & Gathering; Environments for Working; Centers for Learning; Spaces for Eating & Entertaining; and Places for Living. Together, the covers show that the Washington market really supports progressive architecture, a fact that is often surprising to outsiders. Copies of past issues will also be displayed, encouraging exhibition-goers to revisit these covers and the stories within.

ArchitectureDC is a free publication. Subscribe online at www.aiadc.com.

The exhibition is organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery and designed and modeled in ArchiCAD18.  This exhibit, like many others, is generously supported by our longstanding partnership with ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery

Opening Reception
Tuesday, April 28, 6-8pm

The District Architecture Center is pleased to present reVISION::Thinking Big, New Projects in Washington DC, an exhibition focusing on five phased, mixed-use projects currently in design, in the final stages of development review, or under construction: The Yards, The Wharf, Burnham Place at Union Station, Capitol Crossing, and McMillan. Organized around three themes—reconnecting to the water, building above barriers, and repurposing public works—the exhibition examines the theories and context behind each project’s design as well as the complexity inherent in projects of such vision and scope. 

Highways, rail yards, industrial sites, and relics of mid-twentieth century urban renewal have long posed significant physical barriers in Washington, DC. These uses have been inserted into and disrupted the city’s historic street/block pattern conceived by Pierre L’Enfant, severing public access to the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and occupying large swaths of its neighborhoods. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, planning efforts coupled with economic resurgence and population growth have generated new opportunities and ideas about how these disconnections can be repaired. The potential for reconnecting the city’s fabric has sparked development interest in—and a new vision for—urban sites overlooked or once considered too difficult and inaccessible.

The five projects are large in scale and express a grand vision for their place in the city—consistent with Washington as a city of grand visions. The first was defined by the L’Enfant Plan of 1791, which laid out a capital of broad diagonal avenues and a grid of streets with a core of civic buildings and a central green. The McMillan Plan of 1901 reinforced the central elements of the L’Enfant Plan and led to the National Mall we know today. A well-intentioned but less successful vision for the city was the urban renewal program of the mid-twentieth century that intended to revitalize the city but sacrificed a Southwest neighborhood.

The projects are ambitious. They envision reconnection; redevelopment of sites characterized by obsolete or inappropriate uses; and transformation of these sites into economically vibrant destinations for living, working, shopping, and recreation. Several of the projects repair the historic fabric of the L’Enfant Plan frayed by earlier development. Others look beyond the historic core.

Above Left: The Yards, Photo by David Galen / Above Right: The Wharf, Courtesy of Perkins Eastman DC

Above Left: Burnham Place at Union Station, Courtesy of Akridge / Shalom Baranes Associates / Above Right: Capitol Crossing, Courtesy of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC

Above: McMillan, Courtesy of Perkins Eastman / Interface Multimedia

The exhibition will feature graphic panels illustrated to show historic conditions, existing problems, and future solutions through historic and contemporary photographs, maps, analytical diagrams, architectural drawings, and concept renderings. Architectural scale-models will also show the planned developments, and videos will highlight each neighborhood’s history, as well as precedents and design theories that inspired each project.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery. Production made possible by ABC Imaging. Designed and modeled in ArchiCAD18.

AIA|DC/District Architecture Center: Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA, Executive Director; Daniel Fox, Assistant Director;

Exhibition Committee: David Haresign, FAIA, Bonstra|Haresign ARCHITECTS, Chairman; Matthew Bell, FAIA, Perkins Eastman; Mark Gilliand, FAIA, Shalom Baranes Associates; Roger K. Lewis, FAIA, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland; William Powers, AIA, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; Lee Quill, FAIA, Cunningham+Quill Architects; Rita Abraham Yurow, Sorg Architects

Curator: Mary Konsoulis, AICP, Consulting for Creative Community

Exhibition Designer: Scott Clowney, AIA|DC/District Architecture Center

Graphic Designer: Jennifer Byrne, Live.Create.Play.LLC

Digital Information Coordinator: Bradley W. Johnson, AIA|DC/District Architecture Center

Location Maps by Taylor Stout, Graduate Student in Architecture and Real Estate Development, University of Maryland

History/Analysis PowerPoint Videos by the Graduate Architecture Seminar in Urban Design, University of Maryland, Prof. Matthew Bell, FAIA: Christopher Allen, Lubna Chaudhry, Golnar Ershad, Elizabeth Hampton, Kara Johnston, David Leestma, Luke Petrocelli, Shira Rosenthal, Siobhan Steen, Arica Thornton, Nader Wallerich, Richard Watt

Sponsors

reVISION::Thinking Big is made possible by the generous support of the following sponsors:

AECOM
Akridge
Beyer Blinder Belle
Bonstra | Haresign ARCHITECTS
Cunningham | Quill Architects
Hoffman Madison
Jair Lynch Development Partners
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, LLC
Kohn Pederson Fox
LAB Inc.
Lee & Associates
Michael Vergason Landscape Architects, Ltd.
MV+A Architects
Nelson Bryd Woltz Landscape Architects
Perkins Eastman
Property Group Partners
Shalom Baranes Associates, Architects
Silman
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

SIGAL Gallery

June 24 – July 25, 2015
 

Architecture in the Schools (AIS), a program of the Washington Architectural Foundation, matches volunteer architects with public school teachers to enrich the learning experience of children. Since 1992, AIS has reached more than 20,000 children throughout metropolitan Washington, DC.

When planning this eight-week program, volunteer architects and classroom teachers collaborate to organize discussions, presentations, and hands-on activities, as well as field trips or neighborhood walks to support a selected theme for the term. The classroom teacher and volunteers co-teach daily lessons and work together to ensure the success of the program. Volunteers, teacher, and students choose a final project to conclude the experience—the culmination of principles and skills learned throughout the program. Students use hand sketches, photographs, and models made of cardboard, paper, and other craft materials to produce the project.

This annual exhibition celebrates their achievements.

Architecture in the Schools is generously sponsored by the Commonweal Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Humanities Council of Washington DC, The Kinder Morgan Foundation, and the Dorothea de Schweinitz Fund for the District of Columbia of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Credits

Organized by the Washington Architectural Foundation in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and generously supported by ABC Imaging.

SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery
 

Opening Reception
Wednesday, September 9, 6:00PM - 7:30PM

Walking Tour: Nature on the National Mall
Saturday, September 12, 12:00PM - 2:00PM

An Evening with the Curator
Monday, September 14, 6:00PM - 7:30PM

Tour: Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
Thursday, September 17, 3:00PM - 4:30PM

The District Architecture Center is pleased to host Nature in the Walkable City, an exhibition of artwork by Studio 155 artists who will illustrate – through fine art – how nature enriches urban living and is best experienced on foot.

Beginning with Pierre L’Enfant’s vision for a grand capital, Washington was planned to have nature surround, nurture, and sustain us. Formal and informal landscapes provide pleasure and practical benefits for residents and visitors alike. The large number of trees and parks, as well as the city’s two beautiful, accessible rivers, are a source of delight.

The city has long inspired artists. The 15 artists of Studio 155 offer different perspectives on Washington’s beauty, character, and livability. They depict trees, plants, and wildlife that complement our buildings and streets.

Wild, planted, formal, or accidental plants and wildlife function together within a particular environment of soil, water, topography, sunlight, and climate. Together they enrich the built environment.

Selected Works

Above: Eva-Maria Ruhl, Boulder Bridge

Above Left: Donald Beekman Myer, FAIA, Corn Capital / Above Right: Michael Rawson, Buffalo & Elms, East Capitol Front

About Studio 155

In 2004, the Corcoran College of Art + Design featured Botanical Treasures of Lewis & Clark: New Art for the Bicentennial, an exhibition celebrating the bicentennial of the explorers’ return from their historic journey. At this time, the partcipating artists formed Studio 155. Since that time, they have exhibited artwork as a group at multiple venues, including the Adah Rose Gallery, Delaware Art Museum, and The Cosmos Club.

Studio 155 members include Debbie Bankert, Roberta Matthews Bernstein, Elizabeth Ward Carter, Wendy W. Cortesi, Jan Denton, Jill Hodgson, Eileen Malone-Brown, Vicki Malone, Donald Beekman Myer, FAIA, Kappy Prosch, Michael Rawson, Eva-Maria Ruhl, Ellen Tuttle, Juliana Weihe, S. M. Wilson.

Credits

Organized by Studio 155 in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery. Support generously provided by ABC Imaging. Designed and modeled in ArchiCAD18.

Coordinating Committee: Donald Beekman Myer, FAIA; Michael Rawson; Eva-Maria Ruhl
AIA|DC Review Committee: Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA, Executive Director; Daniel Fox, Assistant Director
Exhibition Coordinator, Exhibition & Graphic Designer: Scott Clowney, Assoc. AIA
Digital Information Coordinator: Bradley W. Johnson
Educational & Public Programming: Beth Judy; Katie Spencer
Installation Team: Tim Anderson; Scott Clowney, Assoc. AIA; Bradley W. Johnson

SIGAL Gallery
 

CAE Fall Social & Exhibit Opening
Wednesday, October 7, 6:30PM - 8:00PM

Keynote Lecture & Closing Reception
Monday, October 26, 6:30PM - 8:00PM

This exhibition spotlights design excellence in K-12 educational facilities around the world. Collectively, the projects convey high quality environments which are innovative in their approach to providing flexible and adaptable design solutions for teaching and learning. Each project demonstrates a well-considered approach to community place-making; integration of sustainable building features that support environmental literacy; flexible and adaptable spaces that support multiple modes of teaching and learning; and a focus on space that fosters the development of the whole child.

Credits

Organized by the Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE/DC) in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery. Support generously provided ABC Imaging. Exhibition designed and modeled in ArchiCAD19.

Sponsors

Benefactor Sponsorship

• V/S

Supporting Sponsorship

• Brailsford & Dunlavey      
• Quinn Evans Architects                     
• Smoot Construction                          
• Spartan Surfaces
• Whiting-Turner Contracting

Contributing Sponsorship

• Perkins Eastman  
• cox graae + spack architects
• Bretford Manufacturing
• Hess Construction

SIGAL Gallery + Sorg Gallery
 

AIA|DC is pleased to present The Awards Show, the first annual exhibition combining award-winning projects from three of its most celebrated competitions: Unbuilt Awards, Washingtonian Residential Awards, and Chapter Design Awards. Each year, AIA|DC organizes these competitions to award architectural practitioners, educators, and students within the community who demonstrate excellence in design.

The exhibition features 34 award-winning projects, divided into three competition-focused sections, respectively: explore theoretical and unbuilt commissioned projects in Unbuilt Awards; single family, multifamily, and mixed-used residential projects in Residential Awards; and architectural, interior, historic, urban design, and master plan projects in Design Awards.

Image Credits

Unbuilt Awards: mcdowellespinosa, Delirious Detroit by mcdowellespinosa
Washingtonian Residential Design Awards: Pepper Watkins, Shop / House at Naylor Court by E/L Studio
Chapter Design Awards: Michael McLaughlin Studios, The Crossing by Travis Price Architects / Spirit of Place - Design Institute

Credits

The Awards Show is organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery. Support generously provided ABC Imaging. Exhibition designed and modeled in ArchiCAD19.

AIA|DC Review Committee: Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA, Executive Director; Daniel Fox, Assistant Director
Exhibition Coordinator: Scott Clowney, Assoc. AIA
Digital Information Coordinator: Bradley W. Johnson
Communications Coordinator: Asya Snejnevski
Programs Director: Katie Spencer
Installation: Scott Clowney, Assoc. AIA; Bradley W. Johnson

SIGAL Gallery Storefront

Fire is central to the winter experience. The hearth, a symbol for this time of celebration and community, can represent an architectural antidote to the impending dark and cold winter months. It is around fire and hearth that friends and families—even whole communities—gather to cook, share stories, and bond in its warmth and glow.

Walk by the District Architecture Center this holiday season to be warmed by the light of the Wonderland storefront display.

About the Designers

Cooper Jones and Maureen McGee recently moved to DC from San Francisco where Jones worked for Iwamotto Scott Architects and McGee worked for Andrew Mann Architecture. The husband-and-wife team collaborated on several design projects in San Francisco between 2013 – 2014, including two winter storefront installations for Faye’s Video and Espresso Bar in the Mission District.

Excited to be living and working in DC, Cooper now works for Jones & Boer Architects while Maureen works for McGraw Bagnoli Architects.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery storefront. Designed by Cooper Jones and Maureen McGee, winners of the Wonderland 2015 competition. Support generously provided ABC Imaging.