At the Providence Preservation Society's annual award ceremony to be held at Brown University's Nelson Fitness Center, Gary Brewer, RAMSA Project Partner for the building, will talk about its design and the role of traditional architecture on Brown's campus.  The Society will honor Brown's President, Ruth Simmons, for her role in shepherding numerous renovation and restoration projects on the campus.

Tickets to the event can be purchased here.

At the twentieth annual Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), RAMSA Partner Paul Whalen will present "The Paradox of Emerging Cities." The presentation will discuss of Heart of Lake, a two-million-square-foot high-density garden suburb on Huxindao Island in Xiamen, a major coastal city in southern China. This planned pedestrian community adapts traditional Chinese and Mediterranean architecture to local culture, climate, and technology; it also incorporates sustainable design practices.

CNU 20 will focus on how New Urbanist practices, principles, and applications can address the extraordinary economic upheaval of recent years that has brought an end to the readily available capital and supercharged growth that fueled a “bigger is better” approach, and advance high quality urbanism through a more incremental, attainable, “small is beautiful” approach. The CNU engages in its mission of excellence by generating new ideas about development, implementation, education, coding, sustainability, and problem-solving using New Urbanist principles.

RAMSA Partner Gary Brewer will speak at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain on May 2, 2012.  “Arcadia for Everyone:  The Rise and Fall of the Garden Suburb” will cover significant examples of design responses to unplanned sprawl.  Presenting European and American projects from Ebenezer Howard's Garden City to Seaside and Celebration, Florida, Gary will describe the impact that density, a mix of uses, pedestrian activity, codes, building quality, and other issues have on the experience of the modern town. He will conclude with a discussion of pattern book houses including examples from his own work.   

“Robert A.M. Stern: 15 Central Park West and the History of the New York Apartment House,” a Checkerboard Films production, will screen twice at Chicago’s Architecture & Design Film Festival.  In the film, Mr. Stern explains why apartment buildings of past decades appealed to so many affluent city dwellers and the lessons learned by examining the apartment houses' design and construction.  He also provides an in depth account of the influences and inspiration behind the design of 15 Central Park West, one of the most successful residential buildings to rise in New York in decades.

The Architecture & Design Film Festival is the nation’s largest film festival celebrating the creative spirit behind some of the world’s most remarkable architecture and design.  The festival features talk-backs (Q & A?) and panels with industry leaders, book signings, and two days of architectural driving tours sponsored by Audi.

RAMSA Partner Gary Brewer will present at the Seventh Annual Design Leadership Summit in Marrakech, Morocco, April 12.  Mr. Brewer will trace the history of published house plans (pattern-books) and offer a comprehensive survey of their influence on the structure and the style of American houses from the 1700s to the present. The summit, running from April 11-14, will assemble principals of leading architecture and design firms to galvanize ideas and actions through seminars, tours, and networking.  The Design Leadership Summit was founded and is hosted by Peter Sallick of Design Investors and Keith Granet of Granet & Associates. This year's theme is “Defining and Discovering Value.”  RAMSA Partner Roger Seifter will also attend the Summit.

Alexander Lamis will speak on “The Architect’s Vision” panel at the 2012 Architectural Digest Home Design Show discussing how he and his colleagues are creating total environments, embracing the design of buildings and also furnishings.  Mr. Lamis will also introduce RAMSA’s New York Home Collection at Booth 709.

Alexander Gorlin will be on the panel with Mr. Lamis.  Julie Iovine, Executive Editor of The Architect’s Newspaper, will moderate.

The 11^th annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show 2012 will bring together design professionals and feature exhibits from nearly 400 premium brands; a keynote presentation by Margaret Russell, Architectural Digest’s Editor-in-Chief; design seminars; cooking demonstrations and tastings; complimentary on-on-one design consultations; and more.  For tickets to the show, please go to: https://www.microspec.com/tix123/eTic.cfm?code=ARCH2012

RAMSA has designed and donated a robe to CELEBRATE: THE WEARABLE, Architecture and Design Museum's live auction and fundraising gala.  The robe is modeled on the traditional flowing wide-sleeved boubous worn by men in West Africa, interpreted in two fabrics from Robert A.M. Stern Architects' 2011 collection for C.F. Stinson, one evoking basketweave construction and the other inspired by Malian masonry walls. 

CELEBRATE: THE WEARABLE brings together design leaders and creative thinkers from around the country.  This year the festivities will consist of a runway show and live auction of wearable creations.

The robe was designed by RAMSA Partner Daniel Lobitz.

RAMSA Partner Daniel Lobitz will take part in the panel discussion "Driving Principles of Museum Design: Civic Participation and Curatorial Responsibility" at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museum's 8^th annual symposium.

Urban museums share goals of inviting physical presence, programmatic openness to the community, and curatorial responsibility. Presenting the Museum for African Art as a case study, Mr. Lobitz and representatives from the Museum will describe the design of a new museum that will display, preserve, and interpret important art and at the same time serve as a gathering place for a vibrant local and global cultural community.

Joining Mr. Lobitz on the panel will be the Museum's Deputy Director & Chief Operating Officer, Kenita Lloyd; Curator for Contemporary Art, Lisa Binder; and Director of Development & Theater Programs, Marietta Ulacia.

Paul L. Whalen will  present a lecture on "High Rise Living - New York and Beyond" at the National Arts Club, discussing examples of his signature apartment houses across the country and in Asia.  The National Arts Club, dedicated to encouraging awareness of and interest in the built environment and educating the community about buildings and their designers, occupies the landmarked Tilden Mansion (Calvert Vaux, 1885) on New York's Gramercy Park.

More information can be found on the National Arts Club website.

Grant Marani will be a panelist at the New York Green Build Solutions Forum, which will provide a platform to build greater awareness of Australia's Green Building capability. The seminar is part of G’Day USA’s Australia Week, and will be held at the Palace Hotel, 455 Madison Avenue, New York, New York.

More information about the seminar can be found at G’Day USA’s website.

Robert A.M. Stern will give Drexel University’s Farajollah & Maryam Badie AARFA lecture in Architecture, sponsored by Drexel’s Department of Architecture + Interiors. 

More information about the lecture series can be found on Drexel's website.

Robert A.M. Stern will participate in "Zoning The City: Addressing New York City’s 21st Century Challenges, " a day-long conference designed to cultivate new thinking about zoning as a governmental tool to help New York compete globally, to offer economic and social opportunities for all its citizens, to ensure a sustainable environment, and to enhance the public realm the 21st century.

Co-chaired by New York City Planning Department Director Amanda Burden and Harvard University Professor Jerold S. Kayden, and sponsored by the New York City Department of City Planning, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and the Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute of Baruch College, the conference will feature prominent experts who will describe the challenges facing New York City and the role zoning should and should not play in meeting them.

For more information about the conference, please visit the Zoning the City web site.

RAMSA Partner Meghan McDermott will be on the panel, “Reflections on 25 Years in Real Estate: Density, Sustainability, and Global Finance," part of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation “Real Estate Development Program: 25th Anniversary Celebration Weekend.” The panel of architect and design professionals will discuss sustainability and environmental aspects of real estate development.  Other panel discussions will address density and the built environment as well global finance.  A cocktail reception will follow the symposium.  The symposium is organized by Kate Ascher, the Milstein Professor of Urban Development at the GSAPP.

For more information and tickets to the symposium, please visit the Columbia GSAPP web site.

Reconsidering Postmodernism, a two-day conference sponsored by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art and the Schools of Architecture of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Miami, will gather leading scholars, practitioners, and critics for a rigorous round of lectures, film tributes, and panel discussions.  The themes of the conference—the historic significance of Postmodernsim, its impact on design education and public taste, theoretical underpinnings, contemporary appraisal, lessons learned and lessons forgotten—will illuminate Postmodernism’s overall cultural impact.

RAMSA Partner Gary Brewer, who conceived and organized the conference, will give opening remarks on Friday, November 11 at 9:00 am.  Robert A.M. Stern will be participating in the panel discussion “Postmodernism: Looking Back” on November 11 at 6:45 pm.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ICAA web site.

On November 3, 2011 Alexander Lamis will participate in the “Crossing Into Product Design” panel at Architectural Record’s “Innovation Conference 2011: Crossing Borders and Disciplines.” He and architects Nicholas Holt and Hilary Sample will discuss how their firms got involved in the product design, how product design influences their architectural projects and vice versa, what major challenges their firms have faced entering the product design market, and what new technologies and skills they have developed by expanding into the area of making “things.”

Architectural Record Innovation Conference 2011 will bring together design professionals who demonstrate, through case studies, how they have effectively crossed boundaries and disciplines to increase their impact on the built environment.  

To veiw Mr. Lamis's presentation, please visit the Conference web site.