AIA Kansas City: The American Institute of Architects

It is no April Fool’s joke… yaf is bringing you a renowned Architect all the way from Italy to speak for one night only in the City of Fountains.

Here are the details:
yaf Lecture | Andrea Ponsi | Drawing Analogies

The lecture is free and open to the public.
April 1st, 2010 (5:30pm Reception; 6:30pm Lecture) @ Kansas City Design Center, 1018 Baltimore KCMO

http://www.andreaponsi.it/home_content.html

AIGA KC presents “Operation: Green Office,” a hands-on workshop that will give you the opportunity to help transform a local non-profit office into an example of sustainable design. “Operation: Green Office” will include experts in architecture from Davison Architecture and BNIM, facilities management from Facility Engineering Associates (FEA), graphic design from our very own AIGA Kansas City, as well as many creative-minded designers.

Join us on April 1st at the office of our selected non-profit: Outreach International, a humanitarian organization located in the historic Independence Square that currently works in 14 impoverished countries around the world, assisting hundreds of thousands of children, women and men to overcome the effects of poverty each year.

Registration fee is $10. Proceeds will benefit Outreach International.
Space is limited to 30, so reserve now to be part of this unique event.

Moderators:
Dominique Davison, AIA NCARB / LEED AP
Davison Architecture + Urban Design

Teena G. Shouse, CFM, IFMA Fellow
Senior FM Consultant , FEA Associates, Leawood, Kansas

Kristen Long, AIA / LEED AP
Associate, BNIM Architects

Ryan Jones, AIGA KC

For more information: http://www.kansascity.aiga.org

Andrea Ponsi, renowned Italian architect, writer, product designer and artist, will be lecturing at the College of Architecture, Planning and Design at Kansas State University. His slide-illustrated presentation is entitled and is scheduled for Friday, April 2, 2010, at 3:30 p.m. in the Little Theatre of the K-State Student Union.

The lecture is open to the public without charge.

Andrea Ponsi was born in Viareggio and graduated in Florence in 1974 under Leonardo Savioli. He then took a Master’s in Architecture at the Architectural Association in London and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Since the early 70’s, Ponsi has focused on the relationship between ecology and architecture. In 1977, he published “The Solar House,” a monographic study on bioclimatic architecture. In the 1980s, he lived in San Francisco where he worked with Peter Calthorpe and Sim Van Der Ryn, drawing up projects based on the concept of environmental sustainability.

His work, both as a designer and as an architect, has been the subject of publications and personal exhibitions in Italy, the U.S. and South America. In 2000, he won the international competition for the building of the Palos Verdes Art Center in Los Angeles. His professional activity also includes urban furnishing projects, commercial interiors and preparing exhibitions. As a product designer, he holds numerous patents.

Ponsi has taught architectural planning and design at several universities, including the University of California in Berkeley, the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel and the University of Toronto. At present, he is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University and Kent State University in Florence and in the United States.

He is also the author of a number of monographs on his design activity (“Elementary Design,” “The Copper House,” “Thinking Lines”) and two studies on urban space (“Florence: A Map of Perceptions” and “Firenze Changing Viewpoints”).

Clafl in Books and Copies will have copies of “Florence: A Map of Perceptions” available for purchase and signing by the author at the conclusion of this lecture.

Attendance at the lecture can be submitted as continuing education credit by design professionals by contacting Diane Potts.

Uban Core Group volunteers are having an urban bazaar. We have found a space, filled it full of antiques, household furnishings, collectibles and more. 10% of the proceeds will go to the UCG so we can keep your membership dues low and offer you more. Spread the word; there are many unique and valuable items.

**If you want to volunteer or if you have something to sell, please call Marion at 816-979-1060

The University of Kansas invites you to join them for a lecture presented by LIZ OGBU of PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE at 100 Stauffer-Flint.

Join us for the April Social Hour at Davison Architecture + Urban Design. The Social Hour will begin after the Monthly AIA KC Board Meeting at 5:30pm.

Davison Architecture + Urban Design provides a full range of professional services in architecture, interior, and urban design. Our work reflects a continued commitment to achieving distinct, sustainable, and responsible solutions – not only for our clients but for the community. Our design and research focused collaborative uses new technologies to create innovative spaces and thoughtful details.

We have recently moved our offices to 405 SW Boulevard in the Crossroads, a historic building whose renovation and restoration was designed by DA+UD, and was recently named a Sustainable Success Story by the Mid America Regional Council.

The SUSTAINABLE KC 2010 Green Energy Conference brings together construction, engineering, design and facilities professionals for a one-day conference exploring the realities of optimizing energy use, applying renewable energy strategies, and navigating the growing sustainability construction market.

Join us for this full day conference which will cover topics such as liability issues, energy audits, financing and renewable energy. Click here for program information.

This program will be worth 6 SD credits. If you are an AIA, USGBC or IBEW member please check the YES box on the registration page where it says Are You an AIA Member? in order to receive the member discount.

Join us for a FREE two-day training workshop for builders, remodelers, architects or anyone else interested in being at the forefront of this fast emerging trend. This course will cover all business aspects of deconstruction including: – Safety – Debris handling – Tools and equipment – Maintaining salvage values – Jobsite layout – Handling & shipping – Sequence of work – Deconstruction techniques – Jobsite inspection

Participants will receive a full-color deconstruction notebook, a certificate of completion, box lunches on both days and transportation between the classroom and jobsite. Note: this a managerial level training, not labor training.

To register, simply contact Mark Bullock with Habitat ReStore at 816-231-6889 ext.236 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Register now – space is limited.

A prominent scholar-lecturer in cultural studies will visit Kansas State University and the College of Architecture, Planning and Design. Terry Smith, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Art at the University of Pittsburgh, will present on Friday, April 9, at 4p in the Pierce Commons of Seaton Hall. The presentation is open to the public without charge.

Terry Smith’s extensive work and recent series of books treat the wider cultural contexts of art and architecture, including an important work on architecture after 9/11, The Architecture of Aftermath (University of Chicago Press, 2006). His recent What is Contemporary Art? (University of Chicago Press, 2009) theorizes art in the context of infl uential art museums, and his Making the Modern: Industry, Art and Design in America (University of Chicago Press, 1993) won the inaugural Georgia O’Keefe Museum Prize in 2009 for the best book on American art in the last 25 years. He has edited a number of other collections on topics ranging from the Aboriginal art of his native Australia, to masculinity, deconstruction and modernism.

He has been a board member on important museums from Sydney to Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum and co-founded a Media Action Group in Australia that provided graphic art services to unions and dissident groups. This year, the College Art Association gave Smith the distinction of the Jewett Mather Award for art journalism, an award that has been given to such luminaries as Clement Greenberg, Rosalind Krauss, Leo Steinberg and Arthur C. Danto. The award described Terry Smith as “that rare art and social historian able to write criticism at once alert to the forces that contextualize art and sensitive to the elements and qualities that inhere to the works of art themselves.”

While visiting K-State, Smith will also be conducting a seminar on Walter Benjamin. His visit is being sponsored by the Department of English, Hale Library, the Offi ce of the President and the College of Architecture, Planning and Design from the K-State Student Fine Arts Fee.

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project presents ARRIVAL / DEPARTURE

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 6-9PM
With performance by Leone Reeves & gallery talk with artists beginning at 6pm
Exhibition Hours: THURSDAYS + SATURDAYS, 12-5PM + by appointment
On view April 2-May 22, 2010

Kansas City Art Institute, Thursday, April 8, 7pm, Epperson Auditorium

Featured Artists: Cortney Andrews (Brooklyn, NY) , Anthony Baab (Kansas City, MO), Jonah Criswell (Kansas City, MO), Peter Demos (Brooklyn, NY), Dennis Dotty (St. Louis) , Rachel Frank (Brooklyn, NY), Lauren McEntire (Kansas City, MO) , Martin Murphy (Astoria, NY), Shawn Powell (Astoria, NY), Leone Reeves (Kansas City, MO), Alexis Semtner (Brooklyn, NY).
Curators: Maria Elena Buszek & Jonah Criswell (Kansas City, MO).

The exhibition Arrival/Departure brings together early career artists who recognize Kansas City as the site of their first significant contact with the art world, and as the place that launched them on careers as professional artists. A microcosm of contemporary art discourse, the Kansas City arts community informed the mediums, concepts and trajectories of these fledgling artist/thinkers. This exhibition brings back to Kansas City young Kansas City Art Institute alumni who have since gone on to build careers in other cities, as well as showcasing the work of peers who have remained here, or moved back to Kansas City after living and/or studying in other places. Since their undergraduate study at KCAI, these artists have gone to some of the country’s most prestigious graduate programs, exhibited regularly (both nationally and internationally), and worked closely with established artists, theorists and curators.

Decisively broad, Arrival/Departure explores the faces and concerns of art today, in work ranging from installation, performance and sculpture to experimen­tal drawing, fiber based works, painting and photography. It encompasses such con­cerns as: the animal, abstraction, body and memory, causality, domesticity, pop culture and the sublime. When placed in relation to each other, the themes made manifest in each artist’s body of work begins to articulate a system of complex concerns that are vital to field of contemporary art today. And in varied ways, each artist shares their current destination with their point of origin.