Last month, the AIA New York Chapter celebrated its highest annual awards and toasted the winners of the 2012 AIANY Design Awards at the annual Honors & Awards Luncheon at Cipriani Wall Street. This year, the AIANY Medal of Honor was awarded to Ennead Architects; the Award of Merit was conferred on Alexander Garvin, Hon. AIA New York; and Paul Goldberger, Hon. AIA was honored with the Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award. This was the first year that the chapter combined both the annual awards presentations and the Design Awards fete together at the luncheon. With over 800 guests from throughout the architectural, engineering, construction, and real estate trades, the event was a festive occasion for business networking, recognizing distinguished service to the architectural profession, and acknowledging outstanding achievement in design. For information on supporting future programs, exhibitions, and events at AIANY and the Center for Architecture, please visit www.aiany.org/support.
Every year, AIANY honors architects, philanthropists, public servants, and organizations that are committed to improving communities through design excellence. The chapter's annual honors and Design Awards reinforce the AIA's central principle: design matters.
This year's exemplary projects highlight some of the issues that we are exploring with the 2012 presidential theme, FutureNow. We are focusing on positive changes that AIA members, public officials, and other colleagues can accomplish to improve the profession, our cities, and the wider world. Programs this year highlight how our activities, advocacy, and projects can help shape the built environment and the future of New York. This year, our chapter's highest honors went to those who have re-imagined the architectural fabric of New York City and beyond. The AIANY Design Awards 2012 exhibition of winning projects opened on April 19, and will remain on view at the Center for Architecture through May 31. For more information on the Design Awards winning projects, please visit www.aiany.org/designawards.
I am very pleased that the first FutureNow-related exhibition, New Practices New York 2012 will open on June 14, with an exhibition opening reception from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Center for Architecture. The reception is free and open to the public; it will showcase the works of seven emerging New York City-based architectural practices, chosen by the New Practices jury as representing the best promising and pioneering new architecture and design firms. To qualify for the competition, practices had to be founded since 2006 and be located within the five boroughs of New York City. This was the second year that the New Practices New York competition was open to multidisciplinary firms, widening the field of entrants to designers and young professionals in the process of becoming licensed architects. In addition to having the chance to exhibit their work at the Center for Architecture, the winning practices will present their respective portfolios and theories of practice at individual monthly events at the New Practices New York underwriter Hansgrohe North America's Axor studio, a 3,000 s/f space on the top floor of the Vitra store, at 29 Ninth Ave., in the Meatpacking district. The first program will be held on the evening of June 28. I encourage you all to come hear these outstanding emerging architects and designers present their visions for the future of practice. Please check www.aiany.org/calendar for dates and times of the monthly New Practices New York events at the Axor studio.
The AIANY Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) Committee will also open an exhibition, presented as part of FutureNow, the 2012 AIA New York Chapter Presidential Theme, in July. The winning entries of The Harlem Edge | Cultivating Connections, the fifth biennial ENYA design ideas competition, will be exhibited at the Center for Architecture. The competition asked entrants to propose ideas to redevelop the abandoned Department of Sanitation marine transfer station on 135th St. at the Hudson River. Entries re-imagined the station as something adding value to an underserved community, with public access to the waterfront, public programming, and introducing the area and subsequent community to sustainable urban agriculture in partnership with the local non-profit organization NourishingNYC.
The Harlem Edge | Cultivating Connections competition is an outstanding example of how architects and designers will have a lasting impact on the future of the City of New York, and it is very exciting to engage young architects and designers in the process of improving communities through partnerships and participation. Likewise, the emerging firms that won the New Practices New York competition are already shaping the built environment and the theories of the future of architectural practice in New York and beyond, proving the value design excellence adds to urban life. I look forward to welcoming you to the Center for Architecture to share in the experience of creating New York's FutureNow.
Joseph Aliotta, AIA, is the 2012 president of the N.Y. chapter of the AIA, New York, N.Y.


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