Previous |
Next Commuter-Rail Reading: 'Greening Your Office' and 'Biking to Work' |
February 29, 2008, 10:22 AM ET
Shop Talk: Better Design for the Disadvantaged, Design Students, and Eliphalet Nott
Better design for all: Michael Graves, the architect, household-goods designer, and Princeton University faculty member, is lending his name to a new effort by the American Institute of Architecture Schools to encourage students to create good, affordable designs for people with physical disadvantages. The campaign seeks to raise at least $2-million for Freedom by Design, which supports architecture students’ projects that offer “modest design/build solutions” to problems facing those with physical disabilities—such as Mr. Graves, who was paralyzed from the chest down by a 2003 infection. According to Interior Design, students from five architecture schools will be chosen to work on projects with Mr. Graves.
Better design for presidents: In 1861, the longtime president of Union College, Eliphalet Nott, finally moved out of quarters in the college’s south colonnade—which was designed by Joseph Jacques Ramée and is believed to have influenced Jefferson’s design for the University of Virginia—and into a proper president’s house. Now the handsome neo-Classical house is itself a landmark. It was designed by Nott’s grandson, Edward Tuckerman Potter, who also designed Union’s famous Nott Memorial, and the house still serves the college’s presidents. The latest occupants, Stephen C. Ainlay and his wife, Judith, have redecorated with the home’s history in mind, according to the Daily Gazette, a newspaper in the college’s hometown, Schenectady, N.Y.
Better design in Chelsea: In New York City, the School of the Visual Arts has signed a 26-year lease on a two-screen movie theater on 23rd Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood, and will renovate both the interior and exterior to designs by Milton Glaser, the designer, who is a faculty member at the school. The building, with 350- and 550-seat auditoriums, will be used for classes as well as for lectures, film screenings, and other public events, according to a news release.
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.