Designing the Factory of the Future

One of the most exciting projects happening at Rogers Partners is the collaboration with Nanotronics to reimagine a historic building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a fully integrated advanced manufacturing facility and headquarters. Nanotronics has a vision for reinventing the high-tech production process as a seamless workspace, from idea to design to engineering to sales. This requires a complete rethinking not only of this historic building, but also how to design for a cutting edge production process in the urban context. The shared goal is nothing short of bringing advanced manufacturing back to the urban core. From Fast Company: …

WXY receives distinguished AIA merits

  Co-founder and principal-in-charge Claire Weisz recently received an AIA New York Medal of Honor, its highest award to a member for distinction in the profession. The jury cited Claire’s “distinguished work and high professional standing.” Additionally, co-founder and principal Mark Yoes was recently elevated to Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, the national group’s highest honor recognizing “exceptional work and lasting contributions to architecture and society.” For more than 25 years, Claire and her partners – including Mark, Adam Lubinsky, PhD, AICP, and Layng Pew, AIA – have evolved WXY into a truly integrated interdisciplinary firm by working across architecture, …

Claire Weisz on Resilient Design

It has been an honor and privilege to work with Claire Weisz, principal-in-charge of WXY architecture + urban design, on an important article, published by Architectural Design/Wiley in this beautiful book, SU+RE: Sustainable + Resilient Design Systems. Claire’s article, titled Resilient Design: Systems Thinking as a Response to Climate Change, argues that “design thinking” needs to be coupled with “systems thinking” in order to adequately deal with the magnitude of climate change, and surprisingly it is smaller, interdisciplinary firms that are leading the way when it comes to innovative systems-thinking approaches to the big problems of climate change. “Design thinking is not enough. For resilient architecture and …

Where Resiliency Hits the Road

I have a new piece in the Fall 2017 issue of Oculus: Should resilience officers focus on preparing for climate change? When it comes to this existential challenge, there’s not even a consensus on this seemingly basic question. “Where Resiliency Hits the Road:  How those at the forefront of adapting to climate change and natural disasters are implementing effective projects at scale.” “No other approach to design encompasses the existential concepts of time and space like resilient design. The response to climate change is necessary at all scales – from the one-acre public plaza to the regional oastline to the multi-state …

WXY in LA, Toronto, and DC

Claire Weisz, principal-in-charge of WXY architecture + urban design, will be on a distinguished panel of experts discussing the latest mobility innovations and what that means for public space. What can Los Angeles — and the Arts District in particular — learn from New York City projects, such as Astor Place and the Brooklyn Strand? Find out when Claire speaks on Dec. 19th at LA CoMotion. At the City Age Toronto conference — just on the heels of Sidewalk Labs’ announcement to create an innovation district on the Toronto waterfront — Claire will be discussing the firm’s work developing three …

Michael Murphy and John Cary on Design For Good

How does a first-year grad student of architecture end up designing a ground-breaking hospital in Rwanda? Find out on my latest Common Edge Podcast as I talk with Michael Murphy, co-founder of MASS Design, which just won a National Design Award. And then stay tuned for John Cary, author of Design For Good: A New Era of Architecture For Everyone, which features projects by MASS Design and other firms that are tightly integrating architectural design and social justice. Both Murphy and Cary have a lot to say about what the profession should be doing to break down the barriers that …

Justin Davidson on the Common Edge Podcast

ICYMI, I interviewed Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York magazine, for the Common Edge Podcast. We talk about his new book, Magnetic City, and a host of other architecture and urban design issues, such as how the role of the architecture critic has evolved; the imminent collapse of the skinny condo tower market; and why he’s optimistic about the still evolving World Trade Center site.

Parks as Infrastructure

WXY was invited to submit an article for the AIANYS Winter Quarterly magazine focused on transportation and infrastructure, so we wrote about parks! It might seem incongruous but that is, in fact, how Claire and her design team at WXY approached two very different park designs—the Brooklyn Strand and the Rockaway Boardwalk—as opportunities to resolve a host of infrastructure issues and to facilitate resilience and connectivity. “It is not enough for parks to exist as single-use islands of tranquility. Today’s parks need to do much more: build infrastructure, provide connectivity and increase resilience—as well as offer urbanites of all ages …

New Clients

WXY is an award-winning architecture and urban planning firm in New York City working primarily in the public realm. Recent projects include the Salt Shed, the Astor Place and Cooper Square urban design plan, and the Brooklyn Strand. WXY uniquely integrates architecture, urban planning and design to solve complex challenges facing today’s cities. The National Development Council is the oldest and most comprehensive non-profit community development corporation in the country. NDC works across all sectors to revitalize communities: small business lending, affordable housing and urban redevelopment. Projects from Seattle to Ithaca have become models for public-private partnerships. The historic renovation …

Teaching at GSAPP

More than a decade after studying urban planning at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, I will be teaching a class starting Fall 2015 titled, “Communications For the Built Environment” (PLA6608) — or as I like to call it, “Write Like You Give A Damn.” Architects, urban designers and planners spend much of their time on graphics and mapping, statistical analysis and other forms of information. But few recognize the importance of writing and storytelling for winning clients, responding to RFPs, positioning a firm’s brand, creating presentations, etc. So that’s what students will learn to do in a multi-disciplinary …