Over the summer, Marble Fairbanks moved our office location from DUMBO to Flatiron. We are grateful to have our team back together working in-person and for the return of client meetings in our new space. If you haven’t already stopped by, please come visit us at our new location or join us for lunch in Madison Square Park.
Karen was recently elevated to a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and honored by AIANY’s Women in Architecture Committee (WIA) in recognition of this achievement. The AIA College of Fellows is the organization’s highest membership honor, recognizing excellence in design, preservation, education, literature, and service, that contribute to architecture and society. The College of Fellows noted that “[Karen] shapes vibrant and equitable built environments through her designs for civic, educational and community-based organizations and her leadership in the transformative education of future architects and activists. Congratulations to all of the fellows in the class of 2021!
Read the full AIA College of Fellows June 2021 Newsletter here.
The 2020 SARA NY Design Awards recognized the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture with the NY Design Award of Merit. The annual award recognizes design excellence across a variety of projects from around the world in several categories spanning innovation, excellence, honor, and merit. Read more about the awards here.
We recently kicked off an Enhanced Feasibility Study for the Springfield Armory National Historic Site to help rethink museum collection storage. Springfield Armory was the nation’s first armory and serves as a visitor’s center and museum that interprets and preserves, “the world’s largest historic US military small arms collection, along with historic archives, buildings, and landscapes.” This study is an extension of the MFA’s work with the GSA and Interior Region 1 of the National Park Service to improve museum collection storage facilities throughout the region and conserve, preserve and protect historic artifacts for generations to come.
Advanced Architectural Research and Design, Karen’s spring semester design studio, explores design at the intersection of architecture, youth, activism and justice in the built environment. This immersive studio for Barnard and Columbia Architecture majors in their senior year is working with two unique New York organizations, and Marble Fairbanks’ partners, FC Harlem and Girl Be Heard. Through an inclusive design process between B+C Architecture students, the youth and the directors of these organizations, students are developing projects that explore how architecture and design and can support the organization’s needs, amplify the voices of their youth, strengthen their communities and envision new opportunities to empower youth today and in the future.
Image Courtesy of FC Harlem / Royce Paris / AndThem and Girl Be Heard