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.
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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.
Learn more about Springfield Armory here.
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
Marble Fairbanks recently completed a Pre-Design Report for the new, 86,000 square foot Gateway Center at Hoosac at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, MA. This new mixed-use building will be situated at the “front door” of the Navy Yard and is adjacent to the historic Freedom Trail and Boston Harbor. It will feature space for an expanded USS Constitution Museum, a reimagined National Parks Visitor Center, and consolidated office space for the National Parks of Boston. Schematic Design of the new building is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2021.
Interior Design Magazine recently put out their first annual Women in Design to, “honor the talents and successes of female industry leaders.” The book profiles designers and their careers by featuring a signature project that is, “personally and professionally meaningful.” Karen is featured along with Marble Fairbanks’ Glen Oaks Branch Library in Queens. This library celebrates the diversity of the local community and is a beacon for the neighborhood. In the feature, Karen discusses that the messages from the library need to extend to design professions, “Until the profession includes representation that reflects our society, we’re missing critical voices in our work.”
Read the feature here.