Adaptation(s) 2.0 | Pratt Institute

Archipel­og­ics 2.0 (Pratt Insti­tute MS. Urban Design and Archi­tec­ture)

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Pratt Institute’s 2024 fall exhibition at Pratt house on Governors Island is a continuation of the Adaptations program started in 2023. Adaptation(s) 2.0 pairs established architecture offices with current students exhibiting island-based projects developed with climate resiliency goals. The collection of design proposals range from realistic to conceptual. The exhibition compliments Governors Island future role as a climate study hub in NYC.

Beyond all the physical architectural scale models was the welcome inclusion of some concept sketches for the Foster + Partners projects, some by Norman Foster himself. It’s a rarity to see them in design shows these days and I’m glad to see some analog 2D thinking.

SOM’s proposal for a swoopy mass timber climate research and training facility called The Exchange strikes me a bit as a firm vanity project. It’s way out of scale for the rest of the existing buildings on the island. Maybe the big firms feel pressured to make all their proposals Heatherwick-esq these days to maintain social media clout.

Path of Space by Bilal Sadiq reimagines what interior plumbing pipes could become if they were designed as interior room elements. Sadly this project would never meet code but it does represent some fascinating left field thinking. Sadiq’s design use the pipes to create room dividers, shelving and seating structures. There are also integrated fire sprinklers.

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Future Pos­i­tive: Evolv­ing Resilient Strate­gies (Fos­ter + Part­ners):
Fos­ter + Part­ners has been among the ear­li­est archi­tec­ture firms work­ing on cli­mate adap­ta­tion reflect­ing its exper­tise and long-time com­mit­ment to the envi­ron­ment and relat­ed sub­jects. The exhi­bi­tion is book­end­ed by two pub­lic pre­miers — one an eco­log­i­cal mas­ter plan devel­oped by Nor­man Fos­ter for the island of Gomera (in the Canary Islands) from 1975 and the oth­er a cur­rent mas­ter­plan to address cli­mate change for Gaa­faru Atoll on the Mal­di­vian Arch­i­pel­ago. Between are exam­ples of ongo­ing adap­ta­tion projects by the prac­tice in NYC and the Stock­holm archipelago

A Tale of Two Islands: Plan­ning for a Post-Car­bon Future (Skid­more Owings and Mer­rill):
Skid­more, Owings & Mer­rill (SOM) has been a lead­ing force in the redesign and rede­vel­op­ment of the East Riv­er Cor­ri­dor. This exhi­bi­tion presents two design pro­pos­als, one built and one unbuilt, for rede­vel­op­ing two islands with­in the New York City arch­i­pel­ago. SOM’s mas­ter plan for Cor­nell Tech on the south­ern tip of Roo­sevelt Island, in the East Riv­er between Man­hat­tan and Queens, is shown in dia­logue with a new cam­pus plan that SOM is devel­op­ing for the future New York Cli­mate Exchange on Gov­er­nors Island, in New York Har­bor at the south­ern mouth of the East Riv­er. Designed a decade apart, these two projects reveal evolv­ing strate­gies to advance coastal resilience and cli­mate change adaptation.

Patag­o­nia and Beyond (Pratt Insti­tute Cen­ter for Cli­mate Adap­ta­tion): 
This three part exhi­bi­tion includes field work, find­ings, stu­dent research and real­iz­able pro­pos­als bring­ing togeth­er four aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions: Pratt Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­dad Del Desar­rol­lo (UDD), Sin­ga­pore Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy and Design and Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. Includ­ing expe­di­tions across the Patag­on­ian arch­i­pel­ago, to Chiloé (its largest island), to Sin­ga­pore and Gov­er­nors Island, the exhi­bi­tion show­cas­es an array of meth­ods and tech­nolo­gies and the poten­tials of design-based research in cli­mate adaptation.

Archipel­og­ics 2.0 (Pratt Insti­tute MS. Urban Design and Archi­tec­ture): 
The third annu­al exhi­bi­tion includ­ing work from recent Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Archi­tec­ture and Mas­ter of Sci­ence in Urban Design year­long stu­dios at Pratt Insti­tute focus­es on build­ing adap­ta­tion pro­pos­als in Rock­away, Queens and Urban Design adap­ta­tion in Red Hook, Brook­lyn; both locat­ed on Long Island, the 17th most pop­u­lous island on the planet.

Photos and Text: Dave Pinter

Additional Exhibition Text: Pratt Institute