GSAPP Conversations

Third-year M.Arch student Stella Ioannidou speaks with Point Supreme co-founders Konstantinos Pantazis and Marianna Rentzou on the occasion of their lecture at Columbia GSAPP (https://www.arch.columbia.edu/events/463-point-supreme) on March 20, 2017. Point Supreme was founded in Athens in 2008, one year before the Greek economic crisis. Pantazis and Rentzou discuss their use of collage as a visualization tool, the relationship between small and urban scale projects, what it meant to launch a practice during an economic crisis, and the importance of addressing local issues in their work.

“The collage allows us to create a new hierarchy between things. We can get away with changing distances or parameters that somehow are not important or should not be accounted for in mathematical terms. ... The collage allows you to give different emphasis to the different things according to what their actual experiential importance is.”

—Konstantinos Pantazis, Point Supreme

Columbia GSAPP faculty members Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation) and Bryony Roberts speak about the relationship between performance and architectural space, and Roberts' use of performance as a medium for critically engaging cultural history.

Columbia GSAPP faculty members Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation) and Bryony Roberts speak about the relationship between performance and architectural space, and Roberts' use of performance as a medium for critically engaging cultural history.

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Umberto Napolitano of LAN (Local Architecture Network). Napolitano co-founded the Paris-based LAN in 2002 with Benoît Jallon, and taught an advanced architecture studio at Columbia GSAPP in the Spring 2017 Semester. They discuss Napolitano's title for his course, The Form of Density, and his interpretation of "density" with a specific look at Paris. He also speaks about the process of designing his office and the role of the work space in the creative process.

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Umberto Napolitano of LAN (Local Architecture Network). Napolitano co-founded the Paris-based LAN in 2002 with Benoît Jallon, and taught an advanced architecture studio at Columbia GSAPP in the Spring 2017 Semester. They discuss Napolitano's title for his course, The Form of Density, and his interpretation of "density" with a specific look at Paris. He also speaks about the process of designing his office and the role of the work space in the creative process.

ArchDaily's Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster visits Avery Hall to speak about Columbia GSAPP's End of Year Show with Dean Amale Andraos. They discuss the role of books and portfolios in the students' work, the experimental presentations by first-year students, and the reciprocal exchange between advanced students and their professors.

ArchDaily's Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster visits Avery Hall to speak about Columbia GSAPP's End of Year Show with Dean Amale Andraos. They discuss the role of books and portfolios in the students' work, the experimental presentations by first-year students, and the reciprocal exchange between advanced students and their professors.

Coinciding with his lecture at Columbia GSAPP on March 27, 2017, third-year M.Arch student A.L. Hu speaks with Li Hu. Li Hu is founding partner of the Beijing-based firm OPEN Architecture, and former partner of Steven Holl Architects.

They discuss the influence of New York in Li Hu's professional development and the city's relationship to Chinese cities, the integral role of nature and plants in his projects, and the need to create public space that brings people together and introduces drama to urban life.

Coinciding with his lecture at Columbia GSAPP on March 27, 2017, third-year M.Arch student A.L. Hu speaks with Li Hu. Li Hu is founding partner of the Beijing-based firm OPEN Architecture, and former partner of Steven Holl Architects.

They discuss the influence of New York in Li Hu's professional development and the city's relationship to Chinese cities, the integral role of nature and plants in his projects, and the need to create public space that brings people together and introduces drama to urban life.

Dean Amale Andraos speaks with Kersten Geers, who taught an Advanced Studio at Columbia GSAPP in the Spring 2017 semester and is co-founder of OFFICE KGDVS with David Van Severen. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including installations at the 2016 Lisbon Architecture Triennale, and most recently in an exhibition with Go Hasegawa at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Andraos and Geers discuss a shared obsession with books and the integral role that book-making plays in their professional offices and teaching. Geers echoes Aldo Rossi’s call for evaluating architecture within a cultural context, and sees books as the ideal tool for creating a place where architectural work acquires value and meaning – a device to establish a context of ideas.

“David and I think we have quite an open-minded practice, but even so you somehow cannot avoid that it is enclosed – it does have borders. And if you want to keep on living with the practice, it’s important to keep on thinking, to keep on looking, to keep on discovering. The books, and for that reason also the teaching, allow you to look further and to find these other things.”

–Kersten Geers on the integral role of making books as part of his practice with David Van Severen