HISTORY—Organizational changes and reaching out to the design community
As FIGMENT recrafted and improved its organization in preparation for the 2010 season, a few key changes were made in its structure. Jim Glaser stepped down as Executive Director of Action Arts League, and David Koren took on this role as well as retaining the role of Executive Producer of FIGMENT. Debra Keneally, who had joined the FIGMENT team in 2009, took on the role of Production Director for FIGMENT 2010.
After the highly successful FIGMENT 2009 event, it really felt as if FIGMENT had accomplished everything it had set out to do when it began in 2007. The young organization needed to look for new horizons. One immediate idea that emerged late in the summer of 2009 was to create a design competition for young architects, something along the lines of P.S. 1’s Young Architects Program that has hosted an annual invited design competition for five up-and-coming firms a year, since 1999, to create the environment in the outdoor courtyard that becomes the setting for P.S. 1’s Saturday “Warm Up” parties through the summer. Of course, if FIGMENT were to create a competition like this, it would need to be open to anyone to participate. Given David’s background in architecture, and tenure as the former Co-Chair of the Marketing Committee at the AIA New York City Chapter, he started looking around the AIA for potential partners. David had actually collaborated with the Emerging New York Architects (ENYA) Committee of the AIA New York City Chapter to put together a panel discussion on “Burning Man: Planning and Evolution of the Temporary City” in October 2007, so that seemed like the perfect place to begin. David met with Jessica Sheridan and several other members of the ENYA Committee in a teepee that had been installed temporarily in FIGMENT Terrace in August 2009, and started to kick around ideas for a new architectural design competition that the organizations could partner on.
Through a series of conversations, David and Jessica developed the specifics of The City of Dreams Pavilion Design Competition, which would be co-sponsored by FIGMENT, ENYA, and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY). The competition was different from most other architectural design competitions in a few key ways: first, this was not just an “ideas” competition—the winning design was intended to be built; second, the competition would promote sustainability as much as possible, favoring projects that consider the full lifecycle of their materials, utilizing reused or recycled materials and planning for where those materials go after the temporary project is de-installed; third, the competition would seek to fabricate and install the selected project as a community project, using volunteer resources as much as possible.
The first City of Dreams Pavilion Competition was launched in January 2010, and received approximately 60 design proposals. The jury included Illya Azaroff, AIA, Director of Design, The Design Collective Studio; Matthew Bremer, AIA, Principal, Architecture In Formation; Will Laufs, Ph.D., LEED AP, IWE, Vice President, Thornton Tomasetti; Aleksey Lukyanov-Cherny, Situ Studio; Martin Pedersen, Executive Editor, Metropolis Magazine; Rob Rogers, FAIA, Principal, Rogers Marvel Architects; Marc Tsurumaki, LTL Architects. Through a two-stage selection process, the jury narrowed the 60 proposals to four finalists and then gave those four finalists a month to revise and refine their design proposals. After reviewing the final submissions, the jury selected Ann Ha and Behrang Behin’s Living Pavilion as the winner of the competition. The project was installed on the Parade Grounds of Governors Island, and was a central gathering point on the island for the entire 2010 summer season. Daniela Morell serves as the project manager for the installation of the project, managing approximately 70 volunteers who helped to build and maintain the project. (The Living Pavilion is here: http://figmentproject.org/2010/long-term-exhibitions/living-pavilion/.)
