Exhibition Opening Reception: Bees in the City + The Pollinator-friendly Garden
Monday, April 10, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Native Bees—Protecting our Urban Pollinators
Tuesday, April 18, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Birds, bats and butterflies all take part in making our cities green but bees often play the biggest role.  Seventy-five percent of the world’s top 100 food crops rely on pollination from bees and other insects.  Our food supply, our major parks, even the plants in your garden all depend on bees.  How is it our world is so dependent on these tiny creatures and we know so little about them?  Bees in the City covers two types of bees:  honey bees who live in hives, and, native bees, representing about 80% of bee species, many of whom live completely solitary. 

In addition to learning about bees, the exhibition discusses how several world-famous architects have incorporated bee-inspired designs into their major works.  Finally, bees can also help us understand the modern design theory called biophilia, which reminds us that despite our preference to organize ourselves in cities, human beings need a connection to nature.  There is no stronger example of this than our centuries old relationship with bees.

The Pollinator-friendly Garden, an exhibition of botanical artworks by Studio 155 artists on view in the Suman Sorg Gallery through June 3 accompanies this exhibition.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Graphic Design by Jennifer Byrne, Live. Create. Play. LLC

Made possible with generous support from ABC Imaging. Exhibition designed and modeled in ArchiCAD19, courtesy of Graphisoft.

Exhibition Opening Reception: Bees in the City + The Pollinator-friendly Garden
Monday, April 10, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

The Pollinator-friendly Garden presents botanical artworks from the collection of Studio 155 artists. These artworks highlight flowering plants that attract pollinators such as bees, birds, butterflies, and other pollinating species. Discover decorative plants such as Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), Goldenrod (Solidago), and Ornamental Onion (Allium), as well as edible plants such as dandelion, eggplant, and squash.

This exhibition inspires you to consider the importance of healthy, productive plant communities for pollinators in the city. Cities with plentiful greenspace and flourishing gardens benefit the environment, contributing to the cycle of nature and fueling the pollinator’s way of life. With threatened pollinator populations, due to habitat loss, pesticide misuse, and disease, healthy garden habitats support everyone. Pollinator-friendly gardens in the city are possible with the right information and a little bit of old-fashioned work.

Studio 155 artists work in various mediums, including colored pencil, graphite, oil, and watercolor. Their work captures subjects from flowering plants and trees to rocks and landscapes. This exhibition complements Bees in the City, an exhibition about bee pollinators on view in the SIGAL Gallery through June 3.

About Studio 155

Studio 155 formed following Botanical Treasures of Lewis & Clark: New Art for the Bicentennial, an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2006. As a group, the artists have exhibited artwork together at the Adah Rose Gallery, Athenaeum, Cosmos Club, Delaware Art Museum, Studio Gallery, United States Botanic Garden, and VisArts at Rockville.

Participating Studio 155 artists include Debbie Bankert, Roberta Bernstein, Elizabeth Ward Carter, Wendy Cortesi, Jill Hodgson, Vicki Malone, Donald Beekman Myer FAIA, Kappy Prosch, Michael Rawson, Ellen Tuttle, and Juliana Weihe.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the Suman Sorg Gallery.

Special thanks to the artists of Studio 155.

Made possible with generous support from ABC Imaging. Exhibition designed and modeled in ArchiCAD19, courtesy of Graphisoft.

This exhibition spotlights winning photos from the #iseeDC2016 Instagram photo contest organized by the AIA|DC Design Excellence Committee.

Of the 700-plus photos posted between October and December 2016, 35 were selected by a jury for the exhibition. Each photo captures a place in our nation’s capital that has special meaning to those who participated in the contest.

The aim for the contest—and exhibition—is to raise public awareness of the built environment in Washington, DC and explore how design can not only delight and inspire, but also reveal order and create a sense of place.

Organized by the AIA|DC Design Excellence Committee in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery. #iseeDC2016 Instagram Photo Contest and Exhibition Planning Committee: Steve Kunin, AIA, LEED AP; Dani Hoge, Assoc. AIA.

Sponsors

Major funding generously provided by: Baskervill and Hoachlander Davis Photography

Additional support generously provided by: EYP, HGA, Martinez + Johnson Architecture, and Peris Construction

With support from: David Haresign, FAIA & Patricia Haresign and Lewis J. Goetz, FAIA

Supported in part by: ABC Imaging

Opening Reception: December 15, 2016, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

This exhibition combines award-winning projects from three of AIA|DC’s largest competitions:

• Unbuilt Awards
• Washingtonian Residential Design Awards
• Chapter Design Awards

Each year, our competitions recognize practitioners, educators, and students within the architecture community who demonstrate excellence in design. Projects are selected by distinguished juries of design professionals based outside of the Washington metropolitan region.

The exhibition features 39 projects organized by competition: theoretical and unbuilt commissioned projects in Unbuilt Awards; single family, multifamily, and mixed-used residential projects in Washingtonian Residential Design Awards; and architecture, interior architecture, historic resources, and urban design/master planning projects, including Presidential Citations, in Chapter Design Awards. Citation categories include Design & Wellbeing, Sustainable Design, and Urban Catalyst.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Suman Sorg Gallery.

Made possible with generous support from ABC Imaging.

Exhibition designed and modeled in ArchiCAD19, courtesy of Graphisoft.

Since 2011, a flurry of building has been changing the landscape of our city, building excitement all around. For each 20 new building projects, a mylar balloon dances and shimmers in the breeze, its height indicating the quantity of permits issued each year. These balloons reflect a new energy felt all over town. At this joyful time of year, however, it is important to remember that all must have a share in the growth. The size of the balloons indicates relative affordability of rental units in the city. It’s time to lift everyone up for a better view!

About EL Studio

EL Studio, an award-winning architecture and design firm, specializes in building finely-crafted, innovative structures within challenging constraints. EL Studio eagerly takes on complex problems and strives for the creative use of techniques and materials to develop resolutions unique to the problems and potential posed in each project. We collaborate with design partners to provide maximum benefit to clients. Not satisfied with the purely theoretical, EL builds what we draw, realizing designs that will enhance the way customers utilize space now and adapt to meet future needs.

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery storefront.

Designed by Mark Lawrence, Elizabeth Emerson, Max Rosner, and Karl Gleason of EL Studio.

The most effective way to invite people into a building or landscape is to offer them comfort while they linger and engage the space. Furnishings are key to the success of public spaces.

Along with other furniture pieces designed by Tom Shiner, FAIA, the exhibition will feature new benches and a chair crafted from thermally modified ash for the outdoors.

About the Company M&LF^®

Museum and Library Furniture, LLC provides customers with simple, comfortable, and environmentally sustainable furniture that exhibits the highest standards of design and construction quality for use in museums, public spaces, and cultural environments. M&LF^® is responsible for custom-fabricated seating in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

For more information about M&LF^®, please visit: http://www.mandlf.com/.

About the Designer Tom Shiner, FAIA

Over a career of more than 40 years, Tom Shiner has upheld and advanced the proposition that architects design furniture. Tom uses the skills and creativity of an architect to design and produce furniture that completes public architecture and stands on its own as art.

As an architecture studies freshman at Virginia Tech, Tom won a national, professional furniture design competition sponsored by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. His competition-winning chair was exhibited at the Smithsonian in 1971. Tom subsequently studied furniture design at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen.

Tom's furniture designs have been featured in Interior Design, The Washington Post, ArchitectureDC and other publications. Among other honors, his furniture was exhibited in Visions for a New Century at the National Building Museum and Windows on Industrial Design at Apartment Zero.

Credits

Organized by M&LF® in cooperation with AIA|DC for the Suman Sorg Gallery.

Supported in part by ABC Imaging.

Sponsored by Shape Inc.

This exhibition highlights 16 award-winning works of landscape architecture from the 2016 Professional Awards of the Potomac Chapter, ASLA. The range of projects encompasses residential, private, and public practice, and a variety of project types that include parks, courtyards, plazas, historic landscapes, and public realm guidelines.

The exhibition illustrates the range in scale and scope of the landscape architecture profession and highlights the high quality of work being produced in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. The Chapter’s 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Darwina Neal, FASLA, is recognized in the exhibition.

For more information about the Potomac Chapter, ASLA, please visit: http://potomacasla.org/.

About the American Society of Landscape Architects

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is a national professional organization representing 17,000 landscape architects. ASLA has 48 state and regional chapters. Founded in 1899, the mission of ASLA is to advocate, to lead, to educate, and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning, and artful design of cultural, natural and/or the built environments for human enjoyment. ASLA works to increase the public’s awareness of and appreciation for the profession of landscape architecture. ASLA is an active advocate for the profession at the local, state, and national levels on public policy issues, including licensure, livable communities, sustainable design, surface transportation, the environment, conservation issues, historic preservation, small business issues, and providing outdoor access that exceeds the requirements of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The early visionaries in the profession of landscape architecture noted that the designs of outdoor spaces are created for recreation, inspiration, and essential respite from the emerging urban environment. City parks and green spaces within the urban environment, along with private residential gardens, helps to improve physical and psychological health, strengthen our communities and make neighborhoods more attractive places to live and work. The profession enhances the outdoor environment for both private and public enjoyment. ASLA and its members are at the forefront of efforts to increase respect for the land and our natural environment, particularly on issues of prudent land use and planning, urban design, sustainable development, waste and water management including stormwater, resource preservation, recreation, and land reclamation.

About the Potomac Chapter, ASLA

The Potomac Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects represents nearly 400 landscape architects in DC, Northern Virginia, and Suburban Maryland. The purpose of ASLA is to advance the profession of Landscape Architecture in the eyes of the general public. The Chapter is the main advocacy body to advance the profession on the local level by holding events, meetings, outings and providing information regarding the profession to the local media and schools. The Chapter may also interface with municipal governments regarding local issues that could impact the profession, or the public realm.

Credits

Organized by the Potomac Chapter, ASLA in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Supported in part by ABC Imaging, our printing sponsor.

This year’s DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival features a four-day architectural exhibit at the District Architecture Center in Chinatown, operated by AIA|DC.

Schedule of Events

Opening Reception: Keynote w/ Iman Fayyad, Harvard GSD | October 5, 6:30PM; Free; RSVP required; Refreshments provided
Talk with Gaza: 8:00 AM – 11:30 AM (Thursday, Friday) Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online
Performances at the Portal: Daily from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Doors open at 11:30 AM, $10, Tickets required
Conversations across the Diaspora: Daily from 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM, Free, Reserve your 20 min spot online

Reservations for ticketed DAC events can be made at DCPFAF
Reservations for portal conversations can be made at Shared Studios

The exhibition spotlights over a hundred years of Palestinian architecture from historic to contemporary Palestine across the diaspora. Guests will explore the concept of home as an architectural, environmental, communal, and human experience vis-à-vis the Palestinian narrative. Over 9.6 million Palestinians worldwide claim heritage to the same place - the same homeland. Palestine is a place physically inaccessible to most Palestinians, yet it remains a communal identifier that unifies a fragmented population in spite of distance and physical barriers.

In cooperation with Shared Studios, the exhibit centers on an interactive pop-up portal with audio-visual technology. Once inside, visitors have the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with the Palestinian community in other portals around the world. Guests will have the opportunity to sign up for a 15-minute slot every morning and every afternoon to talk with someone in Gaza, NYC, or Milwaukee. Free reservations are managed through Shared Studios’ website – you are welcome to come alone, with a friend, and for several sessions over the span of the four days. Every day at noon, the portal features collaborative performances between artists in Gaza and DC (tickets required).

Through photographic work, this exhibit also explores the many definitions of home by Palestinians - a people as varied as the diaspora is vast. It is through the process of seeking that we find within ourselves our homes and moments of humanity. Issues of migration, attachment to place, and place-making are relevant not only to the Palestinian people, but to all diaspora populations - including those communities right here in Washington, D.C.

Featured architects and displays

RIWAQ on cultural heritage and historical preservation; UNRWA on refugee and emergency response infrastructure; Senan Abdelqader on rebuilding and modernization; Decolonizing Art + Architecture Residency on experimental design as it pertains to the future of the Palestinian state; and ShamsArd Design Studio on environmentalism, landscape and vernacular architecture.

Sponsors

Spartan Flooring, Mohawk Flooring, Quinn Evans Architects, WISA Solutions

Organized by

DC Palestinian Film + Arts Festival

This exhibition spotlights graduate and undergraduate level design work by students from the University of Maryland and Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, Iraq. Developed as a cross-cultural design studio by Gensler’s Washington, DC office, in collaboration with Madlen Simon, AIA, Shaimaa Hameed Hussein, and Marlene Shade, AIA for spring 2016, students were offered an unparalleled opportunity to examine architecture and design through the lens of a different culture.

Using digital and video technology, as well as social media, 16 students from Al-Nahrain University tackled a design challenge in DC’s Washington Circle and eight students from UMD proposed a design intervention in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. Together, the students explored the challenges they share and those unique to each culture, fostering greater communication and extending the relationship beyond the discipline. The studio also doubled as a design competition: by the project’s end, two students from each institution joined Gensler for an internship in their DC office this summer.

Credits

Organized by Marlene Shade, AIA, Associate Principle of Dewberry, Zahraa Alwash, JJ Rivers and Ahmed Khalil of Gensler on behalf of the University of Maryland and Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, Iraq in cooperation with AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery.

Sponsored by Gensler.

Supported in part by ABC Imaging.

The Built to Scale exhibition has been extended through September 16!

Built to Scale celebrates the power of scale models and the important role models play in the creative and technical development of design projects.

Scale models are communicative tools in three-dimension that give designers the power to experiment, solve problems, and help clients imagine a design. Despite advances in computer modelling software, which renders the scale model outdated for some designers, the traditional—physical—scale model remains a tested instrument in the design process.

More than loose freehand sketches, intricate technical drawings, or sleek computer renderings, the maquette or scale model serves as an excellent representation that bridges the gap between spatial idea and spatial construct. Simply stated, scale models are unique to the culture of design as small informative objects with big exciting ideas.

The exhibition features over 30 study and presentation models selected by a small jury of AIA|DC Board members. Models represent working projects, completed projects, and theoretical projects. Traditional and non-traditional materials were used to craft the models.

Models are represented by Andy Blackmore, Azalia Mothamed, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Christopher Wallace, David M. Schwarz Architects, DP Conrad Architect, E/L Studio, Fentress Architects, Hannah Tsimmerman, Heba Bella, Hickok Cole Architects, Hsin-Yen (Emily) Lin, Kurt West, McInturff Architects, Michael Bollino, Michael Vann, Michael Winstanley Architects & Planners, Olivia Morgan, Peter Noonan, SmithGroupJJR, Studio Twenty Seven Architecture, Walt Geiger Studio with MG2 Corporation, Wiedemann Architects, LLC, William Arevalo, William Sullivan, and ZGF Architects.

Credits

Model selections juried by AIA|DC Board Members:

• Douglas Palladino, AIA
• William Spack, AIA

Organized by AIA|DC for the Sorg Gallery.

Made possible with generous support by ABC Imaging.

Additional support provided by Graphisoft; exhibition designed and modeled using ArchiCAD19.