Join us for a two-hour tour of the Timber Adaptive Reuse Theater located in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal District. The tour will be led by Ruth Mandl and Bobby Johnston of CO Adaptive Architecture, as well as Claudia Zelevansky of Mercury Stores. Content will include a brief history of the building’s previous iterations and the adaptive re-use of the industrial building into a new cultural facility for Mercury Stores. The project is representative of how the architects understand the the design of one building as part of a holistic system whose component parts have an effect on their environment.
Speakers:
Bobby Johnston, LEED, NCARB, Principal, CO Adaptive
Ruth Mandl, Principal, CO Adaptive
Claudia Zelevansky, Senior Consultant, Martin Vinik Planning for the Arts; Associate Artistic Director, Dallas Theater Center
About the Speakers:
Bobby Johnston is a Principal of CO Adaptive and a licensed architect, registered in New York State and both LEED accredited and NCARB certified. He is a Certified Passive House Designer as of 2016 and member of New York Passive House and the International Passive House Association. Johnston completed his M.Arch at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in 2010, where he was awarded the Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Honors Award for his work with computer programming and architecture. Born and raised in the Santa Clara Valley of California, Johnston grew up immersed in the computer industry and felt technology could be used to inform design and revolutionize the way people interact with their environments. Johnston completed his bachelors degree in architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to founding COA, he worked for several prominent architecture firms including Perkins+Will, Flank, and Anshen+Allen (now Stantek). Johnston has taught graduate-level design studio courses at Pratt Institute and has been an invited architecture critic at Columbia University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Montana State University.
Ruth Mandl is a Principal of CO Adaptive and a licensed architect, registered in New York and Massachusetts. She completed her M.Arch at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in 2010. Prior to founding CO Adaptive with Johnston, Mandl's experience in architecture ranged from working on large cultural projects for Eisenman Architect and Coop Himmelblau to working on small residential and restaurant projects for Richard Lewis Architect. She has given talks at Montana State, University of Virginia, University of Miami, and University of Waterloo, and been a guest critic at Columbia University, Rensselaer Polytechnic, and Pratt. Mandl received her BA in Interior Architecture from Kingston University in London in 2005, which started her enthusiasm for adaptive reuse and her thinking that in it lies the key to the sustainable growth of our cities. Mandl grew up in Vienna, Austria and has lived in New York City for eighteen years. She is passionate about the space where beauty and functionality intersect, and strives to find that in all of her work.
Claudia Zelevansky is a theatre administrator, teacher, and director. Credits include: (Administration) Senior Consultant at Martin Vinik Planning for the Arts, Associate Artistic Director at Dallas Theater Center; (Teaching) Yale, Oberlin, CalArts, Bard, CUNY; (Directing) Dallas Theater Center, Alliance Theatre, Actors Express, the Flea, and NJ Shakespeare Festival. She holds a BS from Northwestern University and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
AIANY Interiors Committee
