The Future of Public Space and Art: New Perspectives

Join us for the second program in a four-part series on The Future of Public Space and Art. The series challenges us to discover better design strategies for the public realm that welcome all people. How do we re-envision our public spaces and the public art that inhabits them in ways that are more inclusive and enriching to collective and personal experience for social benefit? This program on New Perspectives will look closely what makes a good public space through the work of practitioners creating new and various kinds of public spaces. We'll explore the following questions:

• What constitutes a public space?
• What role do public space and public art play in welcoming a diverse population and advancing social equity?
• How can the public realm support and enrich our communities? After brief presentations, there will be a moderated audience discussion.

The series expands on the theme Belonging and Beyond, established earlier this year by 2024 AIANY President Gregory Switzer, AIA, NOMA. Belonging and Beyond centers on crucial aspects of human well-being that improve physical and social-emotional health and resilience for individuals and communities. This forum will explore noteworthy solutions that grow out of a robust exchange of interdisciplinary ideas, pointing to the future of public space and public art and their role in social equity.

Speakers:
Nina Cooke John, AIA, NOMA, Studio Cooke John
Susannah Drake, FAIA, FASLA, APA, Principal, Sasaki
Setha Low, Professor of Environmental Psychology, Director of Public Space Research Group, Graduate Center CUNY 
Abby Coover, Founder and Director, Overlay Office; Founding Member, Work in Progress, Women in Practice
Sonya Gimon, Founding Member of WIP Collaborative

Series creator/moderator:  
Ann Marie Baranowski FAIA LEED AP, Founding Principal, AMBA

More Events in This Series:
May 6, 2024: The Future of Public Space and Art: History and Memory
October 2, 2024: The Future of Public Space and Art: Social Agency
November, 19, 2024: The Future of Public Space and Art: Trends, Craft, Technology

About the Speakers:
Nina Cooke John is the founding principal of Studio Cooke John Architecture and Design, a multidisciplinary design studio that values placemaking as a way to transform relationships between people and the built environment. Studio Cooke John’s Shadow of A Face, the new Harriet Tubman Monument in Newark, NJ was unveiled in March 2023. The studio was awarded a 2021 AIA Merit Award for the public art installation, Point of Action, commissioned for the Flatiron public plazas in 2020 and currently on view at the Wassaic Project. Cooke John was named the AIANY New Perspectives honoree in 2024 and a 2022 United States Artists Fellow. Her work has also been featured in Architectural Record, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Dwell, NBC’s Open House, and PBS NewsHour Weekend, among other publications and news outlets. Cooke John earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University and a Masters in Architecture from Columbia University. She now teaches at Columbia University.

Susannah C. Drake is a Principal at Sasaki and founder of DLANDstudio. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Drake lectures globally about resilient urban design, taught at top schools across the US including Harvard, IIT, CU Boulder, and the Cooper Union among others. Her award-winning work is consistently at the forefront of innovation in urban ecological infrastructure. Through partnerships with communities on grants she enables green infrastructure, park creation, and environmental justice. Drake’s project “From Redlining to Blue Zoning: Equity and Environmental Risk, Liberty City, Miami 2100,” detailing the relationship of historically marginalized black populations of Miami with sea level rise was included in the 2023 Venice Biennale. Drake was recognized as an Architectural League Emerging Voice and AIA Young Architect Award winner. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum. In addition, her Gowanus Sponge Park won the inaugural Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Climate Action. She has published numerous book chapters and articles on climate adaptation and infrastructure and her book Gowanus Sponge Park will be published by Park Books in 2024. Drake earned M.arch and MLA degrees from the Harvard GSD and a BA from Dartmouth College.

Professor Setha Low is Distinguished Professor of Environmental Psychology, Geography, Anthropology, and Women’s Studies, and Director of the Public Space Research Group at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Dr. Low has a M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has been awarded a Getty Fellowship, a NEH fellowship, a Fulbright Senior Fellowship, a Future of Places Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship for her ethnographic research on urban public space in Latin America and the United States. Her most recent books are Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place (2017), Anthropology and the City (2019), Spaces of Security (with M. Maguire) (2019), Why Public Space Matters (2023), and Trapped: Life Under Security Capitalism and How to Escape It (with M. Maguire) (2024). She has published over 100 articles and chapters and lectures internationally on public space, social justice and diversity in partnership with the UN Habitat Global Public Space Programme. Currently Dr. Low is working on a book on corporate/private governance in the domestic housing and public realms and its impact on everyday social life and neighborhhood relationships.

Sonya Gimon is landscape architect with a focus on sustainable environmental systems and community engagement. She is a Founding Member of WIP Collaborative. In 2023, Gimon launched 3FWILD, a design practice based in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and New York City. She is a 2022 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in the category of Architecture, Environmental Structures and Design. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, Brooklyn, NY and taught at Montana State University’s Landscape Design program, Bozeman, MT.

Abigail Coover is the director of Overlay Office, a design studio that creates joyful spaces through innovative use of material, form and color. She is a founding member of WIP Collaborative. She is also a founding board member of Design Advocates, a network of designers collaborating on pro-bono efforts to serve the public good. Coover is also a co-creator and editor of suckerPUNCHdaily.com, a website that reviews the work of contemporary artists, architects, and designers who offer the stunningly unexpected. She is currently Adjunct Associate Professor at Pratt Institute School of Architecture.

Ann Marie Baranowski is the Founding Principal of her eponymous NYC-based architecture firm, Ann Marie Baranowski Architects (AMBA). Her practice is founded on the belief that culture as an investment embedded in the built environment is as essential as the physical infrastructure of our buildings and cities. Offering specialized services in Planning, Public Space + Art, and Architecture, Baranowski focuses on the intersection of public space and public art. Working in the public realm, she has partnered on significant buildings that set a national example for enriching urban life. As Consultant the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Oahu, Hawaii, AMBA established the preliminary public art and design guidelines for the renewal of the main terminal. For the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Baranowski coordinated important public art installations for the Fulton Center and the South Ferry Terminal. As the Museum Architect for the Brooklyn Museum of Art, she directed the planning and implementation of the Museum’s $32M Eastern Parkway Entrance to renew the Museum’s identity.