FACULTY
MEMBER KAREN FAIRBANKS HONORED FOR SCHOOL, LOFT
DESIGNS
|
Open
Loft
Chicago
Public School
|
NEW
YORK, N.Y., February 11, 2002 – Marble
Fairbanks Architects, the firm of Karen Fairbanks,
senior lecturer and director of Barnard’s
architecture program, has been honored with
three awards for its designs "Open Loft,"
and "Chicago Public School."
Both "Open Loft," and "Chicago
Public School" were recognized with 2001
design awards by the New York chapter of the
American Institute of Architects or AIA. The
Chicago Public School design was also honored
by Architectrure Magazine with a 2002
Progressive Architecture Award. Marble Fairbanks
has previously been recognized by the AIA’s
New York chapter, when the firm won a design
citation in 1999 and 1997, and a design award
in 1996 and 1994.
Open Loft is a residence located in the SoHo
neighborhood of Manhattan with flexible living,
work, and play spaces for a family of four.
Movable translucent glass panels allow spaces
to be visually connected or separated from each
other. Light is brought into the middle and
the back of the loft by a skylight and a glass
bulkhead and a series of shared transparent
and translucent surfaces. Shading devices allow
the changing light conditions to be manipulated
and controlled for multiple effects. The visual
split horizon in the mezzanine links views of
the city simultaneously with views of the sky.
The roof deck extends the living spaces outside
and provides expansive views of the city.
The Chicago Public School design was first recognized
as the winner of the Chicago Public School Design
Competition for an elementary school on Chicago's
Southside. The competition was open to all architects
and drew more than 100 international entries,
and the winning scheme was selected from four
short-listed finalists.
"The design competition process was an
excellent learning experience," Fairbanks
said, adding that she hopes winning a prestigious
award for a school design "will help raise
the stakes for design innovation in the public
realm." The design was on exhibit at the
Max Protech Gallery in New York City from January
4-16, 2002 and appeared in the January issue
of Architecture Magazine. The Chicago
Public School design is an elementary school
for 900 students, 25 percent of whom are disabled.
The school consists of four smaller schools
each with individual courtyards tied together
into a larger unit, complete with a series of
wheelchair-accessible ramps.
Fairbanks is currently the director of the Barnard
and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program,
and has been teaching at Barnard since 1989.
She has also taught at Parsons School of Design
and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was
a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in
Architecture in 1988 and 1994. She has served
as a panelist for the architecture awards at
the New York Foundation for the Arts and on
the Young Architects Committee of the Architectural
League of New York.
In addition to her position at Barnard, Fairbanks
is a partner at Marble Fairbanks Architects.
Prior to establishing the partnership she worked
at Cooper Robertson + Partners where she was
on the design team for Stuyvesant High School
in collaboration with Gruzen, Sampton, Steinglass
and on the design team for South Park in Battery
Park City. Her previous experience also includes
working as a designer at Davis, Brody &
Associates, and Graham Gund Associates.
She received her master’s of architecture
at Columbia University where she won the A.I.A.
Medal in 1987, the William Kinne Fellowship
in 1987 for her proposal Japanese Theatrical
Space: Body, Movement, Form, and the Fred L.
Liebman Book Award in 1986. She earned a bachelor
of science in architecture from the University
of Michigan in 1981.
For
coverage of Fairbanks's recognition at the 2001
American Architecture Awards, click
here.
Contact:
Alyssa Sheinmel, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037
.jpg)
