Pratt Institute will star in Metropolis Magazine as one of the two schools nationwide that will be featured in its next issue as part of “Focus The Nation”, a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America taking place this week. The event, organized by Architecture 2030, will create a dialogue at over a thousand colleges, universities and other institutions, that will directly engage thousands of faculty and millions of students nationwide.

This week, Wednesday and Thursday, January 30th and 31st, the entire community is welcome to come meet over 30 of Pratt Institute’s most illustrious faculty, administrators and special guests as they come together and offer a series of exciting programs that are highly relevant to Pratt students, educators, and the community at large. This is a unique opportunity to explore the impact of sustainability on the future careers of our artists, designers, and architects; see how Pratt is taking on the challenge to reduce its carbon footprint; and to be inspired by real world, environmentally conscience work that is being done by Pratt’s faculty.

You will also have the opportunity to see exhibits by studios, take part in a nationwide body painting competition sponsored by Architecture 2030 with $20,000 in prize money (the winner will have a full page ad in Metropolis), and meet some of the city’s most vocal leaders in advocating change.

The full schedule of events and panels is here.

The Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership is in collaboration with the Pratt Design Incubator and a team of Pratt industrial design students to begin a process for designing innovative and artistic street furniture elements for Myrtle Avenue. The project started in September with MARP being awarded $12,500 from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), and Myrtle's Business Improvement District deciding to allocate additional funds in order to hire the Pratt Design Incubator. The Myrtle Avenue Street Furniture Initiative will have its first community design workshop in November. At the public forum participants will be asked to contribute their designs/thoughts and designers will present preliminary concepts for seating, bike racks, tree guards, and any number of possible street elements.

Commercial streets in NYC are quite often lacking many amenities that define great spaces: seating, public art, decorative paving, interesting architectural details, sufficient light, and so on. Myrtle Avenue is no exception. Aside from our many historic buildings, "historic" street lights, and Fort Greene Park, the avenue has few distinguishing physical amenities. The Pratt Design Incubator will be studying the avenue's existing conditions, will survey users of Myrtle Avenue, and examine existing street furniture concepts in New York City and beyond. The ultimate goal for this next year is to create concepts that will lead to prototypes of off-the-shelf designs for artistic, sturdy, multipurpose, and cost effective streetscape furniture and amenities.

The Incubator’s Director, Deb Johnson, put together a team of industrial design students that is being led by research coordinator Samantha Razook-Murphy. The team has already begun research and preliminary design concept development, and began surveying the community on Park(ing) Day at Myrtle Avenue's temporary Adami Park.

Integral to the research and concept design is the public design workshop, which we are holding on Tuesday, November 13, 2007, from 6pm to 8pm at Pratt's Higgins Hall (61 St. James Place: southeast corner of Lafayette and St. James). Once in the building, informational signs will direct participants to the workshop room. Please RSVP to vkungys@myrtleavenue.org if you plan to attend.

The workshop will:

• introduce the project: background, goals, process, and timeline
• share preliminary design concepts
• invite participants to join topic tables to discuss and/or sketch concrete elements (bike racks, benches, pavings, etc.) as well as general topics (identity, sense of place)

We also hope to gain more information about the reasons for why people visit the avenue and what design issues would facilitate these visits. Questions to think about before attending the workshop:

Do you shop or dine on Myrtle? If so, what design elements would make this experience easier or more pleasurable?
Do you park your bike on Myrtle? Where and why?
What do you like about the avenue, and what street furniture items do you wish existed?
Aside from the goods and services, are there streetscape amenities along other commercial corridors that draw you to shop there?
How are the current elements on the sidewalk spaces useful, or problematic?

Although the workshop is not being held until November 13th, 2007, we ask that prospective participants pay close attention to design elements on NYC streets in order to be able to provide specific information in describing what works well and what does not. Also, feel free to submit photos between now and the workshop to give the Pratt Design Incubator specific examples of good/bad street furniture and streetscape design. Email the images to incubator@pratt.edu and write "MARP" in the subject line.

After a considerable amount of planning and negotiations, Pratt Institute has made its plans to build a second building on Myrtle Avenue official. Pratt will be building a 120,000-square-foot building at the former "KFC site", with 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The new building will further extend Pratt’s presence on Myrtle Avenue, joining the Prattstore, the Institute’s art supply and bookstore, which opened in 2005 at Myrtle and Emerson. Pratt will be aiming to achieve a LEED Gold certification for the new building, and recently received a $75,000 Kresge Foundation grant to help plan for integrating green building technologies. Green features currently being considered for potential application include a landscaped roof to help insulate the building and prevent water runoff, photovoltaic solar panels, and a geothermal climate control system.

Pratt's new building will house several academic programs and administrative offices, including the offices of admissions, financial aid, the bursar, and the registrar; the Pratt Center for Community Development, (formerly PICCED); the offices of the Institute’s Division of Development; The Department of Digital Arts and the Digital Arts Lab; and studios for graduate students.

The building is being designed by the multi-disciplinary architectural and engineering firm of Clinton Hill resident and Pratt alumnus Jack Esterson, Studio A and WASA. The firm is designing the new building to serve as a connection between Pratt’s campus and Myrtle Avenue with an atrium allowing views into and through the building from both sides.

Excerpted from Pratt's press release:

“We are committed to the idea that the building be exemplary, both as architecture and in its environmental performance,” said Jack Esterson, partner in charge at Studio A and WASA, who received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Pratt in 1975.

“The North façade is highly insulated and finished in brick and glass, in order to complement the 19th century commercial architecture of Myrtle Avenue without imitating it,” added Esterson. “On the South side, a glazed wall with ultra high-performance clear and translucent glass and solar shading is designed to bring daylight into the building year round, while keeping summer heat out.”

The firm’s Director of Sustainable Design and the point person for this project, Tony Daniels, is one of New York City’s most well known experts in sustainable architecture. His work has been recognized for excellence by numerous organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Renewable Energy Congress, and the New York Society of Registered Architects, among others.

Pratt plans to break ground on the new project in spring 2008 with an anticipated completion date sometime in summer 2009. Stay tuned for further details, as the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership will be working closely with Pratt to integrate the new building into the commercial corridor, and to make major streetscape improvements along that part of Myrtle Avenue.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a press conference on the Pratt Institute campus this afternoon with representatives from nine colleges and universities during which they announced their commitment to reducing their institutions' greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent over the next 10 years. The initiative is part of the Mayor's PlaNYC 2030 campaign to make the city more environmentally sustainable while accomodating significant residential growth over the next few decades.

In addition to Pratt Institute, the first nine 2030 Challenge Partners include Barnard College, Columbia University, Cooper Union, all 23 campuses of the City University of New York (CUNY), Fordham University, New York University, St. John’s University, and the New School University.

In recent years, Pratt has demonstrated its commitment to addressing climate change and its impact on the environment by increasing the vegetation on campus and by using electric security vehicles throughout campus. A campus organization called Sustainable Pratt brings together members of the campus community who are dedicated to incorporating sustainability into curricula, operations, and programs. For more information, visit www.sustainablepratt.org. According to Anthony Gelber, Pratt Institute Sustainability Coordinator for Facilities and Operations, Pratt plans to complete a preliminary campus audit of greenhouse gas emissions so it can begin to identify strategies to decrease energy usage on campus. Pratt is also looking to make all new construction green and will work closely with the City of New York in developing innovative strategies for retrofitting existing urban properties for greater sustainability, including historic buildings.

The full press release from Pratt Institute is here.

The City's press release is here.