On the outskirts of some of the world’s largest cities exists an informal way of life. It’s unlike any other. To most, these spaces are defined as slums, shantytowns, or favelas. The list of stigmatized words associated with these settlements is never ending. Regardless of their delineation, the sheer mention of their existence conjures up an endless sea of negative associations—rampant crime, dismal infrastructure, impoverished communities, filth, and a severe lack of education. Yet the reality is not as simple as all that. While our assumptions are not wholly dishonest, they are wildly deceptive.

Heliopolis, the largest favela in Sao Paulo, grew out of a need for proximity to the amenities that the city had to offer. When this informal settlement was first established in the 1940s, the demand for it was low, thus the population was much smaller and much more spread out than it is today. Over time, as Sao Paulo expanded so did the desire to be situated within its reach. But housing within the urban area was not affordable to a large number of low-income residents. So they settled down on un-owned and non-delineated land areas, like Heliopolis. Today, the densely lined streets of this three-quarter square-mile favela, is home to roughly 100,000 inhabitants.

When we first see Heliopolis, all of the stereotypes we could imagine about an informal settlement are at play—the tin roofs are rusting, the streets are sprawling and unorganized, brick buildings are crumbling, and crime is rampant. There is no denying that these characteristics are a reality. What surprises us, however, is that an average home within the perimeter of Heliopolis costs $100,000 USD. As a matter of fact, one of the most prestigious hospitals in Sao Paulo sits along the edge of Heliopolis. Read more…

Three years ago, faculty and students from three schools came together to form the Empowerhouse Collaborative. The participants—Parsons The New School for Design; the Milano School for International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at The New School; and Stevens Institute of Technology—joined forces to compete in the US Department of Energy 2011 Solar Decathlon. We wanted to change the way affordable housing is designed and developed.

This December 4th we realized our goal, joining Habitat for Humanity of Washington, D.C. (DC Habitat) and the D.C. government to celebrate the dedication of Empowerhouse, a new home for two local families in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington. This was also a celebration of a series of firsts in the district: the first net-zero-site, the first Passive House, and one of the first low-impact residential developments.

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I read fiction whenever I can carve out a quiet hour or two, which I must admit ruefully, is very hard to find in my frenetic metropolitan life. But when I come across a narrative that provides a richly grained context of place, time, connectivity with human foibles and a linkage to well-defined segments of humanity’s accumulated body of knowledge, I claim my right to slow down. Most recently Peter Matthiessen Wheelwright’s first novel, As It Is On Earth, gave me this gift of sitting back and reading for hours on end. The story of two brothers, haunted by the colorful past while thoroughly engaged in the painful now, rambles the earth from New England to Mexico. Wheelwright is an architect and associate professor at the School of Constructed Environments Parsons The New School for Design in New York City. His brave foray into the fictive environment from the built environment evoked my curiosity about shifting focus, exploring new terrain, and mustering enough courage to make it all happen. With the book’s release scheduled for next month, I took the opportunity to ask Peter about my favorite topics of architecture, creativity, and breaking into new worlds.

Susan S. Szenasy: As It Is On Earth is your first novel. When were you able to find the concentration and time to wedge this complex and detailed story into your schedule of teaching and practicing architecture?

Peter M. Wheelwright: In 2007 I resigned as the chair of the Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting (now, The School of Constructed Environments) at Parsons The New School for Design and took a year long sabbatical. My practice was also winding down, and I simply decided to write in the morning, and think about architecture in the afternoons. Of course, it didn’t work out exactly as planned, but pretty close. Unlike Taylor Thatcher, the narrator and protagonist in the book, I was quite disciplined.

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We talk, endlessly, it seems, about the impact of technology on our lives, our relationships, our work, and workspaces and we worry about what it’s doing to our physiologies. Now the inimitable writer, Diane Ackerman offers, in her blog in The New York Times, a characteristically elegant and pointed commentary on this topic; it’s been on my mind ever since I read it. (The volume of comments from readers suggests that others found resonance there, too.)

Diane Ackerman is a poet and naturalist, and author of many books, including A Natural History of the Senses, one of her best known works, and One Hundred Names for Love, her most recent (and a Pulitzer finalist). In her essay last week, she asked: “Are we living in sensory overload or sensory poverty?” While bemoaning the “myopic daze” in which so many people seem to wander around these days is not new, she takes a hard look (in the spirit of Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature) at what it might be costing us. Here’s an excerpt—

As a species, we’ve somehow survived large and small ice ages, genetic bottlenecks, plagues, world wars and all manner of natural disasters, but I sometimes wonder if we’ll survive our own ingenuity. At first glance, it seems as if we may be living in sensory overload. The new technology, for all its boons, also bedevils us with alluring distractors, cyberbullies, thought-nabbers, calm-frayers, and a spiky wad of miscellaneous news. Some days it feels like we’re drowning in a twittering bog of information.

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I’m an avid reader and a patron of New York’s public transportation system, but so far I’ve avoided e-readers. My friends don’t quite understand this, as they eye my massive book bag, and despite my reasoning (I make notes in the margins, highlight, and flag with Post-Its. How will I remember where a particular part I’m thinking of is? Won’t the screen bug my eyes?) they continue to tease me. The problem with living in the “app-for-that” world is that if you object to anything electronic, someone has already addressed it, packaged it into an icon for your screen, and will probably charge you $1.99 for it.

Graphic Design: Now in Production Catalogue, Courtesy the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Walker Art Center

Entering the exhibit, Graphic Design—Now In Production, organized by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (Ellen Lupton) and the Walker Art Center (Andrew Baluvet), I realized instantly why I can’t give up paper: Books are more than just words on a page (or screen.) No matter how many colors you can get on your latest e-reader, the design will never come close to the way in which graphics and typography on paper change the experience of looking, reading, and imaging.

A perfect blend of art and design, graphic design has the ability to change your opinion of an object, idea, or brand. You can say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but looking at the books designed by Chip Kidd and Paul Sahre, it’s hard not to wonder what lies between the pages behind their striking covers. The words on your e-reader will still be the same, but you’ll be missing something.

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With a past life in corporate interior and architectural design in San Francisco, I have been aware of 3Form’s many uses as an interior manufacturing company for several years now. I had seen their products used again and again in our sustainable projects, but the image of a conference room divider using their organic Varia Ecoresin Interlayers, in which bear grass had been entombed within a sheet of 40 percent preconsumer recycled material still resonates in my mind. So when I was asked to preview their new showroom, I was confronted with a question I had never thought of before: how does 3Form use 3Form in their interiors?

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It’s hard to believe that spring is here. Almost more surprising than being able to wear shorts in March is the fact that the great concrete jungle that’s New York City actually has a wide array of brightly colored native plant life, such as the red columbine and southern magnolia. Already in bloom, the gardens at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 1 give those of us who can’t get out of the city for a day the opportunity to find the beauty of nature just across the water from the financial district.

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An overflow of students, faculty, and alumni crowded a lecture and workshop given recently at Parsons The New School for Design by interior designers George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg of Yabu Pushelberg. For well over an hour, they delighted us with images and anecdotes on their best work from around the world, including the interiors of Lane Crawford in Beijing, Avenue Road in Toronto, and their private residences in New York and Canada.

They also presented their strategy of developing design concepts through a character-driven narrative. That approach was to be the basis of a weekend workshop for me and 19 other architecture, interior design, lighting design, and product design students at the School of Constructed Environments.  Our challenge was to design the lobby of The Smyth, a boutique hotel in Tribeca, which was a recent project of Yabu Pushelberg’s. By examining the identity of the neighborhood and its residents, as well as the ideal traveler who would prefer to stay there, we created a persona and brought him to life via images that portrayed his lifestyle and everyday habits, even his quirks.  The more detailed the story, the better, since these were the clues that would really bring our design to life. Then we were divided into teams to ensure a cross-pollination of design disciplines.

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When I heard that Fab.com, a flourishing e-commerce site that recently reached the 2 million mark in membership and that this month, the site is introducing five new vertical shops, I wanted to get a peek behind the scenes. So I went to Bradford Shellhammer, co-founder with Jason Goldberg, the business genius behind the success story of Fab.com, a site known for its “daily deals” program of special offers, selling good design at rather favorable prices. Bradford, a Parsons grad with an unerring eye for design excellence, is key to keeping the site’s design standards high. As Goldberg told Entrepreneur last October, “We’ve carved out a very large but unique niche for ourselves. Design is a horizontal market, not vertical. Design crosses multiple categories…We consider ourselves a design inspiration business.” Bradford completed the thought in Entrepreneur: “Bad design gets under your skin. People who love design want to better the whole world through design. Everyone’s a tastemaker. Everyone’s an artist. Once you make the decision to embrace design, it’s hard to go back.” Last month Fab acquired FashionStake whose co-founder Vivian Wang is now Fab.com’s lead fashion buyer. Considering that Fab.com went live on June 2011 (rebranded from Fubulis in April of that year), and is known for hiring some of the most talented designers, buyers, and people with other skills in a still sluggish job market, I was eager to ask Bradford to talk about their new areas of business, design, and phenomenal success in a relatively new field.

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Since its establishment in 1996, Design Workshop at Parsons The New School of Design has been providing pro bono architectural and construction services to nonprofit organizations, allowing their graduate architecture students to design and meet community needs, through projects ranging from rooftop gardens to recreational grounds for children. This summer, the program has teamed up with New York City’s Parks & Recreation to transform a 19^th Century landmark.

Tucked away in Washington Heights is one of the oldest surviving structures, the High Bridge, a landmark noted for its historical significance. Since its construction in 1848, the High Bridge has been used as an aqueduct, bringing fresh water to the city as the main source of water inflow. The bridge was eventually closed in the 1970s due to rock-throwing from above and the reservoir that once accompanied the historical aqueduct was replaced with the Highbridge Park Pool. Designed by Aymar Embury II during the Robert Moses era, the Highbridge Pool complex was one of the eleven pools built as a part of the Works Progress Administration’s attempt to create jobs during the Great Depression. Once completed in 1936, it became open for public use, serving the local community. Read more…