Images for August 13th: SHoP Architects - Integration of Design with Craft

What makes a Master Architect? Is it total command of artistic effect, a thorough knowledge of construction, a deep appreciation and command of architectural history - all of the above - or none of the above?

Following up on our conversations of July 30th, in which we re-visited favorite aphorisms of certain well-known architects, here are some of the aphorisms of the New York City- based firm known as SHoP, with whom we will have a conversation with two principals of that firm:

>How it’s built doesn’t matter except when it’s the only thing that matters.

>Efficiency and great design are not mutually exclusive.

>Building buildings is better than talking about buildings.

>In the classroom be the builder; on the site be the teacher. Be a student in both.

>Make the office a lab, a boardroom, a theater, a classroom.

>Use technology to build practice, see practice as technology.

>Make concepts buildable. Make buildings conceptual.

>Push design, embrace responsibility.

>Virtually construct it twice, build it once.

>Cost is not a downstream design variable.

>To truly innovate, we integrate.

For reference, here are some images of recent buildings by SHoP:

120 Mulberry Street, with an intricate brick pattern, made possible by direct application of CAD-to-fabrication technologies.









"Porter House" - NYC

















We also discussed the work of Louis Kahn, specifically the Yale Center for British Art:































and dormitories at Bryn Mawr College: