First Friday: 2×4, GRADE, Hargreaves, Andre Kikoski, and Sorkin Studio & Terreform

First Friday
2×4
GRADE
Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture
Andre Kikoski Architect
Michael Sorkin Studio & Terreform

Join 2×4, GRADE, Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture, Andre Kikoski Architect, and Michael Sorkin Studio & Terreform at their offices at 180 Varick Street for drinks, informal conversation, and a behind the scenes look at recent and upcoming projects. This program is part of First Friday, a monthly opportunity for League members to visit the offices of leading design practices to see work on the boards and learn more about the offices’ organization and design processes. These informal social gatherings feature happy hour drinks arranged by the host offices.

Founded in 1994 by Michael Rock, Susan Sellers and Georgianna Stout, 2×4 is a global design consultancy headquartered in New York City with satellite studios in Beijing and Madrid. The studio develops brand strategies for a wide range of cultural and commercial clients including the Fondazione Prada in Milan, The Pérez Art Museum in Miami, and the CCTV Headquarters Building in Beijing. 2×4 uses design as a vehicle to clarify “core institutional values and creates innovative, experiential, participatory and visually-dynamic ways to engage key audiences worldwide.”

Founded in 2001, GRADE is an architecture and interior design firm led by Thomas Hickey and Edward Yedid specializing in residential and commercial spaces. GRADE works closely with clients to create customized spaces with a sensitivity to material application and technological solutions. Recent projects include Douglas Elliman’s downtown Manhattan flagship and real estate viewing experience, Union Market restaurant in Washington, D.C., and a 20-story residential building in Boston.

Hargreaves Associates & Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture is comprised of landscape architects and planners with offices in San Francisco, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its portfolio includes a wide range of urban design, waterfronts, public parks, academic, corporate, institutional, and residential planning and design projects. The firm’s work centers on planning and design specific to a site’s historical context, its natural processes, and the uses aspired to for that site – and it embodies a commitment to civic vitality and creative solutions that meld cultural desires and functional needs. This philosophy can be observed in their strategic framework plan for Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, One Island East in Hong Kong, and London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which transformed 275 acres of post-industrial land into a park for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Andre Kikoski Architect (AKA) is an award-winning Manhattan-based architecture and design firm. With more than 100 completed works, AKA seeks to create “artful architecture that transforms neighborhoods and builds communities.” AKA’s diverse portfolio is rooted in residential projects from single-family homes to multi-family towers, but has expanded to more diverse clients, from the Guggenheim Museum’s Wright restaurant, an interior that reflects and deconstructs the layered geometries of the storied museum building, to Wyckoff Exchange, a retail space in an industrial Brooklyn neighborhood with dynamic collapsible gates that serve as awnings when opened.

Michael Sorkin Studio has, for over 30 years, been devoted to both practical and theoretical projects at all scales with a special interest in the city and green architecture. It is committed to collaborative work that simultaneously advances equity, sustainability, and beauty and seeks to balance the claims of culture and experiment. The studio’s practice is global and projects are currently underway in China, the Philippines, Turkey, Australia, and the United States including the Xian Airport Services Center in China. Michael Sorkin Studio is affiliated with and supports Terreform, a non-profit center for urban research, which engages in visionary design, and pro-bono community interventions such as New York City (Steady) State, which reimagines New York as a self-sufficient city within its current political boundaries.

Time & Place
Friday, June 3rd, 2016
6:30 p.m.
All offices are located at 180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
2x4, #1518
GRADE, #916
Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture, #204
Andre Kikoski Architect, #1316
Michael Sorkin Studio & Terreform, #1220

http://archleague.org/2016/06/2x4-grade-hargreaves...