Steven Sanderson / SHoP Architects

Digital Craft and 290 Mulberry St., Manhattan

SHoP Architects has established a reputation for progressive design that combines a novel approach to technology with innovative building delivery methods. Early projects, such as Dunescape for PS1 and the Camera Obscura for Mitchell Park, simultaneously employed high-tech (digital modeling and fabrication) and low-tech (full-scale templates) approaches to design and construction that stretched the limits of a small architectural practice.

These projects were executed quickly, cheaply, and by whatever means necessary. As the firm has grown and projects have increased in scale and complexity, their approach to technology, information management, and project execution has evolved along with the practice. The firm has transitioned from a representational to an informational approach to modeling and documentation, opening new opportunities and posing new challenges to the ways that projects are designed, staffed, managed, and built. Steven Sanderson has been instrumental in guiding this change. He will present 290 Mulberry Street, a residential project currently under construction in Manhattan, as an in-depth case study of how the office is currently managing this transition. By discussing both the successes and failures of this process, the presentation aims to create a venue for discussing issues concerning integrated design and construction technologies within creative environments and their impact upon the design and execution of exceptional architecture.