September 8, 2016
Making the Grade
Each year, ARCHITECT magazine ranks the top 50 firms in business, sustainability, and design, and this year BKSK is proud to announce that we have been ranked in the 2016 Top 50 Firms in Sustainability . This recognition exemplifies our professional commitment to design buildings that incorporate sustainable design strategies and aim to consume less energy. Congratulations to our team, and especially to the BKSK LAB for continually furthering our research and initiatives in sustainability.
Earlier this summer, BKSK was named to the Building Design + Construction Top 100 Firms , and ranked among the top firms for multi-family residential and green building design .
August 16, 2016
Olana Summerhouse…drawn out
The Follies, Function & Form: Imagining Olana’s Summer House exhibit opened this past weekend at Olana, Frederic Church’s historic home in the Hudson Valley, featuring inventive, imaginative designs by 21 invited architects and landscape architects, including a scheme by BKSK partners Joan Krevlin and Harry Kendall.
The design challenge presented was intriguing. Though there is no documentary evidence or surviving remains of Church’s fabled “Summer House,” it is clearly labeled on the 1886 “Plan of Olana.” The Olana Partnership, in collaboration with the New York chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY) and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA-NY) asked each invited designer to conceptualize the mysterious structure in a single sheet of sketches. Left to their own imagination for the structure’s function and form, Joan and Harry worked with BKSK’s Wei Lee to create a deconstructed vision inspired both by the site’s history and its current use, manifested in an ink-and-watercolor multimedia collage. Read More
July 26, 2016
The beginning of the Ende era
BKSK is entering into a new era of interior design, through the practiced eye of recently promoted Director of Interior Design, Gerry Ende.
Gerry [gair-ee] joined the BKSK team in 2011, bringing with him nearly 20 years of experience from other top NYC design firms. His portfolio features a wide breadth of inspired design across project types, scales, and styles, including institutional, high-end residential, multi-family, corporate, retail and healthcare. Gerry is known for creating sophisticated interiors that reflect the individuality of our clients’ needs. His vision for space and ability to craft aesthetically unique environments that speak to beauty, form and function will be the guiding principles through which we approach future work. Read More
June 24, 2016
(LEED)ing by Example: A conversation with Julie Nelson
Under new legislation, New York City-owned buildings now have to meet some of the highest efficiency standards in the nation. On
June 27 , Julie Nelson moderated a panel discussing how the new regulations can help spur further innovation. Ahead of the panel, she gave her take on how the city’s move to lead by example will affect the design process.
Read More
June 23, 2016
Celebrating on The Jefferson’s Blue Roof
Two years after occupancy and shortly after receiving LEED gold certification, the team reunites on the blue roof of The Jefferson to celebrate the collaboration that made for such a successful project.
The LEED designation acknowledges the project’s accomplishments in areas focused on human and environmental health including: indoor air quality enhanced by building materials vetted for aesthetic value, durability and cost; and tough to achieve stormwater credits, through the implementation of a blue roof that helps to reduce overflow in the city’s drainage system. This is just one of many projects in BKSK’s portfolio to achieve recognition for its environmentally robust design approach. Learn more here.
A congratulations goes out to the entire project team who made this possible.
May 25, 2016
Living Future: Truth + Transparency
Though presenting at the 2016 Living Future unConference for the third year in a row, this year’s involvement was anything but business as usual. This year, BKSK co-organized events that sought to challenge the effectiveness of the conventional conference format.
A Willingness to Be Moved As a way of kicking-off the conference and instigating a particular mode of presence in order to prepare ourselves for transformative thought, we collaborated with chef Matt Dillon and sommelier Marc Papineau to host a special gathering at their restaurant Upper Bar Ferdinand. Our goal was to offer our sustainable design peers an opportunity for close connection through the shared experience of a unique event. Led by Matt and Marc’s knowledge and experience of the local ecology and terroir, the participants together immersed themselves in the multi-sensory task of preparing a shared meal with locally grown and foraged ingredients and then pairing the resulting dishes with selections of locally produced wine. It was an opportunity to consider the parallel principles between the craft of cooking (providing nourishment) and the craft of building (providing shelter) – and it sparked a number of insights into the ways that food and design are central to what it means to be human. Read More
