Julie V. Iovine, Executive Editor of The Architect's Newspaper, will moderate this discussion with designers from Situ Studios and Kiss + Cathcart, along with Charles McKinney, Chief of Design for the NYC Dept of Parks & Recreation, and Christopher Collins, Executive Director of Solar One.
This panel will address issues of sustainable design and its relevance to NYC's future. Over the past three years, Solar One has been the site of a series of experiments in sustainable design. Next year a permanent green energy, arts and education center , Solar 2, will break ground on this same site. Designed by Kiss + Cathcart, Solar 2 will be NYC's first carbon neutral building. This panel discussion will mark a moment of transition from Situ studio's series of environmentally themed temporary pavilions to this ambitious and visionary initiative. These projects will provide a starting point for a broader discussion of the challenges and potentials of sustainable design projects throughout the five boroughs.
This timely discussion will address technical economic and political issues inherent to the adoption of solar as a widespread energy source for residents and commercial enterprisesthroughout the city and state, including legislation passed earlier this week in Albany regarding increased property tax abatement and net-metering incentives for solar installation. Will the new legislation help Empire State and its most famous city assume a role of international leadership in the race to bring solar to the mainstream? What is the potential for such a transition? In this conversation with a number of the region’s foremost solar experts, guests will treated to an accessible, highly informative account of New York’s solar present and future.
This panel will be moderated by Shaun Chapman, the Campaign Manager for the New York Chapter of Vote Solar, and will feature some of the most respected names in the field, including Richard Perez, Ph.D. – Research Professor and Senior Research Associate at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at SUNY-Albany and former Associate Editor of Solar Energy Journal; Wilson Rickerson – Policy Advisor at the Center for Sustainable Energy at Bronx Community College and Policy Fellow at the Center of Energy and Environmental Policy; Tom Thompson, Senior Vice President at Atlantis Energy Systems, a manufacturer of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems; and Fred Zalcman, Northeastern States Director of Regulatory Affairs at SunEdison LLC.
This panel will focus on the evolution of grassroots advocacy through innovations in media and design, as a fitting end to Citysol. This phenomenon has transformed the relationship between public opinion and progressive politics. While the network power of the internet is primarily responsible for this transformation, other inventive modes of interaction have emerged at the margins to offer creative new ways of engaging and educating citizens, generating feedback to elected officials, and building enduring connections between members and organizations. Practices from game making, exhibit design, architecture and other disciplines have been creatively imported into activist approaches. All of these diverse approaches involve a level of interactivity that is meant to engage, impress, elucidate and include in ways that more conventional means of outreach cannot deliver.
Led by a group of accomplished artists and designers who are separately pioneering ‘interactivist’ approaches in the NYC area, this discussion will explore a number of specific local projects and future innovation in advocacy and education. Panelists include: Natalie Jeremijenko, Ph.D. – New York University, Environmental Health Clinic; Eve Mosher, artist – HighWaterLine, Insert____Here, and seeding the city; Elliott Montgomery, designer – “I Heart PV” mobile solar chargers; and Chloe Varelidi, game designer – The Institute of Play. Solar One’s Advocacy Coordinator Chris Neidl will moderate.