‘Renovation/Innovation’ lecture at Syracuse Architecture to focus on Near Westside collaboration

Elaine Wackerow
(315) 443-6004

Anne Marie Lubrano and Lea Ciavarra, principals of Lubrano Ciavarra Design in New York City and Syracuse University School of Architecture visiting critics, will speak Tuesday, Nov. 18, at 5 p.m. in Slocum Hall Auditorium. The lecture, “Renovation/Innovation: A Design Collaboration on the Near Westside,” is free and open to the public.

The two architects will discuss the “Renovation/Innovation” design studio course they taught at Syracuse Architecture in spring 2008. The course gave students opportunity to learn about innovative house renovation through hands-on design of several existing wood-frame houses in Syracuse’s economically distressed Near Westside neighborhood. Students collaborated with a multidisciplinary team of local firms and institutions affiliated with the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems. The firm is involved in ongoing renovation work for the homes. Additionally, this fall, Lubrano and Ciavarra are teaching the school’s first design- build studio intended to construct an innovative, cost-effective, sustainable, LEED- certified, single-family home on a pre-selected site in the neighborhood.

Lubrano and Ciavarra formed their architecture and design firm in 1999. The work of the firm’s seven architects, designers and interns includes all scales of residential, commercial and institutional projects, such as The New York Center for Autism Charter School, the Point Knitting Café in Greenwich Village, Greenpoint Condominiums in Brooklyn, the Alcon Builders Group Building in New York and the Phase One-winning submission for the international “Chicago Public Schools: Big Shoulders Small Schools” design competition.

Lubrano received her master’s of architecture degree in 1996 from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Prior to founding the partnership of Lubrano Ciavarra Design, she trained at several offices in New York City. Over the past 10 years, she has taught design studios at Harvard University, the Boston Architectural Center and the Interior Design Department at the Parsons School of Design.

Ciavarra received her master’s of architecture degree in 1995 from the SU School of Architecture. She began her career in the profession as a full-time faculty member at Syracuse Architecture (1995-97), one year of which was serving as director of the Pre-Architecture Program in Florence, Italy. She has taught design studios at New York Institute of Technology, the Parsons School of Design and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

SU School of Architecture is the fourth-oldest program in the United States and is consistently rated among the top architecture schools in the country. In 2008, the school’s undergraduate program was ranked third in the nation by DesignIntelligence.

For more information, visit http://soa.syr.edu.