Independent Project Residency
NONPROFIT / 2022, 2023, 2024
Role: Organizer, Facilitator Type: Public Programming
The Institute for Public Architecture’s Independent Project Residency program invites emerging and mid-career practitioners – whose work focuses on the public realm – to live and work during an eleven week live-in Residency at the IPA’s Block House facility on Governors Island. The Residency seeks to create new interdisciplinary opportunities for collective thinking by providing communal space for architects, urbanists, landscape architects, designers, climate researchers, and artists to live, work, and develop independent projects within the community of the residency.
Fellows are among the first civilian residents to live on the Island since the Coast Guard’s exit in 1996. The IPA is one of more than twenty arts, cultural, educational, and environmental nonprofit organizations operating on the Island, forming a unique community that connects with a diverse and growing audience of nearly one million annual visitors. Fellows present the progress of their work to the public at Open [Block] House events and receive project support through the IPA’s network of subject matter experts and resources.
NONPROFIT / 2022, 2023, 2024
Role: Organizer, Facilitator Type: Workshop
As part of the IPA’s public programming, workshops are regularly held at the Block House and around Governors Island that engage participants in a series of educational and contemplative interactive activities. Workshops have included guided nature walking tours, volunteer stewardship projects, mindfulness conversations, scavenger hunts, designing bridges, making bio-materials and playmodels with found natural elements, and more. Workshops are facilitated by IPA staff, CUNY Career Start interns, Fellows, and invited special guests.
NONPROFIT / 2022, 2023, 2024
Role: Organizer, Facilitator Type: Fundraiser
Central to the IPA’s grassroots-funding methodology, fundraisers including the annual Fall Fête and Summer Cruises treat guests to an unforgettable experience while generating revenue to support the IPA’s public programs and Independent Project Residency.
Each year at the Fall Fête, the IPA honors individuals who have realized the IPA’s mission of addressing social, physical and environmental inequities in the city. Recent honorees include: Polly Trottenberg, Karen Dawn Blondel and Adam Paul Susaneck. The Fête consists of the Benefactors Dinner, which transforms the Block House into a high-end dining experience for 50 guests with a four-course dinner and wine pairing prepared by chefs from FAUN, and the Friends Party, which features DJ sets in the IPA’s historic home on Governors Island.
NONPROFIT / 2022, 2023, 2024
Role: Organizer, Facilitator Type: Cohort Activities
To complement the broad range of public programs, internal cohort activities are planned throughout the Independent Project Residency to highlight unique sites and activities on Governors Island, the City, and in the greater New York region. Activities have included: historic walking tours, lavender picking, birdwatching, evening outings, neighborhood bike-rides, beach trips and excursions to local institutions, archives, maker-spaces and other design residency programs in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.