SSA > The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture

Friday Afternoon - 4:30 pm TeamNY ranks 4th in "Communications" contest

revised 6:50 pm - 9.30.11

TeamNY has been awarded 4th place in the "Communications" contest, raising the City College team's standing to 17th place. TeamNY was awarded 85 points, just 5 points below the first-place team, Middlebury College.

Friday Morning - Roof Pod featured on National Geographic "Daily News" web site

The National Geographic "Daily News" web site featured The Solar Decathlon competition. Following is one of the photos and what they had to say about TeamNY's entry:

The City College of New York team designed a home that sought to capitalize on one of the most untapped resources in Manhattan: empty rooftops.

Thursday Night - Roof Pod Construction Time Lapse Video

Wednesday - Team reports on their busy days and reactions to competition results

The TeamNY students continue to take time out of their busy days to report from Washington, D.C. They have posted exciting descriptions of typical competition days including their reactions to the contest results that are being received one-by-one. They also report on some social events including serving dinners in the POD to other teams, and visiting other team houses as dinner guests.

Tuesday Morning - Affordability contest announced tomorrow

This year, the Affordability Contest was added to the Solar Decathlon competition as one of the 10 contests that make up the Solar Decathlon. It replaced the Lighting Design Contest, which is now evaluated as part of other contests. Teams can earn the 100 possible points in the Affordability Contest by achieving an estimated construction cost of $250,000 or less.

A professional cost estimator has been working with the teams since late spring to determine estimated costs.

A sliding point scale is applied to houses that cost between $250,000 and $600,000. Houses that receive a cost estimate of more than $600,000 receive zero points. Contest will be announced in the main tent at 2:30 p.m. Have the 2011 teams risen to the challenge?

Prof. Volkmann is guessing that the 'judged' amount assigned to the Solar Roof Pod will be around $450,000. - not bad for a penthouse in New York.

Stay tuned to find out. The results will be reported here as well as on TeamNY's web site.

Sunday Morning - Report from Prof. Volkmann and a TeamNY engineering student

Saturday Evening - TeamNY Post

TeamNY member Mellisa Lopez texted yesterday that the POD had 2000 visitors and students were 'encouraged' at the improvement in TeamNY's standing in the offical scoring.

Friday Morning - TeamNY students report on Dean, President and others' visit to site.

On Wednesday, Sept. 21, SSA Dean George Ranalli, City College President, Lisa Staiano-Coico, Frank Sciame, a generous and very active supporter of the SSA and TeamNY's efforts, and others were in Washington, D.C. to visit the POD site and team, and to attend related Solar Decathlon events.

Farah Ahmad and other students on the team report in-depth on the day, the visits, and the events in a post on the TeamNY web site.

Excerpt from the post: "...CCNY President Lisa Coico, Provost Daniel Lemons, Dean George Ranalli, our Construction Manager Frank Sciame, and faculty advisor Hillary Brown, were amongst some of the supporting members of Team New York who were present at site! Their presence and support made the evening one to remember! ..."

Thursday Evening -Report from Prof. Volkmann

The following news is based on a number of lengthy text messages sent from Washington, D.C. over the past 36 hours by Christian Volkmann, lead faculty member on TeamNY.

Tuesday Evening - POD finished; City College President and SSA Dean to visit.

Sam Mikhail of TeamNY reported early this evening that the POD has passed all its inspections and the team was placing the flowers - the final step for completion. More below.

The timing is perfect. Tomorrow (Wednesday) Dean Ranalli will be at the POD site in the late morning. Later in the afternoon, City College president Lisa Staiano-Coico will arrive in Washington. President Lisa's first stop will be at the POD to visit the team and see the house in place and ready for the coming competition.

COMPLETION

Tuesday morning - Team Status Report

Christian Volkmann reported late yesterday that "our house is operating". The monitoring and control systems were undergoing some 'tweaking'. However, the electrical system was working all day Monday, ahead of most teams, so TeamNY was able to take advantage of the sunny day yesterday to charge reserves to 18 kilowatts as of mid-afternoon. Today (Tuesday) is cloudy so TeamNY has gained a small advantage over most teams which are just getting operational today.

The team is very confident but "a little nervous". A good sign for a team about to enter a tough competition.

On another note, the representatives from Arnold Glass, a major contributor of materials to the project, visited the site yesterday. They were reported to be very happy with the POD and declared it "a winner already".

09.19.11 LATE NEWS

Monday Evening - FURTHER BUILDPEDIA POLLING NEWS

TeamNY was first in the BUILDPEDIA polling which ended at midnight last night.

The results were posted for a short while then taken down for most of the day. The results and a news story are now posted on the BUILDPEDIA site - and it is confirmed: TeamNY came in first in the polling just ahead of NJIT and SCIARC.

Monday morning - Solar Decathlon 1ST IN BUILDPEDIA POLLING

TeamNY was first in the BUILDPEDIA polling which ended at midnight last night. The results on the Buildpedia site show this morning that The City College team polled 19.1% of the total s surpassing NJIT's (New Jersey Institute of Technology) 18.4%, and SCIARC's 15.5%.

Monday morning - Solar Decathlon - City College "138@Convent" Articles.

The Sept 19th edition of "138th@Convent", published this morning by the City College's Office of Communications, includes a "special report" with three articles featuring TeamNY and highlighting several of our students. Another article has interesting information on the very innovative heating and cooling technology developed by the Grove School members of TeamNY. In a third article, the tremendous support from sponsors, including many generous alumni, is reported. Below are excerpts with links to the full text of each part of the special report. The photos also came from the news release.

Yinery Baez - from 138TH@Convent report

EXCERPTED: Solar Roof Pod Volunteers Learn Skills Not Taught in Class

Yinery Baez, a fourth-year architecture student in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, never gave much thought to screws. However, as project manager for the interior of the Solar Roof Pod, CCNY’s entry in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, specifying cabinet hardware is one of her many responsibilities. "Many of the issues we face we never experienced in the classroom," the Glendale, Queens, resident said. "Little details like the type of screws used, for example. For the cabinets, we produced over 50 drawings so they would have a sure fit. In purchasing hardware for furniture, we had to make sure it would support the weight load."

Sunday Evening - Solar Decathlon - TeamNY in Washington !

Sunday - Solar Decathlon - TeamNY in Washington - First Week !

NOTE: There have been technical delays in getting this news posted to the SSA web site. Please scroll down to see the week's posts.

Students and Prof. Volkmann report yesterday and today that TeamNY is on schedule but taking nothing for granted.

According to text messages received from Prof. Volkmann Saturday morning the POD was assembled, the PV roof panels had been installed, and the landscape structure and ramp system were being assembled. The commissioning process was scheduled to begin on Saturday evening including initialization and start-up of the complex power and environmental systems.

The POD sustained some minor damage to interior elements on the trip down. Apparently it is easily repaired and is not likely to affect the scheudle or the competition.

The competition organizers and local building officials require a number of inspections. In addition to the normal building permits (for a temporary structure), all of the entries including the POD will host large crowds, so personal and crowd safety is a major concern. The POD and the team have done well; all inspections passed so far, though there are more to come.

Several reports this morning, Sunday, indicate the team is settling-in to its rigorous routine. Team logistical aspects are being worked-out. All the major POD pieces are in place and the terrace planting has begun. The major mechanical systems are installed and being charged. Electrical work is continuing. Total system testing is currently scheduled to begin on Tuesday morning but it could possibly begin sooner.

On Monday, the pod was split and each half was hoisted onto trucks waiting below. Each was tied-down and wrapped for the trip to Washington. Since they were over-sized, the trucks could not use limited access roads like the turnpike. So they slowly made their way to Washington, arriving Wednesday morning, somewhat later than expected.

In the meantime, on Tuesday morning the team left - mostly by car - to arrive in Washington D.C. in the afternoon.

Above are images of 1/2 the the pod being lifted from Marshak and the Pod on the truck

The third image shows the team preparing the site and setting-up the supporting structure which arrived before the pod halves.

Click on the items below for more news and the very latest posts by members of the team.:

The City College team has completed construction on the Solar Roof Pod and is preparing it for the trip to Washington, D.C. This follows a Thursday gala launch party attended by City College president Lisa Staiano-Coico, City College and CUNY administration, faculty and the main stars, the TeamNY architecture and engineering students and faculty.

By the start of the launch party, the POD was in fine form. The site was cleared of tools, equipment and temporary shed. Furniture and accessories were in place, all surfaces - inside and out - were polished and gleaming, and students conducted tours with justifiable pride for their families, friends, and members of the university community. Some last-minute adjustments and final testing on the highly innovative and complex heating and cooling system were underway late Thursday evening, but were expected to be complete by Friday.

On Friday, and over the weekend, the POD will be split at its 'break-away' center seam, partially disassembled, packed, and prepared for loading on trucks which will take it to Washington, D.C. There, TeamNY students will have just a few days to re-assemble, test, and put the pod into full operation to compete for two weeks with nineteen other entries from around the world. In addition to keeping the POD fully operational and competive, TeamNY students will guide the thousands of visitors who are expected to tour the competing entries during the two week demonstration and competition period.

The last step before leaving City College on Monday, will be to hoist the POD and its contents off the roof of Marshak and place them carefully on the trucks waiting below on Convent Avenue. The POD and Team NY are expected to arrive in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. The POD is over-sized, despite being split in half, and therefore can only be transported on certain highways and during limited hours.

No, the team will not travel in the POD! They will use conventional means such as the Bolt or Mega bus. No doubt there will be at least one "chase" car with students (and perhaps a faculty member) keeping a close eye on their POD.

After the competition, the POD will be disassembled and returned to its New York home around October 6th. It will likely be permanently hosted on the rooftop of a City College campus building.

During the late spring and through the summer the team of Spitzer architecture and Grove engineering students and faculty, led by Prof. Christian Volkmann, placed the steel supports, built the frame, fabricated the interior, and installed the equipment with tremendous amounts of tangible input from faculty, alumni, industry, and manufacturers. Architecture alumni including Frank Sciame have been particularly active and helpful. Architecture alumni have spent several weekends providing their own labor to assure a timely finish. Faculty and students from the Grove School of Engineering, as well as SSA faculty Hillary Brown, Alan Feigenberg, and Dominic Pilla, provided key leadership, guidance, and contributions.

This is a continuation of a third-year design studio effort begun in early Spring 2010 which eventually led to the selection of City College’s entry as one of twenty finalists from a large field of international applicants to the prestigious Solar Decathlon which is under the auspises of the U.S. Department of Energy and supported by a number of sponsors and "friends".

Watch the Team NY website for prgress and minute by minute news.

The City College team has nearly completed construction on the Solar Roof Pod. During the late spring and through the summer the team of architecture and engineering students and faculty, led by Prof. Christian Volkmann, placed the steel supports, built the frame, fabricated the interior, and installed the equipment with tremendous amounts of input from faculty, industry, and manufacturers. Around September 9th, the pod will be loaded, in two pieces, onto trucks for its journey to Washington, D. C. There it will be re-assembled and put into operation to compete with nineteen other entries from around the world.

Watch the Team NY website for prgress and minute by minute news.

The “Valentine #2” chair, designed by Dean George Ranalli, is featured in “Highlights of Modern Design, 1900 to the Present, Part II”, an exhibit of works from the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The exhibit is open until December 31st at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 fifth Avenue, New York.

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10.30.10

Dean George Ranalli received an award this fall from the New York Society of Architects recognizing his lifetime achievements and contributions to the field of architecture, New York City, and professional education. Dean Ranalli accepted the award and spoke at the Society's annual dinner, attended by his family, CUNY officals, SSA students, a number of faculty and numerous friends and professional colleagues.

Dean Ranalli delivered lectures in the past year at the American Institute of Architecture Albert W. French III Lectures in Architecture in Naples, Florida in October, at the Center for Architecture AIA New York Chapter Dean’s Roundtable Discussion, at the Italian American Association of the NYC Housing Authority and at Pratt Institute. Dean Ranalli’s project the Saratoga Community Center was featured in the online journal ArchNewsNow and in the March issue of The Architect’s Newspaper. Last fall his Lock- It lever handle was included in the permanent collection of the Design Arts collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

10.15.10

A Spitzer School of Architecture landscape architecture team was a winner in the Long Island Index' "Build a Better Burb" competition.

The team, consisting of Denise Hoffman-Brandt, associate professor of landscape architecture, and Alexa Helsell and Bronwyn Gropp, May 2010 graduates of the masters program in landscape architecture, was one of five winners selected by a jury of distinguished professionals and academics from a pool of more than 200 entries. The winners were announced at a press conference October 4th in Woodbury, N.Y. Each team received a $4,000 prize.

June Williamson, associate professor of architecture in in the Spitzer School of Architecture, served as advisor and jury coordinator for the Build a Better Burb competition. Entrants' identities were kept from the eight-member jury, which included Professor Williamson.

Read more at:

The first lecture of the Fall 2010 series inaugurates web casting in the Spitzer School. In order to provide wider access to the lectures given in the Sciame Auditorium, arrangements were made with Total Webcasting to capture the lectures and presentation. This allows anyone anywhere with web access to view the events live. These web casts will also be archived on-line and in the SSA library and will soon be made available as pod casts.

Access the live web cast or the archives at: