Architecture Awards 2020

39 2020 Architecture Awards BUILD and constructed e l e m e n t s themselves. This has cultivated projects such as a utility patent for a school desk designed for the City of New York that is in the permanent collection of the New York Historical Society, and being the architects for the first modular housing for the City of New York after Super Storm Sandy. Since the firm’s inception, Gans & Co have been recognized worldwide for their important work, receiving amongst many others, awards from the American Institute of Architects and as a Design Excellence Firm for the DDC, City of New York, Gans & Co has established themselves as a leader of culturally conscious architecture and design. Whilst being in New York usually is a benefit to the company, the current crisis is proving problematic. Because of budget shortfalls, the City has suspended many of their public works, including those in the Gans & Co office, which causes concerns financially but more for the aspirations for neighborhoods these projects embody, which will not be fulfilled in the near future. However, community planning and housing projects outside the city are continuing, both of which are expanding as awareness as a society grows. This is where 30 years of experience designing for whole communities will be more important than ever, as the current social moment amplifies the company’s dedication to providing the highest quality architecture to all members of society, particularly those who lack access to design services. Simultaneously, their integrative approach to design problems, in which environmental and built form play equal roles, is well suited in this culture increasingly tuned to climate change. It is an exciting time for this significant firm, as society reconsiders how we live in this world. Company: Gans & Company Contact: Deborah Gans Web Address: www.gansandco.com Aug20075 GANS&CO GANS&CO GANS&CO Most Culturally Conscious Architecture & Planning Studio 2020 - New York Gans & Co is an architecture and design firm focused on social and cultural impact. Led by Principal and Founder, Deborah Gans, this award-winning, New York-based firm brings this commitment to all of its work and is being recognized globally as a leader of socially conscious architecture and design. ans & Co is a New York-based architecture and design firm with a core ethos that centres around social and cultural impact. Whether the team be working on large- and small-scale architecture, master planning or industrial design, Gans & Co employ the creative potential of design, collaborating between disciplines to create holistic design that is devoted to contemporary, social and environmental realities. As one of the first firms dedicated to what is now known as “social impact” architecture, Gans & Co have accrued over thirty years of experience in design challenges from disaster response to community engagement. Working with community advocates, cultural organizations, climate scientists and more, Gans & Co employ collaboration at the heart of their design process, a concept that is encapsulated within the firm’s very name. Beginning with their early forays responding to socio-climactic events, Gans & Co have learnt that design response requires an eco-system of disciplines. Working with landscape architects, engineers, artists and more from the inception of a project enables design solutions to take on aesthetic and performance qualities and standards that can only be achieved as a team. The collaborative effort also creates shared knowledge, which Gans & Co utilise to apply practices of sustainability and equity to each of their designs, ensuring utility, longevity and beauty. Being based in New York, a global capital for architecture, has given Gans & Co the opportunity to partake in exciting, home-grown projects. At the moment, this includes an outdoor Earth Science Garden and classroom addition for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, a project sponsored by the City of New York as part of their Design Excellence Program. This commission speaks to the core values of the firm in that it serves the diverse population of Brooklyn, bringing delight and education to children of all income classes. Gans & Co are also part of an interdisciplinary team engaged in the net-0 redevelopment of a historically black neighborhood in Albany, the South End, that through the vision of its developer who grew up there, will revive the community economically, socially and physically. The challenges will be their ability to work at many different scales in an integrated fashion. However, this is not a new challenge for this team of architects, who have even developed a method they call “designing for the missing scales.” The other central focus of the firm is their understanding of a commitment to building technologies, including modular production. Gans &Co have even developed ameans of fabrication G